Just to give you guys some context, a show like 30 ROCK which was always under threat of cancellation had just about the same numbers of viewers than SMASH does. Mind you, 30 ROCK was not only a hugely respected show by critics and audiences alike, but it had an Oscar-winning movie star (Alec Baldwin) at his best as the lead and during its run it featured one of the most iconic comedienne's of her time (Tina Fey), the show won three Emmys in a row for Comedy Series and it's considered one of the best sitcoms of modern TV, not to mention the fact that it was a 30-minute series, which means it was a lot cheaper to run than a one hour drama. With that in mind, SMASH is one of the shows that is most reviled by critics and audiences alike, it's made fun of consistently and has terrible writing and a cast that brings no "prestige" to NBC at this point (they did when the show started) because of how bad the show is. The musical numbers are expensive to shoot. The "improvements" in viewership are good in that they'll keep the second season on the air, I don't understand why people are deluding themselves into thinking that there's any chance it'll be renewed.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"