The Question, Tuesday 1/29/13: Will Scheduling Changes Be Raising New Girl's Ratings?

Perhaps the ugliest story of the 2012-13 season in entertainment programming has been the Fox Tuesday disaster, with centerpiece New Girl taking a "sophomore bounce" of negative 36 percent. How much of that is on the dud newbies with which New Girl is surrounded, and how much of it is on the "niche-ness" of New Girl itself? Opinions vary. But we'll get some potential insight tonight, as the yanking of Ben and Kate (replacing it with a second Raising Hope original) means the show could well have its best lead-in since premiere week. Will scheduling changes be "raising" New Girl's ratings? That's The Question for Tuesday, January 29, 2013.

New Girl In Recent Weeks	Raising Hope In Recent Weeks
2.1 (Tuesday 1/8/13, 1.2 B&K lead-in) 1.9 (Tuesday 1/15/13, 1.1 B&K) 2.2 (Tuesday 1/22/13, 1.2 B&K)	1.7 (Tuesday 1/8/13) 1.6 (Tuesday 1/15/13) 1.7 (Tuesday 1/22/13)

If Raising Hope does at 8:30 what it's been doing at 8:00, that should be worth a solid tenth of a point for New Girl. Also, Fox has given this Tuesday a relatively strong promo push from what I've seen, with a wedding on Raising Hope and "the kiss" on New Girl this week. But I'm keeping expectations tempered since last week's New Girl was a higher-end performance anyway, and the competition is tougher this week with CBS is back in originals. While ABC will be weaker at 9:00 with Happy Endings, that show likely has more crossover with New Girl than did last week's The Taste.

New Girl Over/Under: 2.35.

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