Comments on: With Strong Retention of its Lead-in and of its Week-Ago Series Debut, "Better Off Ted" Dominates its Freshman NBC Competition at 8:30pm

By: AJ

AJ — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:58:05 +0000

i love schmoker’s line: Do they really want one million toy robots sent to their offices? Maybe there is a big baby shower coming up at ABC?

hahahahahahaha… hilarious!

and bill your right… i think thats the only rule they have in their PR book. yawn!

By: Schmoker

Schmoker — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:15:39 +0000

Bill, you would think that these networks would learn that they are tempting fate by giving the crazy demographic hope for these cancelled shows coming back. Seems every cancellation these days generates so much ill will, no matter how justified it is. Why pump up LOM, which is exactly the sort of show that has fans who will send you all sorts of odd paraphenalia to get you to bring it back?

Do they really want one million toy robots sent to their offices? Maybe there is a big baby shower coming up at ABC?

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:05:25 +0000

schmoker, I think it’s in the PR rulebook. Must. Promote. Everything. No. Matter. What.

By: schmoker

schmoker — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:59:06 +0000

I know that the Ted stuff is silly, but why are they pimping Life on Mars, a show they have already cancelled? What the F is that all about?

By: ABCFanaticWows

ABCFanaticWows — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 05:36:16 +0000

It’s official! Better Off Ted will cancelled!

I confirmed it!

By: S.

S. — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:29:10 +0000

They don’t put all the episodes out, but that is not a good sign. They usually put out full episodes for the big events in a show that they want the media to promote, or for shows that are doing poorly, and need a little more media attention than what they would get from the promos.

By media attention, I mean Kristin, and Ausiello pretending they got some extra special spoilers from exclusive sources, when we all know they just saw the episode online. Ausiello is the worse, most of his spoilers in the summer came from reading the fans interpretation of the casting sides over at TWoP.

By: Julia

Julia — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:06:24 +0000

You know what might be a slightly better indicator of how the network feels about Better Off Ted? They haven’t put the second episode up on abc.com.

By: S.

S. — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:19:51 +0000

I am not sure either. I just find it odd, that the ever so eloquent, ABC spin masters are just so cold about Castle. Even for Pushing Daisies, or Dirty sexy money, after it was obvious they were not coming back, they always found some niche demo to brag about, like the “M18-34 with in-grow toe nails”, or something like that. Either the show is very safe, or they don’t care about it, or Castle just has no demo they can brag about. What it is I have no idea, but, to me it feels that they aren’t their usual exuberant selves with Castle.

When you read the spin for Ted, they are going all out on the bragging of it’s A18-34 numbers like where working for CW.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:58:55 +0000

S., I’m not sure that “level of spin” is a reliable indicator of show future prospects, but it’s a fun theory!

By: S.

S. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:30:22 +0000

They do really want Better Off Ted more than they do want Castle, just compare the amount of spin they put in to Ted’s numbers, and the way the write up Castle. That or Ted does give then some bragging demos that Castle is not pulling in.

By: the128boy

the128boy — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:51:09 +0000

^^^ And I totally give kudos to NBC for being patient with stuff this season (wether it be from true patience or lack of alternate material) and airing all filmed episodes of shows, airing more originals and fewer repeats, etc etc etc, but at this point in the season I would say cut your losses and pull the repeat trigger.

By: the128boy

the128boy — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:45:37 +0000

FrankJ, I don’t see why they have to finish airing Chopping Block, ESPECIALLY in that slot. they can put anything there really. the first thing that comes to my head is L&O repeats, which, at this point, would probably draw 3 times as many viewers, half a point more demo, provide a better/more compatible lead-in for Life, and overall fit this supposed “crime themed” night much better than Chopping Block does (or Knight Rider did, for that matter).

By: Julia

Julia — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:19:58 +0000

Looks like it has the largest paragraph to me.

By: Fin

Fin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:12:53 +0000

Not much they can talk about for Better Off Ted apart from it beat a massive flop of a NBC series… Notice its paragraph is so much smaller

By: FrankJ

FrankJ — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:17:35 +0000

Well they’ll probably have to let it finish the run anyway right? What does NBC have to put there? But I was thinking more along the lines of sowing chaos at NBC. Isn’t it just expensive and chaotic for NBC to keep having to cancel and order new shows? I bet ABC would love to keep the people at NBC off their game and weighing a lot of uncertainty with new shows.

By: the128boy

the128boy — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:15:20 +0000

julia, i have a feeling that Motherhood may do *slightly* better tonight (and SW? too) than what the general consensus is, even though Idol will be on. Of course i could be very very wrong when the numbers come out tomorrow. as for Suburbia, i also think it will get the best ratings of the bunch, simply because of the lead-in.

By: the128boy

the128boy — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:11:22 +0000

FrankJ, i think that ABC would actually prefer if NBC stuck with Chopping Block. It’s doing amazingly anemic numbers and is essentially zero competition. It would be in ABC’s best interest if it completed it’s whole run in that slot.

By: FrankJ

FrankJ — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:56:13 +0000

I think they’re spinning the 1.8 to draw attention to NBC’s numbers. I think they’d love to see NBC have to cancel their shows just after they started. Clears the deck for ABC’s struggling show (which they claim is not struggling), thus giving it that much more of a fighting chance.

By: Julia

Julia — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:54:26 +0000

I think it depends on how the In the Motherhood, SW? and Surviving Suburbia do. I don’t think ITM or SW? will do well, but SS has a nice lead-in and might benefit the same way SW? has. I would be surprised if SW? gets canceled, no matter how it performs, and without seeing any numbers, my shot in the dark guess is SS rates highest of the new comedies. So the question is, what are ABC’s plans for comedy next season? If they just want a couple of shows to fill the gap between DWTS and whatever is on at 10 and an hour block, I don’t think they need to pick up more than one new comedy from this season, since they have 14 comedy pilots according to TFC. If they want to do two one-hour blocks, there might possibly be room for two of the new comedies. In which case, I don’t know that there’s really any threshold that they have to pass. It’s just whichever is the best performing of the three new comedies.

But, if I were running ABC, I would stick to just one hour of comedy, unless there is an abundance of amazing pilots, greater than you can ever imagine.

By: the128boy

the128boy — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:41:34 +0000

Julia, what do you think it would have to pull to get renewed? I get the feeling that the bar is lower here than elsewhere on their schedule. I’m guessing a 2.0, despite that being well below their index average. Because otherwise, yes… why specifically spin this 1.8?

By: Julia

Julia — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:35:09 +0000

Wow… You know a network is desperate if they are trying to spin 1.8 as positive.