Scheduling Five-Spot, WE 2/13/11 - Smallville, Keith Olbermann, The Hard Times of RJ Berger, The League, The Killing

Lots of pilot casting and pickups this week, but I typically avoid calling that "scheduling news" since all those shows are still a pretty long way from actually getting onto a schedule. So I managed to pick out five tidbits that will actually affect schedules! Here's your Scheduling Five-Spot for the week ending February 13, 2011:

Smallville - The CW has scheduled the two-hour series finale of long-running drama Smallville for May 13. It'll be interesting to see if any of the old fans come back for the end. (The net has already announced Michael Rosenbaum will reprise his role as Lex Luthor.) The show is averaging just a 1.11 in adults 18-49 this season, less than a third of the numbers it frequently achieved in the early seasons.

Keith Olbermann - One last update on cable news before I hopefully stop talking about it for awhile: the former 8pm mainstay on MSNBC is heading to little-known Current TV, a network launched in 2005 by former Vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt. To me, it's reminiscent of Dan Rather's move to HDNet in 2006 in that he as a person has much more name recognition than the network as a whole. They're targeting a spring launch for Olbermann's primetime show.

The Hard Times of RJ Berger - Jersey Shore has become the Super Bowl that you can schedule anywhere! A special Monday episode has already been used to launch Skins to reasonable raw numbers (though its ratings have tanked since then) and now the second season of their comedy The Hard Times of RJ Berger will get the Jersey lead-in. It'll air on March 24 out of the sure-to-be-highly-rated Jersey Shore finale. Most of Hard Times' eps scored from 0.3 to 0.5 in adults 18-49, but look for higher in the s2 premiere.

The League - FX renewed comedy The League for a third season. It's aired its first two seasons after It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and don't be surprised if ends up in that situation again. Most of its season 2 episodes scored around a 0.6 A18-49, typically holding around two-thirds of the Sunny demo.

The Killing - AMC's new drama The Killing will premiere on Sunday, April 3 at 9/8c. This is the first of AMC's recent original series (not counting miniseries like The Prisoner) to get a two-hour all-new premiere. Rubicon had two hours, but one of those had already been sneak previewed behind Breaking Bad, and the Walking Dead premiere was 90 minutes.


More Five-Spots in the Index.