Broadcast executives have shown a surprising amount of patience this fall with new TV shows - waiting for weeks longer than they have in past years to decide the fate of a new series, although execs’ new-found patience still wasn’t enough to save Selfie.

But a marked increase in patience is not the only trend of fall TV this year. According to Vulture, there are a few noticeable trends across ratings, genre and the popular shows of old. A few of these trends are summed up below:

Drama is King

Vulture points out that some of the best ratings hits this season are hour-long dramas. This is no big surprise, as each season certainly has its new drama darlings, but almost every major broadcaster premiered a drama hit this season. ABC’s How to Get Away With Murder is hyping itself as TV’s No. 1 new drama, CBS’ Madam Secretary averages 15 million viewers weekly, Fox’s Gotham started out the season beating out time slot rivals like The Voice rating as high as NBC’s The Blacklist, while The Flash scored record premiere ratings for The CW. CBS also announced Friday that after 35 days, Scorpion‘s series premiere across multiple platforms drew 26 million viewers, while ABC gave Forever a full-season pick-up.

All that said, it’s been oft-noted that this was a poor year for comedy development, and that’s been borne out in this year’s cancellations, with five—NBC’s Bad Judge and A to Z, ABC’s Manhattan Love Story and Selfie and Fox’s Mulaney—all being served notice that they won’t be headed on to second seasons.

Some Older Shows Are Beginning to Bounce Back

ABC’s Once Upon a Time and Scandal are showing upticks in viewership, a strange but promising phenomenon for shows that have been around for more than a few seasons already. Thanks to Shonda-branded TGIT nights and a Frozen-themed story arc, both series are showing increases around 10 percent and continuing to prove that they can be long-lasting contendersl.

The Big Bang Theory May Be On its Way Out

For the first time this year, ratings are down for CBS’ The Big Bang Theory. Reruns and syndication airings still beat out plenty of other comedies in the ratings each week, but up until now, the show has only increased in viewership year after year. This could signal a decrease in ratings on broadcast TV overall, or it could mark the beginning of the end for one of TV’s biggest shows.

Patience is a Virtue

Many have noted a general increase in patience this year - and this is something Vulture’s Adalian preaches every chance he gets—with most broadcasters giving new shows at least three to four weeks on the air before deciding to cut them loose, but Vulture notes that patience also would have served networks last season. Several of last season’s canceled shows, such as Fox’s Almost Human and NBC’s Revolution, went off the air because of low ratings, but the shows that replaced them aren’t doing much better. Again, this is probably a larger sign of decreased ratings overall, but it means that shows like Trophy Wife could be performing just as well as any other half-hour comedy this fall had it gotten the chance to stick around.

Read more at Vulture.

Brief Take: Delayed and on-demand viewing, and a fragmented audience, mean that networks need to be super patient with shows. It not only takes audiences a while to find them, it also takes them a while to watch them, as CBS’ live-plus-35 day number for Scorpion attests.

[Image courtesy of ABC]

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