Lowest rated TV show to have ever gotten renewed?

Cafe Society
1

I did a bit of research tonight and discovered one of my favorite TV shows, Looking, has an astounding 0.09 rating this season. Last season averaged 0.20 but dipped down to a crazy 0.06 one week due to weird scheduling. And that’s not even the lowest rated show in HBO’s pantheon. Getting On was renewed for a second season despite regularly hovering under 0.1 in ratings.

Finally, on rival premium network Showtime, it appears that the show Web Therapy was renewed for a 4th season despite reaching an audience low of 25,000 viewers!

I can’t imagine even the cheapest crappy reality cable show getting renewed for those numbers. Does Web Therapy hold the crown for the least watched show that was still renewed or is there some even less watched show?

2

I don’t think shows on cable should count, otherwise some weird public access show watched by nobody would win. Network-only will give you a better answer.

Cheers was dead last in the ratings its first season, IIRC.

3

I believe Dollhouse has that honor for a live action network show. It was ranked at 132 at the end of the first season.

The ratings for the second season of Arrested Development were also extremely low, but Fox renewed partly because it had won the Emmy.

4

Even so, Dollhouse still had nearly 2 million viewers and AD had 4 million. Those were numbers which were horrific back then but would merely middling today. The collapse of tv viewing and the changing business models mean more quirky low rated stuff has a chance to hang on nowadays.

5

Dead last in 1982 turned out to be a 7.16! That would make it one of the most highly rated shows today.

6

Yeah, times have change. Remember that the finale to Mash had over 100 million viewers. Cheers had 93 million a decade later. Seinfeld had 78 million 5 years after that. Friends had 52 million 6 years after that.

Try to get that kind of ratings for a finale now. I don’t know the last time we had a finale as big as any of those four, but it is pretty much impossible to pull that kind of TV ratings for a show today.

How I Met Your Mother had 13 million for its finale. I’m not sure how big that show was, though, since I have never seen it and don’t know much about it. I remember people talking about is finale, though.

7

Thanks to the power of the internet (and other things.)

8

There were weird, almost public access type shows in the earlier days of network TV (particularly on ABC) that got near-zero ratings. IIRC 60 Minutes got pretty dismal ratings at the beginning.

On the entertainment side, Hill Street Blues had terrible ratings in its first season. More recently, Parenthood has been the poster child for critics’ favorites with lousy ratings.

9

Those Web Therapy numbers are amazing. I’m guessing it’s probably very cheap to produce and maybe they’re rolling the dice that The Comeback will boost it.