A cancellation by any other name . . .

The networks are growing increasingly fond of euphemisms. An "encore presentation"? That's a rerun. "Midseason finale"? Means the series is appreciably short on episodes and is going bye-bye for a few months.

A new euphemism was introduced this week when Fox "reduced the episode order" for its anemic Sunday-night sitcom Mulaney. In the announcement, the network insisted the show was in no immediate danger and expressed full confidence in the series and its creative team.

Allow me to translate: Mulaney is canceled. There, I said it. Fox may burn off the rest of the 13 episodes already completed. Or it may not. But Mulaney is done.

This saddens me because stand-up John Mulaney is a funny and appealing guy and deserved better than this Seinfeld-ian sham. And because I made a preseason prediction that another Fox show, Red Band Society, would be the year's first cancellation.

Make no mistake: Red Band will get canceled. Fox ordered up four more scripts for the kids-with-diseases melodrama this week. Not four produced episodes, mind you. Just scripts. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement. More like a stay of execution.

But I pride myself on predicting which new series will be the first to walk the plank. And I got it wrong. In my defense, this is shaping up as a weird year on the cancellation front.

"No show has been pulled off the air at this point," says Bill Gorman, co-founder of TVbytheNumbers.com, the website that studies ratings with Talmudic focus. "Over the past few years by this date, two to four shows have already been pulled off the air. It's a matter of the networks saying, 'Hey, we paid for 13 episodes. Might as well let them run. If we replace it with reruns of one of our existing shows, that isn't going to do much better.' "

In this more patient climate, is it too early to declare the hits and washouts of the new season, which is only a month old?

"It's never too early to tell," says Gorman, whose Twitter handle is The Cancellation Bear. "All you need is one episode. If it goes low, it's dead."

Well, supplied with Nielsen data, let's survey the landscape.

Of the 21 series that have debuted so far, only four - NCIS: New Orleans on CBS, How to Get Away with Murder on ABC and Scorpion and Madam Secretary on CBS - opened big. (And that last one, because it has by far the lowest ratings in the coveted 18- to 49-year-old demographic, is still vulnerable.)

After that, it's a steep drop to the next tier, which includes NBC's The Mysteries of Laura and Marry Me, and CBS's Stalker and Forever. Black-ish on ABC and Gotham on Fox, which also belong in this group of passable but not formidable performers, have already received full season extensions, the crucial first step toward renewal.

Stalker will join them on the fast track; Forever will not. The rest, along with ABC's Cristela, could go either way. (In fact, their disposition could be settled between the time I write this and you read it.)

Now we enter the dead zone of series that are just waiting for the ax to fall. Say sayonara to NBC's Bad Judge and A to Z; adios to the Fox trio of Gracepoint, Red Band Society, and Utopia and nie wiedersehen to the ABC sitcoms Selfie and Manhattan Love Story.

The only two shows that will survive despite marginal numbers are The Flash and Jane the Virgin. The CW has already extended full-season orders for both.

No surprise for The Flash, the CW's biggest out-of-the-box hit in four years. But Jane, which has fewer than 2 million viewers and a nearly invisible .6 rating among 18- to 49-year-olds?

It survives because of the only factor that trumps ratings in the TV business: greed. The real money is made when a show endures long enough to be sold into syndication. So the networks will always prop up the series in which they have an ownership stake.

And Jane the Virgin is co-produced by CBS Television Studios. CBS is the parent company of the CW and can strong-arm the smaller network into running the show until she's Jane the Old Maid.

That's also the only reason the CW still has Reign, The Originals, and Beauty and the Beast on its schedule, despite their pitiful ratings. CBS stands to make a bundle if they last long enough.

Now you know why a dreadful dog like According to Jim, with Jim Belushi, can last eight seasons despite vast audience indifference. It was co-produced by Touchstone Television, a sister company to ABC. The philosophy is: It may be a stinker, but it's our stinker.

Last week brought an excellent example of maddening network self-interest when The Millers returned to CBS's Monday night schedule.

CBS has TV's biggest sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, but it doesn't share in the show's massive back-end profits. Guess what sitcom it does own?

"The Millers will do dreadfully in the ratings," predicts Gorman. "But CBS will drag it through four or five seasons. There is no chance that show gets cancelled."

Let this be a lesson to you: Whether a TV show succeeds or fails is strictly a ratings game. Except when it's not.

215-854-4875 @daveondemand_tv