Thank God It's Friday?
Wed, September 30, 2009 
The Friday Night Death Slot looks to claim some more victims. Fox’s sitcom Brothers and Dollhouse’s second season premiered Friday night to shockingly low numbers. While maybe not that shockingly, but under 3 million viewers is a new low for Fox. Worse, Brothers had more viewers than Dollhouse. ‘Til Death premieres next week as the lead in for Dollhouse, highly unlikely Brad Garrett will be Eliza Dushku’s saviour.
Dollhouse was slotted to be on Fridays all year but that seems very unlikely now. House reruns and “family reality game shows” are likely to fill in briefly. That will stop the bleeding.
So while Friday will be demolished and rebuilt with new victims, Fox also has trouble with Fringe on Thursdays. The show didn’t have the audience size to survive a move to Thursdays like Grey’s Anatomy had. Bones can survive, but Fringe looks shaky.
Does Fox move Human Target to Fridays where it will die?
Shift Fringe back to Tuesdays and get a moderate bump from American Idol?
Past Life sounds something like the CBS crowd would watch. Could Fox get them away from Ghost Whisperer and Medium on Fridays?
What does work on Fridays are 20/20 and Dateline. They don’t get the high ratings they once did but they’re still doing better than Fox’s shows. Perhaps Fox should be more like the other networks and have their news division produce shows/specials. Dramas, soap operas and sitcoms won’t and don’t work on Fox Fridays. There have been great shows and bad shows to call Friday home but nothing can survive there. At this point a Fox News program is something they should consider.
Have Shepard Smith involved to make it more appealing. Keep the opinion people away, make it as serious as you can get on Fox News. It may not mesh with Fox’s brand as a young network but at this point what do they have to lose? 60 Minutes has done well with Obama interviews and stories over the past couple of years, get Shep to ask very nicely to see if he would do “a fair and balanced interview.” Try it out and in a few years a loyal audience could be there and be quite profitable. It fills time and Fox wouldn’t have to move shows to Friday where they would die. If they had a news program there, Dollhouse could’ve been slotted elsewhere.
Reader Comments (1)
15 shows of 100 on Fridays have made it to a 2nd season since 1999. 1 of 23 on Fox have made it to second, and Dollhouse won't make it to a third.
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/rant.aspx?id=20090929_10things