The War of 18-49, The Cleaning Lady

Modest on Monday

Fox came into the winter of 2022 licking its wounds in the Monday 9/8c hour, having endured an epic disaster called The Big Leap in the fall. By those standards, the next new drama The Cleaning Lady looked like a revelation. Its 0.51 premiere was almost double that of The Big Leap (0.29), and the show went on to new series highs in weeks three (0.53) and four (0.55) that suggested there might be something truly promising.

But February was not good to the show, as it went from that 0.55 to a 0.47 -> 0.44 -> 0.39, and that was all she wrote for The Cleaning Lady's hit potential. It was basically mired at those low-end winter Plus levels when it returned for season two in the fall, even though it got to air after the 9-1-1 mothership, and it fell into truly shaky territory by the end of season two.

Terrible on Tuesday

Following its season two finale in December 2022, The Cleaning Lady didn't show up on Fox again until almost 15 months later, paired for a spring 2024 Tuesday alongside another questionable drama renewal in Alert: Missing Persons Unit. Together, they were a Big Leap-level calamity; The Cleaning Lady barely broke a 50 Plus in its Tuesday premiere and then never again, even though both shows somehow got renewed for another spring run in 2025. Fox waited to cancel both shows till June, but finally decided not to endure another year of the combo.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	Winter 2022	Monday 9:00	0.46		0.4	0.6	detail	B-
2	Fall 2022		Monday 9:00	0.31	-33%	0.2	0.4	detail	C
3	Spring 2024	Tuesday 8:00	0.15	-50%	0.1	0.2	detail	D-
4	Spring 2025		Tuesday 8:00	0.13	-14%	0.1	0.1	detail	C-

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now25	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	Winter 2022	90	marginal	0.28		76	108	100	76
2	Fall 2022	72	marginal	0.23	-19%	54	87	82	68
3	Spring 2024	41	flop	0.13	-44%	29	53	53	37
4	Spring 2025	42	flop	0.13	+3%	32	47	47	47
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	61	flop
CAREER:		CAREER:	244	blip

The War of 18-49 chronicles the ratings history of veteran primetime series. For more, see the Index.