Why Conviction's Ratings Are Already A Problem

Is Conviction Dancing With Cancellation Already?

I've found that the opening couple of episodes of Bull and Conviction make them interesting (and contrasting) case studies. Bull, which I reviewed recently, is facing potential problems after immediate domination of the Tuesday at 9pm slot. Conviction, in comparison, is already facing the prospect of the cancellation quagmire after just its premiere, and I thought that I would have a closer look at its performance and predict its future like I did for Bull.

What Is Conviction?

The cast of Conviction

Conviction is a new ABC show which airs on Mondays at 10pm. It's premise is about a new police unit that work in reverse: instead of putting criminals in prison, they investigate cases where there is reason to believe the wrong person was jailed. Its cast is made up of (from L-R in the image) Emily Kinney (The Walking Dead), Shawn Ashmore (The Following), Merrin Dungey (Alias), Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter), Eddie Cahill (CSI: NY) and Manny Montana (Graceland), so it has a lot of people sat between the "well-known" and "big name" categories to bolster its appeal.

So What Happened In The Premiere?

In Conviction's debut episode, former First Daughter and lawyer Hayes Morrison is arrested for cocaine possession, but the District Attorney, Conner Wallace, has the charges dropped in order to blackmail her into heading his new "Conviction Integrity Unit". He wants each case that lands on CIU's desks to be investigated and concluded within 5 days (lovely working week for some) and says that on their first case he needs a happy ending, even though the team clearly needs time to adjust to Hayes's bratty personality.

   That first case is of Odell Dwyer, a twenty-five-year-old man who has so far spent eight years in jail for the murder of his girlfriend. CIU pick up on a race bias (the jury was all-white whereas Odell was a black man charged with murder), and face resistance from the original investigator, whose sureness of Odell's guilt drives him to withhold his case notes from CIU - and later burn them in fury. Odell's alibi, that he was playing in an American football match at the time of the murder, is problematic since he still could have made it to the murder scene and back in time - until CIU prove the time of death was estimated incorrectly and Odell in fact was innocent.

   The buzz of freeing an innocent man caught hold of Hayes who, at the end of the episode, sees the pile of cases flooding into CIU and asks "Who's next?"

And The Ratings Weren't Good?

Far from.

   Original overnights were at 5.44m and a 1.0 demographic share. Even Castle's universally loathed final season pulled average overnights in the same Monday at 10pm timeslot of 6.19m, with a demo share of 1.1.

   It's rather asinine and pointless to compare Conviction with Castle though, since Castle was a long-running ABC drama whose original 10-episode first season aired as an off-season replacement, which gave it the chance to draw in a regular audience that, when shifted to the on-season, usually hung around 8-9m in overnights until last year. But it's also very important to note that, even when Castle was at its worst, it was doing better in the same timeslot on the same network as Conviction - and that's quite a scathing indictment.

   But that's just the original ratings. Final overnights saw Conviction adjust down in BOTH ratings and demo share, to 5.17m and 0.9. That's a whole million below Castle's final season's average, and just two-tenths of a point above the typical 0.7 figure that usually sees shows on the Big 4 networks tossed aside. For further context, Elementary, in the Sunday at 10pm slot, scored a 6.33m in overnights, but only a 0.8 in demo share. (Again, it's an established show, but look at that diabolic demo share.)

Why Weren't The Ratings Good?

Part of the reason for Conviction's poor premiere is probably because it simply isn't Castle. That sounds obvious, but even Castle's final season - which a huge chunk of its audience abandoned due to the drop in writing quality and the clear tension between its lead characters on- and off-screen - ended with an overnight average 16.5% higher than Conviction's premiere. Castle was a successful mainstay of a difficult timeslot for 7 years. Filling that void was always going to be hard, and Conviction seems to have been unable to cope.

   But that's not all. NBC's Timeless trashed Conviction in the ratings. It's original overnight ratings were 7.66m and a 1.9 demo share. That adjusted down - but barely - to 7.60m and a 1.8 demo share. The concept of a time travel cross between serial and procedural clearly won out over a simple police procedural, even in spite of Conviction's bigger-named cast.

   Meanwhile at CBS, there can be no doubt that Scorpion's two-hour premiere was costly to Conviction, too. From next week, Scorpion will challenge Conviction in the 10pm slot, and fans of both will have a decision to make over which to watch on the night and which to DVR. The problem with the premiere was that Scorpion, which went for a two-hour premiere, began at 9pm instead of 10pm. By the time Conviction aired, any Scorpion fans who may have dithered over whether to try out Conviction instead were already halfway through Scorpion itself.

   And when midseason comes around FOX's Taken, a prequel to the hit Liam Neeson films, will be thrown into the Monday at 10pm mix. The attraction of the link to the films will have a huge impact on driving down ratings across the board, but for Conviction this could be fatal.

Did Things Improve In Episode Two?

They did not.

   Once again, both Conviction's ratings and demographic share adjusted down, this time from 4.65m and 0.9 to 4.23m and 0.8. That represents nearly a million down from the premiere, and a demo share that is now even dangerously lower to emergency replacement level.

   The impact of this is slightly lessened, however, by the decrease in performance of Timeless and Scorpion around it. Timeless adjusted down to a 1.4 and 6.20m viewers, while Scorpion struggled with a 1.3 and only 7.05m viewers (which for Scorpion represents a series low).

   Conviction's standings don't improve simply because the others around it struggled too - it was still a whole 2m viewers below Timeless and half a point in demo share below Scorpion, which are certainly not competitive figures - but the Monday at 10pm slot looks like it's a difficult slot for anyone to win, even for an established show like Scorpion. And yet that's quite irrelevant: the simple fact of the matter is that regardless of whether it is difficult to compete, Conviction is currently not competing at all.

MacGyver interlude

Given that I've now done an analysis of two of the three new broadcast network shows that I review, you might be wondering if there is to be one on the third, MacGyver. At least for now, there won't be. It's ratings are high enough that it will probably be renewed come May next year and there's not much to analyse beyond the MacGyver factor, since it airs on a Friday night that CBS typically dominates.

Back to Conviction/Final thoughts

So what is the prognosis for Conviction?

   On a personal level I'm gutted: Conviction was the new show I was most excited for this season aside from Bull and to worry about losing it from day one is a bitter pill to swallow, especially since I wouldn't recommend Timeless or Taken in its place. Naturally, I don't begrudge Timeless it's success, but having seen the premiere for myself I wouldn't say its cast, humour or writing is better than Conviction's, even if it has more story avenues to explore than Conviction does. And I already love Scorpion ...

   On an analytical level, I admit to being no TV expert but it's hard to find a way back for Conviction. Scorpion is already well-established on CBS despite teething problems in its new timeslot, Timeless's premiere on NBC scored nearly double the demo share across two episodes and FOX's Taken will have the allure of being a prequel to a worldwide big-screen hit. That's not to say that after two episodes Conviction is certainly going to be cancelled (and heck, it may not be), but at the moment it seems not to have enough in its locker to compete with the other three.

   So the question for ABC come May next year is this: like the cases the CIU investigates, do they give Conviction another chance to prove itself - or do they send it off to the slammer instead?   

Thanks for reading everyone, I'll see you next time!

Sam