May 4, 2014 5 min read

“Almost Human” almost made it. Odds for renewal of the new series were considered to be fairly good, considering its average of 8.1 million viewers (not bad by today’s standards) and the fact it was a J.J. Abrams production. (If you want the prolific Abrams to deliver hits to your network, you have to nurture his other shows as well).

Unfortunately for “Almost Human,” its number was up, albeit prematurely. Fox canceled the series last week.

Other numbers of interest:

2: That’s how many current series CBS would have to bring back to become the first network in modern television history to renew its entire schedule. The mere public perception that CBS has the top shows on television should be enough to entice the network to pick up “The Crazy Ones” and “The Mentalist” for one more year. It’s a simple enough task. Give the struggling shows half-season commitments, and slot them in after “Thursday Night Football” completes its run in late October. It would give CBS first-run episodes on Thursday through January, when it could bring on its heavy hitters for the February sweeps. Won’t happen, though. Makes too much sense.

2: The number of live musicals already scheduled for the 2014-15 season. NBC is staging “Peter Pan” while Fox is opting for “Grease.” As networks strive to go live, count on more such events being announced soon. For instance, you may have noticed that three unessential awards shows have been given network berths this spring if only to promote the “live” component. Do we really need to see Taylor Swift and company again? Perhaps those artists wouldn’t need those Bieberesque mansions if they didn’t have to stash so many awards.

3,000,000: The number of people who watched the first-ever Radio Disney Music Awards last month. Those aren’t bad numbers for cable, which evidently wants a share of the “live” trend as well. And, yes, Taylor won two trophies.

50,000,000: The astronomical number of hours TV viewers spent binge watching Comcast’s Watchathon Week over seven days last month. Comcast also points out (probably for the sake of the networks) the Watchathon had a positive effect on new episodes of current series as well. For the record, “Game of Thrones,” “Walking Dead” and “The Good Wife” were the most-watched libraries, while shows receiving a huge percentage of ratings bumps included “Archer,” “Mindy Project” and “Grimm.” Keep in mind, though, the glaring holes in these particular lists. They necessarily includes only shows that were available on “Watchathon,” for instance, and those with the biggest percentage of viewership jumps were shows with small audiences. (An increase from 500,000 to 1 million viewers may well be a 100 percent increase, but it’s still a miniscule TV audience).

What is impressive, though, is the amount of time couch potatoes now spend watching multiple episodes of a single series in one sitting. Dad would never have allowed it. And I’ll be putting my foot down, too, as soon as I catch up on “Walking Dead,” “Resurrection,” “Chicago Fire”…

11,000,000: The number of binge-watching hours Comcast tallied on one day – April 5. Must have been raining. Everywhere.

369,000: The number of vinyl albums sold the week ending April 20. Yes, it’s a modern record (no pun intended), topping the 295,000 LPs sold the week prior to Christmas last year. The spike is attributed to Record Store Day. By the way, these sales aren’t just made to old people buying music from old artists. The best-selling vinyl albums were by Childish Gambito and the Afghan Whigs (although the Notorious B.I.G., Bruce Springsteen and Jimi Hendrix were right behind). Vinyl now counts for 3.2 percent of all music sales, up from a low of .2 percent in 2000. Is now a good time to resurrect the 45 rpm single? Perhaps if Taylor Swift was swinging a record carrying case while she was singing in the aisles at all those award shows …

1: The number of e-mails I received last week after noting in my last column that I don’t receive emails anymore. Barb Bane of Eighty Four commented on the article about CBS possibly canceling “The Mentalist.”

“A group of us are great fans of the show. However, we got real frustrated with CBS and their checkerboard effect on changing the time. It is scheduled to come on at 10 p.m and they have been showing ‘The Mentalist’ as late as 10:45 or canceling it with no heads up. It lost ratings but not because of the program itself but because CBS was messing with the time.”

Barb, I’ve heard the same complaint about “Good Wife,” which also airs on Sunday night. The issue is that afternoon sports, especially football, may push the shows back. While football and other sports generally draw more viewers than scripted series, they no doubt also contribute to the declining ratings for those shows. CBS might do well to schedule one less hour-long show Sunday and then, time permitting, fill in with a sitcom repeat at the end of the night. It makes much more sense than starting “Mentalist” or any other drama at 10:30 or 11 p.m.

Terry Hazlett can be reached at snowballrizzo@aol.com.