Ratings Bubble Report: Will ‘Sweet/Vicious’ get a season 2 renewal from MTV?
Tonight on MTV, an under-the-radar show is coming to an end in “Sweet/Vicious,” but it is a show that may be worth your time tonight if you haven’t heard too much about it just yet. It’s a show about heroism, and about two women doing what they can in order to stop the systemic college rape epidemic. It’s an edgy show and a powerful show, but it also has a tone so carefully crafted so that it never feels completely heavy or too depressing.
Given that tonight is the finale, this is when you do have to start looking towards the future. Is this a show that could be renewed for a second season? Obviously those who watch it would like to see that happened, but for the network this is hardly a slam dunk to return.
We don’t want to sugarcoat anything when it comes to the ratings, especially in the live+same day measure where they matter the most: They’re not great. To date “Sweet/Vicious” is averaging close to a 0.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic and around 170,000 viewers. The good news is that the audience that watched the show from episode 2 onward is the same audience that is still watching today (it’s had some really great staying power); it’s just too bad that this audience was so small to begin with. It’s retaining less than half of its “Teen Wolf” lead-in both in terms of viewers and the demo, and we’ve commented as of late that the ratings for that show this season are far from great.
When you take all of this in consideration, you have to look at alternative reasons to renew the show. For example, how is it performing in terms of DVR / online viewership? We don’t have all of the data there, but this viewership matters slightly less than live viewing just because seeing the commercials live is what matters more than anything else. Still, watching an authorized version of the episode, no matter when you do, and sitting through commercials is better than not doing it or fast-forward through it.
Also, you can look at how much MTV may believe in the show, and feel like it could get an audience over time as more and more people start to discover it. We call this more of the “Breaking Bad” effect, given that this show didn’t have huge ratings at the time in which it premiered. The same goes for “Mad Men.” We get the sense that executives really love the show and that they have something this empowering on the air. It’s too bad that the sticking point for them is probably going to be whether or not they make money from it when the ratings are so low. Hopefully, the network announces their decision on the show’s future one way or another soon; that way, at least they are not leaving their fans in the dark unsure as to what is going to happen.
What do you think: Should “Sweet/Vicious” be renewed for another season? Share in the poll or the comments below! (Photo: MTV.)