The Breakdown: Fox Thursday in 2021-22 (Joe Millionaire, Call Me Kat, Welcome to Flatch and more!)

It's time for a journey through the Fox Thursday schedule in 2021-22...


fall

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2020-21	Thursday Night Football				Thursday Night Football	Thursday Night Football	Thursday Night Football	585
	2020-21	585		585	585		585		585
2021-22	Thursday Night Football				Thursday Night Football	Thursday Night Football	Thursday Night Football	816 (+40%)
	2021-22	816 (+40%)		816 (+40%)	816 (+40%)		816 (+40%)		816 (+40%)
VsAvg	+358%		3.58423535197424	+384%		3.83779992455442	+371%
Rank	1/21		1/21	1/21		1/21	1/21

With the stadiums full once again following last year's COVID disruption, it was an awesome season for football in primetime. Fox's NFL package was up year-to-year in raw numbers, and so was NBC's on Sunday. (The college games on ABC/Fox grew even more.) Unfortunately for Fox, it was the last year of their TNF package, so buckle in for 90%+ declines next year?

winter

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2020-21	Hell's Kitchen		Hell's Kitchen	Call Me Kat	Last Man Standing	93
	2020-21	111		111	81		69	93
	2020-21							111	111	81	69	93
	2020-21			111	111		75		75	93
2021-22	Joe Millionaire: For Richer Or Poorer		Joe Millionaire: For Richer Or Poorer	Call Me Kat	Pivoting	56 (-40%)
	2021-22	64 (-42%)		63.9736830195511	55 (-31%)		40 (-41%)	55.8903478005069
	2021-22							63.9736830195511	63.9736830195511	55.3210988414193	40.2929263215062	55.8903478005069
	2021-22			63.9736830195511	63.9736830195511		48 (-36%)		48 (-36%)	55.8903478005069
VsAvg	-46%		-0.461120402480839	-42%		-0.41966699935124	-44%
Rank	17/21		17/21	19/21		19/21	19/21

Things quickly fell apart once football was gone. One-time megahit Joe Millionaire got resurrected 19 years after its first two seasons, but it was the season two ratings rather than the breakout season one ratings that showed up. That meant a bad lead-in for season two of Call Me Kat, and a bomb lead-out newbie called Pivoting at 9:30.

spring

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	Avg
2020-21	Hell's Kitchen		Hell's Kitchen	Last Man Standing	The Moodys	86
	2020-21	121		121	62		42	86
	2020-21							121	121	62	42	86
	2020-21			121	121		52		52	86
2021-22	MasterChef Junior		MasterChef Junior	Call Me Kat	Welcome to Flatch	62 (-28%)
	2021-22	76 (-37%)		76.2516405684287	62 (+1%)		33 (-22%)	61.9952953871741
	2021-22							76.2516405684287	76.2516405684287	62.4812607485518	32.9966396632875	61.9952953871741
	2021-22			76.2516405684287	76.2516405684287		48 (-8%)		48 (-8%)	61.9952953871741
VsAvg	-15%		-0.154969645009828	-27%		-0.27397792388774	-21%
Rank	12/21		12/21	15/21		15/21	13/21

Things perked up a bit in the first 90 minutes after DST, as MasterChef Junior returned from a long hiatus and helped improve Kat's ratings a touch. But the 9:30 half-hour somehow got even worse with another newbie, Welcome to Flatch.

Rating the Ratings

Name	Lo	Avg	Hi	y2y	Plus	Label	Plusy2y	Results
Joe Millionaire: For Richer Or Poorer	0.3	0.33	0.4		64	flop		detail
MasterChef Junior*	0.3	0.37	0.4		73	marginal		detail
Call Me Kat	0.2	0.35	1.2	-40%	69	flop	-25%	detail
Pivoting	0.2	0.24	0.6		48	flop		detail
Welcome to Flatch	0.1	0.17	0.2		32	flop		detail

Joe Millionaire: For Richer Or Poorer: It actually managed to do even worse than 2003's season two (71) in Plus, and less than a quarter of the breakout season one (274). This is a rough showing for a reality show at 8/7c on a weeknight in the winter. Grade: D.

MasterChef Junior: Despite the three-year hiatus, it came back pretty close in Plus to the last season in 2019 (78). It was certainly unimpressive compared with what Hell's Kitchen pulled off in the slot last year, but Joe Millionaire proved it could be worse. Grade: C+.

Call Me Kat: Both seasons had a football-inflated premiere, so that boosts the season average but ends up not having much of an impact on the y2y trend. Overall it had a lot less lead-in help than last season, as Joe Millionaire seemed to be a particularly bad fit, and it actually didn't look too terrible once the also weaker MasterChef Junior returned. Kind of an iffy renewal but not totally incomprehensible considering Fox has to fill additional space without football. Grade: C.

Pivoting: Being generous here because the show that succeeded it was so much worse. It'd be hard to argue this was any stronger than The Moodys a year ago. Grade: D-.

Welcome to Flatch: I mean... it's a 32 Plus on a weeknight. And... it got renewed. I don't know what else to say. I think this becomes the first newbie to get a Grade: F and get renewed, though there have been a handful of F returnees that got renewed. (The penultimate seasons of Glee and Quantico come to mind.) I guess you can say it wasn't really any weaker than last season's Let's Be Real?

The names in this last table link to the shows' War of 18-49 pages. Links with an asterisk(*) have been updated with the new info. Updates to younger shows will come later in the summer.

Previous Breakdowns for Fox Thursday: 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21

Here's the now updated Schedules Plus for Fox Thursday.