With Scream Queens kicking into it’s fourth episode tonight, the buzz for renewal is quickly spreading. When TheWrap asked Fox over the weekend if the comedic horror show would be accepted for a second season as long as delayed-viewing projections were to continue, Fox Television Group chairman and CEO Dana Walden responded with a firm “Absolutely.”

The challenge with network wide decisions of second season renewals lies in the missing statistics. In order for such assessments to be finalized, networks need data quicker than they are being received – this data takes time to gather as well as to interpret. For example, Nielsen live-plus-three ratings take five days to be produced, while live-plus-seven numbers aren’t finished being calculated by the company for an additional twenty-one days. Also, there is no standard accepted by the TV industry yet for multi-platform viewer calculations. The hope is for last weeks merge of comScore and Rentrak, Nielson’s competitors, to be a step toward a common standard. I guess time will tell as viewers (hopefully) continue to tune into Scream Queens, whether it be live or three to seven days afterward.