ABC handed out fourth season renewals to family drama A Million Little Things and Nathan Fillion-starrer The Rookie on Friday afternoon.
During its third season, which featured a slot change from Thursdays at 10:00 to Wednesdays at 10:00, A Million Little Things has seen strong non-linear ratings growth. The series nearly quintuples its L+SD demo average (0.54) when adding up viewing across 35 days in both linear and digital platforms (2.57) while also jumping over five million total viewers in the same time frame.
The Rookie also has had notable non-linear gains during its current season, which continues to air Sundays at 10:00. The series more than quadruples its L+SD average, coming in at a 2.12 in L+35, while adding over six million total viewers to average nearly 10 million viewers in the measure.
What remains to be seen is how each show will be scheduled. A Million Little Things is fairly modest in L+SD and doesn’t produce 22-episode seasons, but it’s owned by ABC and reaches an affluent audience, so hanging on to its Wednesday slot for the fall seems likely. The Rookie, meanwhile, has done well in what’s a tough slot, but a move if ABC wants to utilize its strength elsewhere and/or give another show the American Idol lead-in isn’t totally out of the question.
Regardless of where they end up, the two join the likes of The Goldbergs, The Conners, and Black-ish in getting passes to ABC’s 2021-22 schedule today. The network will reveal its plans for fall 2021 on Tuesday.
