Broadcasting & Cable has an interesting read on how the networks' mid-season shows have fared (mostly, not all that well!). It won't be any surprise to people who regularly follow the ratings, and neither will this:
Preston Beckman, executive VP, strategic programming and planning at Fox, says Lie To Me is likely to return next season, as the network will give it summer repeat airings.
“As ABC has learned painfully, when you put shows on in the spring you have to really be careful how you evaluate them,” he says. “[Lie To Me] feels like a show that with patience and in the right time period, next year can really grow into a player for us.”
I believe "likely to return" in this context loosely translates to "unless the ratings for its final episodes blow, it's coming back."
Robert, you’re going to ruin your reputation if you keep putting up these positive posts. LOL
I don’t know why they didn’t just leave AI in the same place at 8pm, it would have provided more viewers for LTM.
great news one of my new favs
Good news!
woooooooooooooo
* good stuff.
The real question is this: even though it’s lowest rated episode got more than double the numbers, will TSCC fans misconstrue this as a beacon of hope that Fox may renew Terminator thinking that “if given the right time period” and treated with “patience” it could be grow into a player in a 3rd season?
lol…
@Ben, you note: “I don’t know why they didn’t just leave AI in the same place at 8pm, it would have provided more viewers for LTM.”
I suspect that the FOX people perceive the situation as follows: They can do more “damage” to the other nets in the very competitive 9 p.m. time slot (LOST, Criminal Minds) by using AI there. In addition, LTM is capable of winning the demos in the less-competitive 8 p.m. hour, even with modest-to-meager ratings. Thus, the current schedule makes sense for FOX.
I really like LTM so far, but the most recent couple episodes went a tad too dark, and didn’t have time for supporting-team character development IMHO. I’m happy to see that FOX is showing a little patience with the series.
I’ve been ok with Lie to Me getting a bit dark, although they could have held off the main reason for Lightman becoming the human lie detector (Depraved Heart) for a while, especially considering on Fox’s other show with an English actor (House, MD), they held off on that (Three Stories) until the season 1 finale.
Has to be said though, Tim Roth has always been an excellent actor (even before Lie to Me) and getting him to play Lightman was as an inspired a casting decision as it was getting Hugh Laurie to play House. Lie to Me could become as big as House with the right people behind it, looking out for it.
I will be very disappointed if it doesn’t get a second season because it’s been my favourite new show this year.
Yay!!!!! Lie To Me is awesome… Tim Roth is awesome, I agree with Dave! The rise of the british actors is coming…
Will Fringe be back for next season?
Didn’t some big NBC executive quit just to be a producer on this show? She’s lucky because it’d suck if this got cancelled.
I’m enjoying Lie To Me a lot right now and I’m fully expecting it to be back next year. Whether it can survive a full second season is another issue entirely though. I’d like to see them pair it with House next year, purely because I’d like to see it survive and I think a House lead-in would pretty much guarantee that at this point. I won’t however hold my breath on that.
LIE TO ME has to survive in the Fall without AMERICAN IDOL. So Fox moved it to test the waters. It isn’t pulling great numbers, but it’s pulling good enough numbers. Even the 2.5 was good enough. Fox is happy with LIE TO ME, but not if it starts to bleed viewers. Running it in the summer is smart.
not surprising, it’s performing very solid.
networks always should run first year shows as reruns over the summer. How else do you build an audience?
By getting people to watch the first time around?
Of course they will keep it, they need something to stick on Fridays.
Alex and, there’s a difference between “instant hit” and “build an audience” hit. Getting people to watch the first time around is great, but not common. The only example that comes to mind this year is “The Mentalist” on CBS. That seems to be something people are watching the first time around.
House was not a mega-hit out of the box. It did some building. So did Bones. Same with X-Files (long, long ago). Same with – for the gabillionth time – the NBC mega-hit Seinfeld. That show *should* have been canned, by conventional wisdom, after its first…and second…and third seasons. Sometimes, a series does takes time to become a “hit.” I appreciate that FOX sees such potential in LTM. On the flip side, I don’t see how such potential can be seen in “Dollhouse.” It’s not holding a solid enough core audience. Quite frankly, I don’t see the characters as anyone worth getting to know. The leads on LTM and Fringe are growing on us average viewers. We want to get to know them. Perhaps that’s a key difference between a show with potential, and a show that just didn’t cut it.