JustTV Talk: September 18, 2002 |
JustTV Talk: September 18, 2002 |
| JustTV | What
The Networks Learned This Summer
Yes, overall ratings are still generally down over last summer. But looking beyond that misnomer, almost all the network learned something this summer, and will look to fix things for next summer. Sprinking in the next few editions of TV Talk, I'll examine what the networks learned, and if it did them any good.
2. Saturday is year round solid: During the regular season, Fox's Saturday night slate of "Cops" and "Americas Most Wanted" is solid, if not below Fox's regular average. But during the summer, unlike the rest of Fox's schedule, Saturday does not drop significantly in the ratings. In fact, for most of the summer, Saturday has been one of Fox's strongest night's, eclipsing regular season powerhouses Sunday and Monday. 3. Don't repeat your dramas: Fox's dramas have never repeated well, but this summer the results were paticularly horrid. Repeats of the core dramas "Dark Angel" "Boston Public" "Ally McBeal" and "The X-Files" struggled to break even 3.0mil viewers on Monday and Fridays, with "Public" doing the best (rather, less horrible) with a summer average of only 3.6mil viewers. Fortunately for the network, it decided not to repeat "24," which averaged about 4.0mil viewers during the regular season. 4. If you cancel, don't burn it off:
Burn it outright. With a few episodes of regular season cancelled series
"Titus" and "Greg The Bunny" still in the can, Fox decided to burn them
off over the summer. If it didn't draw in the winter, why would it draw
in the summer? Instead of viewers accepting some new programming, only
about 3 million bothered to watch. So when you inevitably cancel "The Grubbs,"
throw the remaining episodes in the fire, please.
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1."American
Idol" is king: Though NBC likes
to talk up "Dog Eat Dog" and "Meet My Folks" are the biggest hits of the
summer, "American Idol" blows them all away in terms of interest and pure
ratings. More than 20 million people watched on September 3rd when the
winner was crowned, making it the biggest summer since "Survivor," though
it ranked nowhere near CBS's smash. The good news: Fox is bringing "Idol"
back. The bad? Not during the summer, but during the regular season, when
competition will be tougher.