I'm still digesting the FOX schedule announcements but offer the following early thinking:
- Trying So You Think You Can Dance in the fall makes a lot of sense to me. It's a gamble, but I understand it both in terms of trying to bolster Glee, and lower cost with potential for decent ratings. SYTYCD doesn't need to do as well as American Idol. It doesn't need to do even half as well.
- I like the "everybody lies" Monday lineup of House and Lie To Me.
- Fringe on Thursdays will be fun. I imagine people will be following this closely. For me it shows FOX is really serious about wanting a stable Thursday night lineup. How well will it work out? We'll see, but Fringe doesn't need to beat Grey's Anatomy, CSI (assuming CSI still airs Thursdays at 9p) or The Office in the demo to satisfy FOX. How well it does need to do will be the subject of some debate. But I really am fine with waiting until the fall to have that debate.
- 'Til Death as Dollhouse's lead-in: the whole thing just makes me smile really. It's amusing. I'm now certain FOX's decisions with regard to Friday were about a flight to lower cost and higher benefit, though I believe FOX when it says that scripted shows carry higher CPMs., scripted shows with very low ratings won't wind up making more money than unscripted shows with higher ratings (more viewers offset lower CPMS), but FOX probably figured if there wasn't going to be much difference in the number of viewers, might as well go the lower cost, higher CPM route.
- While I buy that DVR viewing did increase Dollhouse's cumulative numbers, I still do not buy it being a primary factor in FOX's decision to renew Dollhouse. I'm not sure I buy it being any factor at all. I buy Dollhouse being a lower cost/higher benefit option for FOX. TSCC's cumulative numbers increased about as much as Dollhouse's with DVR viewing. But TSCC cost more, and since it was WB produced there was no potential benefit at all to FOX with regard to DVD, international, online and syndication. Bottom line if it's cheap enough, FOX will air it (hello, 'Til Death!), TSCC wasn't cheap enough, Dollhouse was and with added benefit potential. Is FOX betting on Joss Whedon? Sure, they are. But it seems a low cost, low risk bet from FOX's perspective.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think I see an unfortunate typo in the first line of the last paragraph, right before that first comma.
are you 12? If so, it’s not just you. Dicey abbreviation, but I’ve gone non-abbreviated so as to not encourage the Beavis-minded.
People seem upset about ‘Til Death as a lead-in for Dollhouse, but it’s worth remembering that, in the final issue of your “Renew/Cancel” index, ‘Til Death had an index of 0.67, while Dollhouse only had a 0.56 and TSCC had an astonishingly low 0.47…TSCC was completely flat-lined, which probably harmed Dollhouse substantially…it’s hard to imagine ‘Til Death doing any worse damage as a lead-in.
Jimmy, true, though ‘Till Death wasn’t airing on Friday, where it likely would’ve done even worse.
Fringe – don’t care – it was too much like X-files (to me anyways)
Sarah Conner – really wished this one came back the most…but still have a trilogy of movies of it with the first one out this week…
Dollhouse- I’ll take it…well it’s something for us to watch on Fri’s instead of racing to the video store for the hot new movie at Blockbuster or Red Box and them always being out.
Lol, I’m not 12–I’m 13!
Just kidding. I had never seen that abbreviation for cumulative. I thought it was “CPM” mistyped, although I found myself wondering why none of the letters were capitalized in that one instance. Anyway, never underestimate the potential of a dirty word to derail a conversation, especially when irate T:SCC fans are bound to line up to use it in a “creative” insult.
Anyway, more on topic: Dollhouse sure surprised a lot of people by being renewed, and the pairing of ‘Til Death with Dollhouse ended up being even more of a surprise. I wonder if FOX is treating Fridays as a low-stakes experiment, just to see how different kinds of shows are likely to do on Fridays?
hope Fringe does well and Dollhouse; I think Dollhouse is FOX’s new commitment to taming bad Fridays.
Variety and others use ‘cume’ for an abbreviated cumulative…fyi
Robert, I’m sure Dollhouse will be last year’s Terminator. But seriously what else was expected for fridays. It seemed obvious that Dollhouse would stay at 9, and FOX has just happened to renew Til Death for 22 episodes. Its no surprise that Til Death would be propped up with a new series (Brothers), along with Dollhouse to create a nice 2 hour burn off night for FOX. This friday schedule is reminiscent to the one during the 2005-2006 season. Where the two veteran comedies Malcolm and Bernie Mac were aired at 8 followed by killer Instinct. That year, Instinct was cancelled and Malcolm was moved to burn off its remaining episodes.
Its also similar to the projected midseason schedule for last year, where FOX had planned to move Til Death and Do Not Disturb to fridays at 8 and air Bones at 9. of course Disturb was axed, Death was pulled, and Bones was convieniently moved to Thursdays. Expect Dollhouse to air all 13 Season 2 episodes from September to December, and then for the series to be axed.
Robert: If SYTYCD doesn’t need to do half as well as AI, how will this be a boost to Glee?
Also, what do you mean by Fringe not needing the demos of the competing shows to please FOX?
What was CPM again?
Andrea, a 3.5 and a show that is “performance/talent” themed makes a better lead-in than some other show with a 2.5 rating.
As for the other, what do you think I meant? If Fringe pulls somewhere in the 2.7 area and comes in fourth place from 9p-9:30, I don’t think FOX is going to be upset.
CPM = cost per thousand (mille)
Are ‘Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?’ and ‘Don’t Forget the Lyrics’ done?
I think this season may have shown that trying to second guess Fox on Dollhouse at least might not be the best move so I’m not touching that one.
I will say that I agree moving SYTYCD seems like a good move for Fox, although the anti-reality folks will obviously be up in arms about it I think it makes sense and I quite like the Dance/Idol rotation it sets up. The bigger question will be how it handles being on the same schedule as Dancing With The Stars, too many prime time dancing shows at once maybe? Of course its possible that Fox will just dent Dancing With The Stars further with this.
Fringe on Thursday is going to be interesting. I think it’ll do ok.
And as I said in the Fox schedule post I love the House/Lie To Me line-up on Monday. That’s a fantastic night in terms of compatible shows.
“Andrea, a 3.5 and a show that is “performance/talent” themed makes a better lead-in than some other show with a 2.5 rating.” — I see, okay.
“As for the other, what do you think I meant? If Fringe pulls somewhere in the 2.7 area and comes in fourth place from 9p-9:30, I don’t think FOX is going to be upset.”
You just restated your original point. I’m questioning why you think FOX will be happy with this? Is it because of the lower threshold for ratings?
Costs pr mile – sounds like they are building a car.
Marc Berman calls FOX’s schedule “lazy”.
Nikki Finke has new info on the CBS pickups. Even worse zzz… than the FOX pickups.
The only daring network seems to be ABC!
i call marc berman a fool so to each their own.
Andrea, they will be happy because the lineup will be an improvement over this.