Major Crimes season 6: An explanation of ratings and much more

With the Major Crimes season 6 premiere coming to TNT on Tuesday night, now’s the time to get a little reflective and wonder in some ways what could’ve been. Why are we not getting any more of this show that we love and enjoy so much? For many years it felt like this was an anchor of the network schedule, but for seasons 4 and 5 it started to feel like more of a afterthought leaving us (and many other fans out there) frustrated. It was getting additional episode orders, but at the same time it wasn’t getting a ton of promotion and was certainly placed in some rough time-slots.

We’ve spoken here at CarterMatt in the past — and often — about what is an extremely antiquated way in which we have a tendency to see shows assessed. It’s frustrating to us that the 18-49 demographic is measured so much as the end-all, be-all, especially since we’re in an era where older people have more money (and are spending it), young people are broke, and being cool or “hip” doesn’t really matter all that much anymore since everyone’s entertainment tastes are vastly different. Plus, we think that uncool is the new cool and we’re delightfully uncool — maybe this is in turn why we’re uncool, but we’re also starting to get pretty meta here so it’s a good time to move forward.

Anyway, the latest Facebook post (see below) via showrunner James Duff offers up some excellent insight into the ratings system, including a few interesting points that we hadn’t even thought of — including that from the standpoint of TNT, they want shows that young people will be encouraged to watch and they think that shows that appeal to older viewers are in some way uncool to them (here we are using that word again). It’s interesting stuff.

The reality still, unfortunately, remains that renewing the show is a longshot for another network, even if we’d personally love to see it. There are so many contractual issues in play that it makes things especially difficult — we went through all of this while chronicling the Dark Matter future following its cancellation at Syfy this summer.

Aside from the ratings and cancellation there is one other interesting thing that Duff points out here: Major Crimes will run every week following its premiere until January. That means no breaks, just new episodes every week!

What do you think: Should the end of Major Crimes and some other shows in that demo cause TNT to consider some different options? Share now in the comments below!

Meanwhile, be sure to head over to the link here in the event you want to get some other news when it comes to the series, including our series of red carpet interviews with many of the cast members from the 100th episode party.

Also, like us on Facebook in the event you want to keep up to date with all of our Major Crimes coverage and other shows we cover here at CarterMatt. (Photo: TNT.)