Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4775130-20150922222850/@comment-26159109-20150924150108

Hmcooper4 wrote: Another thing to consider is how the ratings stack up with other shows in the same time slot, or on the same night. Being on Sunday evening Prime time (in what used to the be the old Wonderful World of Disney timeslot), Once's ratings are actually fairing rather well against the competition. It's hard to go up against things like Sunday Night Football, Awards Shows, etc. And Sunday night is notorious for it's plethora of special programming on all of the network stations. That's one of the reasons, in fact, that the network execs chose to go with a split season format.

So while the ratings, by themselves, look somewhat anemic, taken in context of Sunday night, Once holds its own quite well. Part of the reason that Wonderland suffered such a horrible fate is that it was stacked up against Thurday Night Prime Time shows, and that is a much different audience. And had it even pulled the same ratings as the Main Show (and it was really not that far off, as I recall), it would have died, because those ratings on Thursday just don't cut it. Not really. It's not a question of how much faster you run from the bear, it's a question of how much faster you run from the other guy. Once is being compared to other shows on abc rather than other shows on the same night. For example, let's say theres a show on abc on Thursdays that has poor ratings compared to other shows on that same time slot, but does better than Once, abc would rather cancel Once and move that show to Sundays instead of Once.

Another factor that people don't take into considerations is that Once is much more expensive to produce than most shows. abc has higher expectation from Once and they might consider canceling it even if it has better ratings than other shows that their production costs less. It's mostly about profits and expenses.