Cancellation Watch: Falling Skies Keeps Falling in the Ratings, Plus Who Knew About This Saving Hope Series Starring Michael Shanks?

TNT's Falling Skies kicked off its second season last week with a bit of a ratings slump from its first season and now this past Sunday the series dropped again in the Nielsens.  The latest airing pulled a 1.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 3.8 million total viewers.  Now those are still not bad numbers for a Summer cable series, especially compared to the 0.7 rating that MTV's Teen Wolf is currently averaging and that Syfy's scripted shows (which will return in July) usually pull.  But it does represent a series low and a bit of a concern for the show.  The series did show a similar slide with the second episode of its first season and then trended up as that season progressed, so it has to hope that it will track a similar course this year.  If it does not drop much lower, then it should still be safe, but if the downward trend continues, then the skies just may fall on this show by season end.

Winning this past Sunday night, once again, was HBO's True Blood which pulled a 2.6 rating in the 18-49 demo and close to 4.7 million total viewers.  And on Monday night, MTV's Teen Wolf remained steady with its usual 0.7 rating.

A Summer series that slipped under the radar and that just came to my attention this past week is the Canadian-made supernatural drama Saving Hope which stars Stargate's Michael Shanks.  The series debuted on June 7th and airs in the States on NBC in the 9 PM EST Thursday night timeslot.  Its premiere episode pulled a 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demo and just over 3 million total viewers and its most recent episode slipped to a 0.5 rating and 2.7 million viewers.  Those might be good enough numbers to keep a series afloat on Syfy, but not on one of the broadcast networks.  Of course NBC doesn't seem to have publicized the series too much, which couldn't have helped.  I was actively searching for Summer genre series and didn't hear about it until two weeks after its premiere.  It's a Canadian import, though, and it seems to have done well in its native country, so even if it does not continue to air further seasons on NBC, it could still carry on like 2009's The Listener has.  I will keep an eye on this one going forward.

Another series I was having trouble find ratings info on was Disney XD's Tron: Uprising, and apparently that's because the show has barely registered in the ratings since its debut.  According to Blastr.com, the series has a 0.0 rating in the 18-49 demo and 0.36 million viewers as of its episode two weeks ago.  Definitely not numbers that can keep a series afloat on any of the cable or broadcast networks, so don't get too attached to this one.

You can see the Cancellation Alert status of all the shows currently airing plus the final results from prior seasons at my Cancellation Watch page.

Ratings Source: TV by the Numbers

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