Update on May 5: Call Me Kat has been cancelled after three seasons. Original story remains below.
The Season 3 finale of Call Me Kat arrives on Fox on May 4, with plans for a wedding celebration among the characters, but fans unable to celebrate the guarantee of a Season 4. While Fox has already renewed scripted shows such as Accused and The Cleaning Lady for the 2023-2024 TV season, there’s currently no guarantee that Mayim Bialik will be reprising her role as Kat in the fall. So, even with a slate of upcoming summer shows ahead on the 2023 TV schedule, the time is right to look at what we know about Call Me Kat’s odds of returning to Fox.
What’s Happening At Fox
Nobody at Fox or behind-the-scenes at Call Me Kat has made an official statement about the future of the sitcom, but cast member Cheyenne Jackson (who also appeared elsewhere on Fox last year as a contestant on The Masked Singer) said in an Instagram Q&A (via TVLine) that he expected news of a renewal to come in “four to five weeks.” Although that Q&A is no longer available on Jackson’s Instagram account, the answer was posted in early April. If his timetable remains accurate, then news of a renewal or cancellation should come any day now.
A possible complication may be the 2023 WGA writers strike, which has already forced a production halt for NBC’s mainstay Saturday Night Live and could well impact networks’ plans for the fall TV season. Plus, Fox cancelled hit show 9-1-1 earlier this week for financial reasons. Of course, 9-1-1 is just migrating over to ABC rather than being cut from primetime altogether, and Mayim Bialik’s sitcom is surely much cheaper to produce than the Angela Bassett- and Peter Krause-led drama, which reportedly had a price tag of $9 - $10 million per episode.
At the time of writing, Fox has multiple entries on our list of 2023 TV shows that will probably get cancelled unless something changes, although Call Me Kat isn’t in dire enough straits to earn a slot alongside shows like Welcome To Flatch and Fantasy Island. It’s also not unprecedented for a show to end a season without a renewal, only to get the good news after the finale, as happened with Alert: Missing Persons Unit. So, without any official statements about the future of the show, let’s look at another source for the popularity of Call Me Kat: the ratings.
What The Ratings Say
Now, I can admit that standard primetime ratings aren’t quite as meaningful in the current era of streaming services and cord-cutting, and Call Me Kat Season 3 is in fact available streaming for fans with a Hulu subscription. Still, ratings are a source of data to indicate how many people are willing to tune in live, watch within three days, and watch within a week, so there’s still value.
And at the time of writing, Call Me Kat’s numbers aren’t exactly the most impressive in primetime for the 2022-2023 TV season in the 18-49 age demographic. In Live+Same day averages so far, the sitcom averages 0.2, according to SpoilerTV. That rises to 0.3 in Live+3 day and then up to 0.4 in Live+7 day. When it comes to viewership, Call Me Kat averages a Live+Same total of 1.18 million, a Live+3 total of 2.02 million, and Live+8 total of 2.22 million.
While those totals don’t put Call Me Kat on top of network television this season, it’s worth comparing them to the ratings/viewership averages from Fox’s other two live-action comedies:
- Call Me Kat: 0.2/1.18 million in Live+Same; 0.3/2.02 million in Live+3; 0.4/2.22 million in Live+7
- Welcome to Flatch: 0.2/1 million in Live+Same; 0.3/1.2 million in Live+3; 0.3/1.24 million in Live+7
- Animal Control: 0.3/1.35 million in Live+Same; 0.4/2.06 million in Live+3; 0.4/2.38 million in Live+7
The Verdict
On the whole, it’s hard to predict with much certainty what’s to come in the fall TV season due to the writers strike, but I would say that Call Me Kat has more points in its favor than against. Compared to other Fox shows, I can’t imagine that it’s especially costly to produce, and it has better numbers than Welcome to Flatch across the board. Animal Control does have a slight edge in audience size, but Call Me Kat has more notable rises in delayed viewing.
If Fox is going to renew one of its live-action comedies, my money would be on Call Me Kat. We can only hope that Cheyenne Jackson's timetable was correct and news on the sitcom's future is on the way sooner rather than later.
