How Good Shows are Being Killed by Bad Programming Choices
Unlike the 8 o’clock timeslot which seems to allow for the success of multiple primetime TV shows, the 10 o’clock timeslot on Tuesday nights seems to be a “death slot” – meaning it is mutual-assured-destruction (M.A.D.) for just about any TV show unlucky enough to be broadcast at that time.
Saturday nights are generally known as “dead” TV nights and primetime TV series have not been programmed on Saturday nights since the late 1990’s. Alas, the weekend curse seems to have spread to Friday nights, and now it is notoriously known as a “TV show killer” night. Only shows sent to certain death are broadcast on Friday nights. Good examples are “Smallville,” “Supernatural” and “Medium” which are all in the midst of what is thought to be their final seasons. Fridays are also good for shows with an uncertain fan-base such as “The Good Guys” – it allows it time to develop an audience kind of under the radar. Fridays also used to be known as “sci-fi” Fridays which changed to Syfy Fridays after the network changed its name.
However, in an attempt to capitalize on one of the most sought-after nights in television, programmers and studios have been jostling to find a way to get their most prized TV shows put on the primetime schedule for Tuesday nights.
This has led to Tuesday nights being jam-packed with way too many competing shows. While the 8 o’clock timeslot seems to be holding its own and able to provide ample audiences for its shows (“NCIS” is pulling in 20 million viewers, “Glee” is getting 12 million viewers and “No Ordinary Family” is drawing 7 million viewers), the 10 o’clock hour is just hemorrhaging viewers.
Sure “The Good Wife” averages 12 million viewers, but even it has dipped from its 13.7 average. Shows like “Parenthood” and “Detroit 1-8-7” are treading water. “Detroit 1-8-7” started at 9.7 million and dropped to 8.4 million viewers. Unfortunately, “Parenthood” lost nearly half its audience in its second season dropping from 8 million to only 4.6 million viewers.
The more alarming drops come from the smaller networks. Syfy and USA Network have dabbled with moving their best shows onto Tuesday nights. Syfy moved both “Stargate Universe” and “Caprica” from Fridays to Tuesdays. USA Network moved “White Collar” to Tuesdays and launched its new series “Covert Affairs” on Tuesdays as well. It was hard enough during the summer months as shows like “Warehouse 13” faced off against “White Collar.” But now that the fall season is in full swing, to have such shows as “Caprica” up against “The Good Wife,” “Parenthood,” and “Detroit 1-8-7” is an unfair competition.
Watching “Stargate Universe” compete with “NCIS: Los Angeles” is painful enough. Both are seeking to draw the adrenaline-junkie male audience and is splitting their key demograph. It is enough to make you wonder if programmers are even thinking about how the competition may erode their core fan base. Based on programming decisions like this one, it feels doubtful.
So how are shows that pull in a modest 1.5 million viewers supposed to compete with shows that pull in 8 to 10 times that number of viewers? Syfy would have you believe that they are confident that their devoted fan bases would follow their shows. Yet, television viewing is a fickle thing. Fans who loved watching such dark sci-fi shows on Friday nights are not as likely to watch on Tuesday nights. Why? Because they are too dark. It is only AFTER one has survived the brutal work week that one can let down their guard and enjoy such intense sci-fi dramas. What viewers want on Tuesday nights versus Friday nights is vastly different. Shows like “White Collar” and “Warehouse 13” successfully made the transition to Tuesday nights because they were light-hearted fun fare. But taking darker dramas and moving them earlier in the week does not always work.
One good example of this, prior to Syfy’s strategic move to Tuesdays with its biggest sci-fi shows, is “Justified.” FX’s plan to launch the new series starring Timothy Olyphant as a renegade U.S. Marshall was well-chosen. They launched their show mid-season and did not seek to compete with any of the 10 o’clock shows on Tuesdays. Its main competition was “The Good Wife” which caters more to a female audience. So “Justified” was carefully placed to draw the male audience and did just fine.
So why has the move of “Stargate Universe” and “Caprica” been so disastrous? As noted above, pitting “Stargate Universe” against “NCIS: Los Angeles” was not well-thought out as they are competing for the same male audience in the same timeslot.
As for “Caprica,” it was always more of wild-card. It had enough sci-fi to draw the male viewers, but never enough action to really keep them. Its slow-paced, laborious study of a mad-scientist seeking to create his Frankenstein who tangles with a notorious criminal element and skirts shy of a terrorist organization did not really amount to a fast-paced, thrilling adventure ride. It was a “thinking” series without a clear-cut hero. Its ambiguity made it hard to sell and draw viewers — let alone sustain them.
Shows like “Stargate Universe” and “Caprica” are not really Tuesday night shows. They require too much introspective thought and the viewers’ patience with deep, complex serialized stories. Those kinds of stories are better told when a viewer is not stressing about the remaining three days of the work week and debating whether they would be better off recording these shows for viewing at their leisure — like a Friday or Saturday night.
Tuesday nights are good nights for less serialized shows that are easy to jump in and out of. For example, “Glee” or “No Ordinary Family” or “Raising Hope.” All off these shows have serialized elements, but offer easy to follow, light-weight B-stories with and an A-story that wraps up neatly each episode. These are the “feel good” shows. Viewers feel good watching them and do not stress that they may be missing something if they are cooking dinner or doing homework while watching TV.
Finally, while 10 o’clock shows are allowed to be more serialized and darker, that is only if the audience is willing to tolerate it. Women will tune into “The Good Wife” because they want to see how the love triangle between Alicia Florrick, Peter Florrick and Will Gardner is progressing and if there are any more hints about Kalinda. The show offers an easy to follow legal dilemma each episode with tantalizing bits about the ongoing romantic relationships and clues to the various office mysteries. It is like following the breadcrumbs to the Gingerbread house. Easy, charming and not too stressful. “Justified” offers a similar hook with a bit of a love triangle, easy to follow law cases and lots of juicy clues. Then “Detroit 1-8-7” is simply capitalizing on the successful formula created by all the “CSI” and “Law & Order” knock-offs.
But moving well-establish dark, complex sci-fi shows to Tuesday nights, that’s just asking to invoke the curse of the Tuesday Night Death Slot. As already seen, “Caprica” did not survive the move to Tuesdays and was killed off quickly. It still remains to be seen if “Stargate Universe” can hold its own. It still is not pulling in the same number of viewers that it drew on Friday nights, but perhaps the programming gods will (a) move it safely out of harm’s way, or (b) grant it a reprieve understanding the handicap they placed on it.
As for shows like “Parenthood” which is hanging on by a mere thread due to its significant loss of viewers, it is time to pray for a last minute stay of execution. It is caught squarely in the cross-hairs of the Tuesday Night death slot curse.
It is time for network programmers to realize that what viewers want on one night of the week, will not translate to another night of the week. Would “Grey’s Anatomy” draw as many viewers if it were on Tuesdays at 10 o’clock? Probably not. It would be competing for the same audience as “The Good Wife” and both would fall as casualties of mutually-assured-destruction.
So why are schedulers moving or scheduling their best shows up against shows that will nearly guarantee either their show being cut-down by immediate viewer erosion? Are they only seeing the dollar signs of a more lucrative night of advertising? Surely Tuesday ads sell higher than Friday night ads. In which case, they are looking at the wrong piece of the programming puzzle. It is not about higher advertising dollars, but whether or not their key show will be killed off in the process. For what does a network gain if they make an extra million, but lose a multi-million dollar generating show?
Greed never wins out if it kills the golden goose. Let us not see more worthy television shows fall prey to the Tuesday Night Death Slot.
Related article: http://insideblip.com/node/505/tv-looking-glass-the-tuesday-night-death-slot.html
I think you have a point about the type of show that thrives on a Tuesday night vs. a Friday night. I know that STARGATE UNIVERSE executive producer Joseph Mallozzi was praising the move by suggesting that more people are watching TV overall on a Tuesday, thus there are more potential viewers. But it doesn’t appear that the larger viewing pool is connecting with SGU. Which is a shame, because I absolutely love that show.
As for poor CAPRICA… well, RIP. I enjoyed that show as well, but I think it was done in by its tone, which is radically different from parent series BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.