The Rookie season 2 renewal odds: Are there early signs of hope? (Progress Report)
Is there a good chance at a season 2 for renewal of The Rookie? In today’s Progress Report, we have quite a bit to break down here!
Related The Rookie video – Check out some more thoughts when it comes to tonight’s new episode below. Also, for more be sure to subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube!
Let’s kick things off with what we know so far: The Nathan Fillion show has a full-season order. Sure, it’s only 20 episodes, but that is still a pretty sizable chunk of story to tell. The only reason that it does have a smaller order is because of the show’s later premiere in the fall.
Ratings-wise, things have shown themselves to be fairly steady to date. After all, it is averaging a 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic — that’s decent for ABC at 10:00 p.m. Eastern time. Is it fantastic? Not necessarily, but you also have to think about context here. This is not a timeslot that ABC has been competitive in for quite some time. The majority of the shows that they program here fail to draw big numbers — while For the People did manage to get a season 2 renewal, it didn’t exactly do so with the best of ratings this past spring.
If The Rookie does manage to get the ratings that it is right now the rest of the season, it does feel easy to say that it will come back for a season 2. This is a network in need of content and this is a format that should be able to play well in repeats and internationally. Fillion is a bankable star and this show should do well almost no matter where you program it. Of course, it does still have to do well in live ratings! This is why we do think that it needs to stay over a 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic to have a good shot.
We imagine that we’re going to get a pretty good sense of things with The Rookie when we get around to Tuesday night, given that this is the first episode to air following a short hiatus for the midterm election. Coming back after a hiatus is a good chance to gauge the actual popularity of a show and if it is something that viewers are actually going to continue to flock to. It shows a real commitment, as opposed to something that they’re just watching out of muscle-memory.
The current verdict
The Rookie is likely to earn a renewal, but we cannot say that with a ton of confidence just yet. It’s still, at the moment, very much early. We should get a far better sense of things in a matter of weeks.
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