Do Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD’s ratings indicate its renewal for a sixth season?

Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD has been on the air for almost five years, it has seen its share of highs and lows and once premiered to over 12 million viewers. Alas, those days have long since passed, despite small ratings SHIELD has maintained a small but very loyal fanbase that is very passionate about the show and its heroes. While the show remained stable for much of its first three seasons, in late season 4 there were rumors that ABC planned to cancel the show and that Disney stepped in at the last moment and ordered it renewed.

Now the above is a rumor and has not been confirmed, due to this the writers of SHIELD decided to approach season five with the idea to wrap up loose ends and story plots from past seasons. Thus we have seen the return of the Gravitonium, Cybertek, and Deathlok, as well as the return of the son of HYDRA baddie Baron Strucker. The writers of the show also confirmed that they are writing the season finale to act as a series finale should ABC not renew them.

As sad as this is, it is a good thing the writers will provide closer to the show that is beloved by so many. There is nothing worse than investing in a TV program and then have it be canceled after many years with no resolution. Despite all of this the head of ABC has said she is bullish about SHIELD being renewed.

So let’s take a look at the ratings and see what the chances are that the agents will return to kick ass for a sixth season.

Looking at information from TVbythenumbers which has been very accurate in its predictions of shows being renewed or canceled. SHIELD’s episode from Mar. 16 aired with a 0.5 in the 18-49 demo, while this leaves much to be desired the good news is that the show was able to boost 140 percent to a 1.2 in the demo when the weekly delayed viewer counts were tallied up.

TVbythenumbers also released a chart that predicted what shows would be renewed and which would be canceled, SHIELD is listed as “Likely to be renewed” this prediction is mostly gleaned from the previous season’s performance and due to the fact that SHIELD has not deviated much from the ratings numbers of last year.

Another few reasons the show may be safe for renewal are these, Disney is in competition with not only DC but FOX, both of which have very popular and successful TV shows based on their superhero properties. As of now, SHIELD is the only Disney owned marvel tv program on the air (the others being on Netflix and Hulu) SHIELD is also the highest reviewed Marvel superhero show currently airing.

It is unlikely that Disney will cancel SHIELD without a solid show to replace it, it is also possible that Disney could be prepping SHIELD to move from ABC over to the new Disney streaming service that will be starting up in the near future. Lastly, it seems very likely that ABC will renew SHIELD for a shortened sixth season, it’s well known that shows that are announced as being in “the final season” tend to have better ratings, it would seem smart for ABC to renew the program for a shortened 13 episode season and then market it as “the final adventure”

We will keep you updated on SHIELD and its ratings as we move closer to the final decision about the future of the program.