Our night-by-night schedule looks continue with Saturday. Saturday night would've been omitted from any night-by-night look except for the fact that I'm a completionist nutcase.
Last year there was some nonsense TV media chatter that CBS was trying to breathe life into Saturday nights when it scheduled Rules of Engagement there. That was nonsense, it was a warehousing move that didn't happen since How To Be A Gentleman cratered so quickly, RoE never aired on Saturday, and premiered on Thursday instead.
The big change on Saturday night next Fall (although it's already underway), and one I'm certain will get zero attention from the entertainment media, is the fact that Fox has given over the night to FOX Sports who'll program various seasonal sports (baseball, college football, NASCAR) during the year with some new episodes of Cops sprinkled in from time to time. That extra money spent will likely give FOX a nice ratings margin over the competition (with the possible exception of ABC Saturday Night College Football in the Fall).
For a trip down memory lane, check out 2011's Saturday schedule:
Summer is coming fast
The upfronts can never last
hit us up when September ends
Like Father’s pilot was passed
seven Fox shows have gone so fast
hit us up when September ends
here comes that pain again
Dancing with the Stars
drenched in champagne again
wondering who they are
as this season can attest
endeavor Duets at all cost
hit us up when September ends
summer is coming fast
the upfronts can never last
hit us up when September ends
fade out with farewells again
like Bent did when spring began
hit us up when September ends
For the curious, FOX Saturdays will be available for COPS/encores most weeks from early Decemeber through early April as well as mid July through late August.
@Common Anomaly, Nice song. If I could, I would make a composition with it.
@Common Anomaly: Nice poem
We made it through another TV year! But, when will I find out about RoE?
If Rules of Engagement gets renewed and ends up on Saturday I’ll be watching
Remember when Saturday nights were ALL IN THE FAMILY, BOB NEWHART, MTM, and CAROL BURNETT–and that was just all on one network!
Remember when candy bars were a nickel.
I suspect Fox will extend their prime-time baseball on Saturdays next season to emcompass the early-April to late-August/early-September timeframe.
I am surprised that NBC didn’t try to convince Notre Dame to move all their home football games to Saturday nights, and I’m stunned CBS didn’t try to renegotiate their contract with the Southeastern Conference to move the network’s SEC football series to Saturday nights.
Had “The SEC On CBS” been moved to Saturday nights, it would have dominated ratings during the Fall, given the SEC’s dominance of big-time college football of late.
Hopefully, in the near future, a network that doesn’t go in for sports on Saturday nights will try first-run scripted programming.
One idea: How about children’s/family programming (especially before 10 P.M. ET/PT)?? Children are at home in big numbers on Saturday, and perhaps that might work out for the first part of Saturday prime-time.
Fox is really starting to get heavy into the college football scene in the past couple of years. I think as part of the Pac-12 realignment they got in a new TV deal and we’ll see more of their games. I think FOX has some rights to Big 12 games as well, and that TV contract is in some form of its final stages as well. Plus there’s realignment rumors with the Big 12, etc etc.
I think the SEC wants to keep their CBS games in the afternoon because their 2nd tier games are getting a lot of eyeballs in the nightime on ESPN/ESPN2. So get your national broadcast game early and the top cable games at night.
The only hope I had of original programming on Saturday was one of the CSI spin-offs being profitable enough in syndication that CBS would let it ride of into oblivion with originals on the night. CBS cancelled instead, so there went that theory.
@Garyinla:
I remember being a kid/teen and watching Walker, Texas Ranger most weeks after my mom watched Dr. Quinn.
sports!
Saturdays and Sundays!
Cops is probably in its final year. I think that FOX just wants it to hit the 1,000 episode milestone.
@Joseph
“I am surprised that NBC didn’t try to convince Notre Dame to move all their home football games to Saturday nights, and I’m stunned CBS didn’t try to renegotiate their contract with the Southeastern Conference to move the network’s SEC football series to Saturday nights.”
They might have, but Notre Dame usually resists having games on late at home due to the intoxication levels being much higher for night games.
@Garyinla
“Remember when Saturday nights were ALL IN THE FAMILY, BOB NEWHART, MTM, and CAROL BURNETT–and that was just all on one network!”
What I remember is Love Boat and Fantasy Island, but that’s mostly because my mom had control of the TV most Saturday nights. Just realized how spoiled my kids are. Nowadays, I have more TVs than people in my household.
Goodbye Cops I will miss you this Fall.
Didn’t How to be a Gentlemen air new episodes on Saturday?
How to be a gentlemen replaced rules for a week or two and is suppose to burn off the rest of their episodes in a few weeks on Saturday…I think they aired 4 got 9 to go
@Joseph
ESPN has the primetime rights to SEC football, and CBS gets the afternoon game
@Feedback
Title says Fall 2012 TV Schedule
How to be a Gentlemen has 6 of 9 episodes to air during summer season, Saturdays 8:30PM, from 5/26 to 6/23. That’s 5 Saturdays, but first one is supposed to be 2 episodes, at 8PM and 8:30PM .