I seriously don’t like ABC’s sitcoms so this is good news for me!

Castle will not go against 24 and Rules of Engagement. DWTS will air for 2 whole hours, leading into Castle at 10PM.

The competition hasn’t changed for now. Same ol’ fight among Castle, CSI: Miami and Medium.

Castle will be on at 10 again. ABC said a 2 hour dancing so that again puts Castle at 10 guys:)

Now about Better Off Ted…

Castle is a good show, but its initial time slot was terrible. It is the type of show that should air much earlier. It certainly doesn’t have the amount of violence that 24 has.

I don’t find Saget funny at all. He should have stayed with America’s Funniest Videos, a show I have never liked.

First smart move I’ve seen a network taking actually.

John, I suspect they’re doing this to see if the numbers go up significantly, which will play into their renewal calculations. If it does, they’ll probably do something with Castle like this next season if they decide to renew.

That’s why I’d like to see Fringe stay where it is, despite all the retentionista complaints. Let a new show get two seasons to grow behind a decent lead-in before you move it around. Not that I think Fringe would fail if it didn’t have AI as a lead-in, but why not take advantage of a good lead-in to solidify the audience it does gain from that situation?

Samantha Who? may have done terrible without Dancing, but there were extenuating circumstances–airing after the horrible In the Motherhood, Idol getting bumped to Thursday the day Samantha premiered there, etc. The truth is that SW? did BETTER after Dancing than did Surviving Suburbia. Also, it has Emmy nominations and wins as well as critical praise and an extremely appealing lead. Suburbia is…really bad. I think ABC realizes that given a choice between SW? and SS, they would be utter fools to choose the latter, and that will be borne out when the summer airings of Suburbia draw less than Samantha Who? did on Thursdays. If you ask me, this news bodes as well for Samantha Who? as it does for anything else. I see ABC moving it back “home” after Dancing next year. It’s a known quantity and a safe bet for audience retention after their monster hit. And the critical praise and awards, along with Christina gracing various magazine covers, don’t hurt either.

Do networks usually make a fast move like this? It seems like ABC saw the bump without Surviving Suburbia and decided that the sitcom was killing Castle’s chances. I wonder if they moved so fast because networks are desperate for new hits. I saw an article awhile ago (forget where but I’ll do a search if necessary) explaining the programming philosophy of each network and their track record over the past 3 years. Something like 15% or less of new shows have remained on air. That’s pretty poor. I wonder what the normal rate is?

Ratings have been dropping since the 80s with the surge of cable. The number of choices for viewers has grown exponentially in recent years, which means less people are watching the broadcast nets.

Edit: Both Holly and Bill beat me. All because I was discussing American Idol for a minute with my niece. This is why American Idol is so evil.

As for lowering ratings, the vast majority of that is cable. There are more and more channels to watch and every one takes a little more away from the broadcast nets.

and what is happening with the ratings, a few years back shows like friends were all doing 20 mil, now all shows viewerships is so low…