For weeks now it seems like all I keep reading everywhere online is people bemoaning the ratings of TSCC and worrying that the show is going to get canceled. I understand the pain of the folks who wonder about this – FOX is notorious for killing young sci-fi shows before they really get a chance to take hold (remember FREAKY LINKS?) or even worse, shows that have a strong cult following only to end them w/o offering any sort of resolution (DARK ANGEL, FIREFLY.)  
 
People are still carrying on and on over Ausiello’s “spy” reporting that Fox is worried about how expensive TSCC is to produce and the low ratings. Righhhhhttt.... His spy was from HOUSE. HOUSE is produced by Universal and isn’t shot anywhere near the Warner Brothers lot where TSCC is filmed. How in the hell would they know anything?  
 
I’ve been in constant contact personally with one of the head writers on the show and recently one of the other members on his team has echoed everything that I’ve been told about the show recently online:
 
What are the chances of the show getting renewed? Because all I have heard on the subject is a comment from Ausiello that the show is costing a huge amount of money and Fox is disappointed with the ratings (or so he claims). I'd hate for the show to turn into a second Firefly.
 
Ausiello is off by roughly 180 degrees, but other than that he's exactly right. a) Our budget isn't anywhere close to our peers in the network sci-fi world, not even within shouting distance; b) Fox is from all reports very pleased with the ratings, particularly among men. We're obviously not doing the monster numbers of our premiere, but our viewership is very, very steady in spite of intense competition and a questionable lead-in on Monday nights. Interestingly enough, roughly 2 million a people a week are "deferred" viewers, which means they don't get counted into our Nielsens -- but that's a huge number, and it counts. It means that 10 million+ people a week are watching T:SCC (and yes, numbers are available for other shows too. Our deferred % is off the charts). The massive iTunes and Amazon Unbox download numbers count, too.
 
Oddly enough, the demographic that doesn't seem to be coming along for the ride are women. This baffles me. As my academic wife describes it, the show is extremely "woman identified" so we should be doing much better than we are with them. I'm not sure if this means that women aren't sampling the show, or the lack of demographic information on deferred viewers and internet viewers hides a large number of them. Maybe our excellent marketing campaign has missed them somehow because it's too target-fixated on young men. I'm not sure I have any answers here.
 
On some level, that almost doesn't matter. The number the network cares about is M18-49, because that's how they sell ad space. Turns out we're bringing that demo back to television in an age where they seemed to be abandoning it altogether.
 
Weird that we live in a world where we're having this conversation about a show with more than quadruple the viewership of Battlestar: Galactica.
 
I’ve been informed that the show costs significantly less to produce on a weekly basis than either LOST or HEROES. There are a lot of factors that help to keep the costs down on TSCC – the show’s shot in LA on the Warner Brothers backlot (READ: little off-site shooting which is expensive,) they have a small cast, no high profile producers, are able to use industry unions, and they use in-house FX & makeup teams. They are also able to pilfer through the extensive archives at WARNER BROTHERS for props to reuse. The viewers benefit by TSCC being able to save on these basic production costs. They’re able to afford great talent to bring onto the show (Owain Yeoman, Brian Austin Green, Jonathan Jackson, Garrett Dillahunt, Bruce Davidson, etc.) Being in LA the pool for actors is much deeper than say in Vancouver where on other sci-fi shows you see the same actors used and reused over and over again.  
 
Indicators are pointing that the show most certainly will get renewed, this past week both Summer Glau & Thomas Dekker were flown to Australia to take part in a Warner Brothers photo op for their hit shows. READ: Studios don’t usually fork over the money for airline tickets if they’re going to kill a program. Also, TSCC has been heavily promoted during AMERICAN IDOL. AI gets HUGE advertising revenues due to its large viewership. This means that usually the network will only pimp their biggest and best shows during their huge hits because every one of their own ads that they run means that they’re not getting outside revenues. TSCC has had long trailers shown during AI which definitely bodes well for the show as it’s about to wind down its first season’s run. Having their trailers run during the live/voting singing episodes shows a huge amount of confidence that the network has for the show.