ABC Gives 'Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' a Full Season
by EG
Despite a slide in ratings since its debut, "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." has received a vote of confidence from ABC. The network placed an order for a full season's worth of episodes, ensuring that the series will be given time to find its audience and stabilize its ratings.
After debuting as the highest-rated new drama in four years, "Agents" lost a third of that debut audience in its second week. The series' third episode shed another 6% of its viewership, and its total viewership is not even close to competitors "The Voice" and "NCIS." "Agents" attracts a larger proportion of younger viewers than "NCIS," though, and it's greatly increasing ABC's appeal to that demographic in its time slot.
ABC's bigger problem on Tuesday night comes after "Agents." New series "Lucky 7" was already killed by the network because of poor ratings, and newcomers "The Goldbergs" and "Trophy Wife" are only retaining about half of the "Agents" lead-in in the 18-49 demographic.
The good news is that the ABC series are still outperforming the newcomers on Fox; "Dads" and "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" halted their ratings slide this week but still came in behind the competition on ABC, CBS and NBC. "The Mindy Project" was similarly lackluster, but "New Girl" managed to beat "The Goldbergs" in the 18-49 group.