Ratings Progress Report: Is ‘MacGyver’ making moves towards a renewal?

With us now entering the month of November, this is the time in which we do like to start giving some check-ins on fall shows in order to see how they’re doing. We’ll be starting up Midseason Report Cards once we get past midseason finales, and we’re also going to be looking at some shows that are looking to find an audience. This is what the Ratings Progress Report series is all about.

We figured that this year, CBS’ “MacGyver” would be an interesting place to start just because in some ways, it’s been one of the larger surprises of the season. After much retooling following the original pilot and a difficult timeslot, it was easy to write the remake, starring Lucas Till and George Eads, completely off as a program destined to not make many waves. Yet, it had a fairly strong premiere, and while the numbers have since leveled off, the show’s progressively improved and found more of a voice as a funny, action-packed companion to “Hawaii Five-0” with the right amount of serious drama mixed in. It’s not perfect, but it delivers on what you’re likely setting out to get if you’re watching it.

Now, we have to figure out if the ratings are good enough to justify another season.

The good news – The show’s already done enough to justify in the eyes of CBS a full-season order of 22 episodes. Given how many shows this fall are received “full” orders that are really somewhere between 16-20 episodes, you have to think of this as a victory. Also, so far it’s averaging better numbers in total viewers (8.5 million) and the 18-49 demographic (1.2) than “The Amazing Race” did in the same spot last year. Year-to-year comparisons are important, especially at a time when there are so many alternate viewing options out there for people.

The bad news – The show technically hasn’t passed a 1.1 rating since the end of September, and the numbers are skewed somewhat because of the premiere. Also, if you really want to get into comparisons, you can argue that a heavy action show like “MacGyver” is probably more expensive to film than a reality competition show, even one that does film around the world. If the show doesn’t stop some of its own bleeding (you can blame the World Series in part for it getting a 0.9 rating this past week), it could be in some danger come May when renewals are made.

Based on what you’ve seen to date, should “MacGyver” be renewed for another season?