| Shark Tank This Season | Friday Success Tryouts |
| 1.86 average on Friday this season 2.3 -> 2.1 -> 1.9 in three Friday 9/8c eps | 2.0 -> 2.1 -> 1.6 -> 2.1 -- Blue Bloods, 1/19/11 thru 2/9/11 (lead-ins: 2.9 -> 3.2 -> 2.3 -> 3.6) (had averaged ~1.7 in recent Friday eps) 1.6 -- Grimm, 12/8/11 (had averaged ~1.6) |
One-off special episodes always seem to disappoint, but one might think a disposable unscripted show could benefit more from casual viewers in a better situation than a Blue Bloods or a Grimm; after all, unscripted shows always do much better after the Super Bowl. But I have to wonder: how much of a better situation is this, really? It faces the top unscripted show on TV, The Voice, along with the stoutest of the holiday specials, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which should actually do even better than CBS' strong usual occupant NCIS. And it's not like any of ABC's other Tuesday shows are bringing viewers to the night. I'm rooting for a breakthrough, but I'm guessing this will merely fall about in line with the last couple Friday 9:00 episodes.
Over/Under: 1.95.
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9 comments:
As i have been saying for weeks, it should have been scheduled at 9p where it could have beaten NBC and Fox Comedies and picked up some Voice viewers, instead of competing for them. Wish they would have just scheduled Holiday specials at 8 and aired Shark Tank at 9 tonight.
Similarly, I keep saying ABC has a huge opportunity this coming Jan with The Voice vacating for 3 months and there being no strong 10pm drama (Justified is no SoA and Broadcast doesn't produce a drama on Tue at 10 that gets a 2.0; Vegas is a bomb). I think they have an opportunity to attack Tue with a schedule like this:
The Taste/Shark Tank/Zero Hour. Would be a huge missed opportunity to leave those comedies there as much as I love Happy Endings.
Can someone please take ABC's scheduling department out to the woodshed? It's not like this one-off is going to hurt Shark Tank's long-term prospects (unlike the winter seasons of Wipeout or the multi-night extravaganza that was Millionaire), but if they wanted to increase its visibility and possibly boost its Friday ratings, then it should be an hour later at 9. As much as I love Happy Endings & Don't Trust the B, the latter's as good as gone and the former only lives if another network agrees to share/shoulder the costs. Knowing that, I would have swapped the hours to give Shark Tank a better chance.
Because Christmas specials have been hot this year and The Voice will take the rest of the demo oxygen, I'm saying under and hope that I'm wrong.
Under. I agree with the room that airing this at 8 makes no sense. I would have loved to have seen this paired up with the Charlie Brown special somehow. Now, Shark Tank is going to be competing with Rudolph for viewers, and I think we all know who's losing that match-up.
In re: Blue Bloods: Size of the lead-in indeed, seeing as that 1.6 actually tied an overall series low at the time.
And I think listing the Grimm results from the late-summer tryout earlier this year would be worthwhile to list, too, just to underscore how infrequently this works.
As for Shark Tank, I think I'll go under. But I think it will be close.
Good point on Grimm, I guess I just didn't feel like airing in the middle of the low-viewed summer after Stars Earn Stripes was much of an "upgrade" or much of a "tryout." Woulda been cool to see its results had NBC gone ahead with airing it after The Voice premiere on Sept. 10.
Would love to see it crack a 2.0 but yeah, ABC likely messed up by scheduling it a hour too early.
Under
Under, a 1.9
Over. No reason for it to perform less good on Tuesday than on Friday.
As for whining about 8PM slot:
1. ABC wants to test if Shark Tank would serve as better lead-in to comedies than painfully old-skewing DWTS (near 80%). Their goal here is not to maximize Shark's ratings.
2. Though broadcast is less competitive at Tuesday 9PM than 8PM, let's not forget about Storage Wars, Hardcore Pawn, Teen Mom, Rizzoli & Isles and some more cable shows at 9PM with virtually no cable competition at 8PM.
I will actually go lower at 1.7. I think the competition will negate any benefit of new eyeballs.
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