New Dramas – “Conviction” – “Designated Survivor” – “Notorious” – “Still Star-Crossed” – “Time After Time”
It’s really hard to say how these new dramas will fair without their first airings obviously, but already “Conviction” is getting a lot of buzz (mostly due to Haley Atwell); and “Still Star-Crossed” is another Shonda show and those historically get a second season even with less than stellar ratings (The Catch, for instance). There’s only been one Shonda show I can think of that didn’t and that was *years* ago before she basically owned most of ABC.
Another factor to take into consideration when thinking ahead is that ABC just axed two vet shows at once–Castle and Nashville. You don’t wanna lose too many vet shows all at once and now, with Castle and Nashville gone, you’re looking at vet shows being “Greys” “Scandal” and “OUAT.” Two of those are Shonda show and are more highly demo’d than OUAT. Greys will be on until the end of time and Scandal has further to fall than us; in other words, S6 ratings will need to be watched very closely.
However the other factor that comes into play is Sunday. It’s such (omgosh SUCH) a tricky night that until ABC feels confident that it has another Sunday 8pm (read: family hour) show that can hold its weight for awhile, it will consider OUAT a low rated, but ultimately steady with a loyal fanbase, show.