Fox May Cancel Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles
Posted on September 30, 2008
SyFyPortal reports that Fox is extremely unhappy with the rating drop off for Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles and is ready to pull the plug on the show.
With ratings far below even the network's worst predictions, Fox could pull the plug on production for "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" as early as this week. The network has been disappointed by "Sarah Connor's" numbers so far this season, and some executives feel that the show is dragging down numbers for "Prison Break," which airs as a lead-out.The show is excellent: the writing, the acting, the intensity and the action are all feature film quality. The show lost its audience after the writer's strike -- just like Heroes did, although Heroes is faring better. You know how Fox is -- they cancel shows very quickly, there's little advertising and no chance to build an audience. Hey, we know it's kind of a depressing show, but we still like it. Once the Christian Bale movie version showed up on the radar, it became clear that there would be no way to stop Skynet from being created. But still...we're not happy to see it go."Audiences just aren't responding to the show," a Fox source tells SyFy Portal. "Our biggest surprise are the 18-to-49s [a key advertising demographic], those numbers are in the toilet."
This would be bad news for "Sarah Connor," which had a strong first season despite airing just nine episodes in light of the Writers Guild of America strike. The show debuted at mid-season with an 11.1 rating/16 share -- the highest premiere of any genre show last season -- following an NFL playoff game, but quickly lost a good portion of its audience. By the time it was all said and done, "Sarah Connor" overnights averaged a 5.6/9, half of the premiere audience, with ratings reaching as low as a 4.5/7 at once point.
Getting a 4.5/7 could almost be a lifesaver for "Sarah Connor" right now, as the show hasn't even come close to reaching that number. After four episodes, the highest "Sarah Connor" has reached is a 4.1/6, and is averaging a 3.7. That's 34 percent off its audience average from the previous year.