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Friday night poses a lot of questions, and that’s not only the network propensity to schedule shows with questions as titles on the night, like Who Do You Think You Are? or What Would You Do?. Questions like: Is the night doomed for regular-budget fare, especially scripted originals? Can anything besides older-skewing shows like Blue Bloods or newsmagazines thrive on Friday? Last night provided some more food for thought.
With a lineup of reality/newsmagaines, ABC tied CBS’ scripted dramas, the second time this season that ABC has done it with CBS’ Friday lineup in originals. Additionally, all younger-skewing shows tied their season/series lows last night: Fox’s Fringe (1.1/3), which was down a tenth from last week; NBC’s Grimm (1.4/4), which tumbled 22% from its last original 2 weeks ago as the show transitions from a Chuck to a Who Do You Think You Are? lead-in; the CW’s Nikita (0.5/2), even with its last new episode 3 weeks ago; and Supernatural (0.7/2), also flat with its season low 2 weeks ago. They were joined by CBS’ freshman A Gifted Man (1.2/4), which matched its series low in its return to originals after 2 weeks off. The network’s other 2 Friday dramas, CSI: NY (1.6/5, 10.2 million) and Blue Bloods (1.7/5, 11.3 million) were both down a tenth in 18-49 from their last originals 2 weeks ago. CBS, the only Big 4 to maintain an all-scripted Friday lineup, is taking a first step toward changing that this midseason, with the introduction of Undercover Boss to the night in 2 weeks.
At 8 PM, the third season premiere of NBC’s docu-reality series Who Do You Think You Are? (1.1/4, 6 million) was down 15% from the show’s second-season premiere the same night last year. Still, given that Who Do You Think You Are? replaced the low-rated Chuck, it posted NBC’s largest audience and tied the second highest 18-49 rating in the hour this season. Fox’s newly renewed Kitchen Nightmares (1.6/5, 3.8 million) was up 14% from last week to take back the demo lead in the hour from ABC’s Shark Tank (1.5/5, 5.2 million) which was flat with last week. Among the newsmagazines, ABC’s Primetime: What Would You Do? (1.4/4) was down 18%, 20/20 (1.7/5) was up 13%. NBC’s Dateline (1.1/3) was down a tenth.
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I think some shows(such as Grimm)which had a lot of momentum might be suffering from a few weeks between new episodes. These networks(especially Nbc) are killing their own programs & making them hard to thrive with their episode scheduling- THEY NEED TO AIR EPISODES IN A BETTER FASHION. How many promising programs have been hurt in the past-by poor programming decisions? Thank you.
Good points!
Totally agree! I keep forgetting when new shows return. Very annoying.
Supernatural is one of the best shows on television. Sam and Dean deserve better numbers. They rock. That being said, I prefer the shows that are not focused on the fight between Heaven and Hell. The stand alone shows are best.
It’s so frustrating to see such shitty numbers for a show as amazing as Nikita. Maybe if they stopped marketing it as a soap opera (it’s not!!!) it would do better. It’s the best action show I’ve seen on TV and the acting is great.
If you’re 12, all the above is true.
With all of the time, money, politics, etc tied up in all of these shows, it is mildly amusing to see that the 2 Gold shows airing on Discovery are trouncing the majority of this fare. Also funny how no one wants to call attention to it either…
I agree with Jennifer, WAY too many breaks in between episodes….totally lose momentum…just end the season sooner instead of breaking them up so much….or just make more shows! (imagine that!!!) Some of us have horrible memories! lol
I couldn’t agree more. The action scenes are awesome on the show alongside the top notch acting and writing. Plus, Percy is one of the best television villains ever. Hats off to all involved.
I hope they give fringe a reduced … At the very least… Final season to wrap it all up. Peter needs to return to his own time line and get it all sorted out. Especially with his child from the other side with altlivia. While I like this season a lot I watch in fear it will be cancelled with Peter stuck in limbo.
Ps Grimm stinks. Sorry its just one of those shows that if more people watched the ones that do now simply wouldn’t like it. They need their “cause” shows to rally behind… And Grimm is the new one.
Maybe Fox, NBC, and CW would have better ratings if they stopped pitting sci-fi shows against each other. What a waste of timeslots. Grimm, though it sucks, wouldve worked better at 10 not against Fringe and Supernatural. Really, the network that puts a comedy block on friday that aint CBS will find themselves, likely, with a winning lineup. My feeling is, come September, TGIF lineup will be back on ABC likely anchored by Cougar Town, The Middle, or Suburgatory. Just my thoughts…
WELL SAID! Also, reality shows are not exactly the best leads is to Fringe and Grimm. They are two totally different genres. Does FOX really think that the Kitchen Nightmare audience is the same as the Fringe audience? And now Grimm has the genealogy show as a lead in. That programming decision never made any sense to me. And having Grimm up against Fringe and Supernatural is ridiculous. Three sci-fi shows on one night all on at the same time. They are cancelling each other out. I don’t think Grimm is great, myself, but all three shows would be doing a bit better if they weren’t up against each other. AND if you are going to put a show on a Friday night at 9pm, you are gonna have to get with the times and take into account the DVR numbers. Fringe went from a 1.2 last week to a 1.9 with 3 days of DVR. I’m convinced that the people who don’t think DVR’s should count are the same people in the 80′s that thought the VCR would kill TV.
Supernatural is terrible. It was always cheesy, but now it is a poorly written, badly acted, unwatchable mess. Of course it’s losing audience like rats leaving a sinking ship.
Agreed. Unfortunately, the 14-year-old crowd loves it, so it thrives.
Scattered airings, scheduling that shifts erratically and pits similar shows against each other — all that may have worked (or seemed to) in a 3 channel analog landscape.
But why on earth would anyone put up with it now? We all know 90% of new shows are going to get cancelled — so we don’t invest in them. We know we can watch the whole season at our own pace if we use a DVR or are willing to wait a few months. God knows the broadcast nets have done an abysmal job of creating new scripted “water-cooler” shows you have to watch as they air.
Time to embrace what works about cable and the BBC. Make a short season (not 22 — The Firm is a lesson in over-commiting), run it straight through, put some flavor in instead of chasing the dumbest common denominator. Buy the whole season up front so people know the show will stay on the air long enough to invest in it. Even if it tanks, at least you can sell a full season to Uzbekistan at MIPCOM.
But for Pete’s sake, networks, transition to the 21st century already, would you?
Agreed, “future”. FOX was on the right track with 24 coming in mid-season and plowing straight through with no breaks.
ABC also plowed straight through on LOST.
I was reading where FOX once again is going to experiment with BBC-style shorter seasons and more summer launches.
I guess summer reruns are a thing of the past? When I was a kid, I’d catch up on shows in the summer to get ready for the new fall season premiere.
Why not do 12 eps of a show in the fall, then another 12-ep show to replace it after the Superbowl?
12 episodes of two shows are signficantly more expensive than 24 episodes of one show. You have 2x the startup costs to amortize. So the ratings for the two 12-ep shows would have to be a huge improvement to make it worthwhile, and although the ratings might improve some, I can’t see it being that big a jump.
Drat, I wish this place allowed editing…I forgot to mention that you’d have two shows to market vs just one. So your marketing/advertising costs also go way up.
The networks are afraid to run a series straight through. Besides, they’d have to come up with even more shows in a season, which costs them more money. Reruns are still cheaper. Eventually, because of high production costs, ALL shows will be down to 13 episodes in a season. The networks will be forced to run a series straight through, like they do on cable (mostly).
CJ, I am a huge Fringe fan & I am also hoping things get wrapped up. The worse thing would be being cancelled midway through the season. You’re absolutely right:leaving Peter’s story in limbo that way would be terrible. Even a reduced 13 episode season of Fringe this fall would be a godsend,but,it looks extremely unlikely,&,that is a shame. Even if I don’t watch a program(such as Grimm) I wish it the best because of its’ fans. The sad reality is most of us television fans have had a show we like get cancelled,&,it is always a horrible feeling. My point about the scheduling is this:something must be done-long breaks between episodes are killing many shows.They should come up with a better way to avoid such long breaks: either have a shorter season,start the season later,or, film more episodes-Personally,I don’t think they’ll film more episodes because of the money factor,&,as we all know by now-television is a business.My fellow writers on this site:I’m just throwing some ideas out there-that’s all. As tv fans(myself included),we invest our time in these programs,so,it would be nice if these network programmers thought about what effect their scheduling decisions are having on us-that’s all I’m saying. I’m also a realist,so,I doubt anything will ever change. Thank you.
Friday nights are turning into Saturday nights now as nobody seems to be interested in these crappy reality shows and newsmagazines as evidenced by the ratings. Too much of this stuff is just making the night stale and overblaoted with nonsense programming. NBC is just trying anything just to get people to watch their shows and glad Shark tank dipped in the ratings as it’s overhyped.
Grimm has turned into a Monster of the Week show that drifted off its original internal logic and gives nobody but the Big Bad sidekick anything interesting to do. The girlfriend has begun to do stupid things and you could run a pool on how soon she gets kidnapped right out of their house, the address is written on the wall of the villains’ rest room.
The genre shows are appealing to a smaller segment of the population to begin with and I think the three shows in the 9PM hour hurt each other. They all get big 7day DVR bumps (relative to the size of their Live/SD audiences). And I agree that the seemingly random breaks or hiatuses make it more difficult to keep track of when new episodes are on. Thank goodness for DVR’s — but if the networks want live eyeballs, the scheduling needs to make more sense – in general, not just on Fridays.
The real question is…Who does Lisa Kudrow think she is??? the show is shit! Why should I care about someone else’s “family tree”? And add “GRIMM” it’s become embarassing to Greenblatt,
I watch A GIFTED MAN and I love it! I so hope CBS will renew it! I think it needs more of a chance.
I also watch CSI:N.Y. and hope it will also get renewed. Gary and Sela are the best!!
I’m pretty sure BLUE BLOODS will get renewed. It has good ratings, just has a bit older audience.
This season of fringe has been nowhere near as strong so if this was the last season I wouldn’t be disappointed likewise supernatural has gone on far too long ,I love it but it’s become all too predictable . I’m not sure why so many people have it in for Grimm I think it has the potential to be a great show and all the breaks and poor programming definitely have not done it ant favours.a gifted man also deserves another season but it wouldn’t surprise me to see both of these shows axed I’m still getting over lieto me being axed . Jesus what are these guys on ?
Another problem is that more people are going out on Friday and Saturday nights than they used to.
Back in the 1960′s, only one out of five adults between the ages of 18 and 49 went out on Saturday nights and the rest stayed home. Today, that ratio is reversed. And on Fridays, it’s a similar story.
But by giving up on Saturday nights (and perhaps within the next year or two, likewise giving up on Friday nights), the networks have made this problem worse.
The networks should aggressively program (and promote) first-run scripted shows on Fridays and Saturdays.
With aggressive promotion, it can convince many people to stay home on Friday and Saturday nights if there’s something really good and popular to watch.
One problem for prime-time network ratings on Friday and Saturday nights is that in many cities, local telecasts of games of hometown professional sports teams, whether on a broadcast station or a regional cable sports network, often dominate what local Friday and Saturday night viewing that there is.
Friday and Saturday night viewing levels may never again reach what they were thirty, forty, or fifty years ago, but with the right programs aggressively promoted, a heck of a lot more people would be convinced to stay home on those nights, and several times more people might be watching prime-time TV on Friday and Saturday nights (especially the latter) than is the case now.