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| Fox desperately needs for "Gotham" to remain a hit |
As I wrote last week in my ABC column, I wanted to
wait a week to get some data on the new Fox and ABC shows because my
projections had them finishing virtually tied this year. And boy am I glad that I did. While ABC got pretty much nothing but good
news from its premiere week, Fox was mired in bad news. Utopia
and Red Band Society premiered very
poorly, the former also seeming to drag down returning comedies New Girl and The Mindy Project. Sleepy Hollow returned down quite a bit
as well. In fact, were it not for the
overall awfulness of Fox’s stable of shows right now, I would be predicting
that Utopia will be off the air
before November sweeps. As it stands,
however, Fox has to be in panic mode, and all signs point to a deep last place
finish in the final season ratings.
Replacing a schedule time-sink like The X-Factor is hard. As I thought I'd mentioned before but maybe haven't, Fox has had a terrible time developing new drama
hits* and losing a three-hour block of time in the fall requires finding three
new dramas to launch on top of their normal development slate – or at least two
new dramas and a reality show. Last
fall, Fox launched one new drama, Sleepy
Hollow, and was able to put the full weight of its promotional department
behind it, leading to a phenomenal debut and strong season-long ratings. Fox took the same tactic this year with Gotham and has gotten good results, with
the show debuting right around where Sleepy
Hollow was last year.
* Since the debut of Bones in 2005, Fox has only had one drama air more than 45 episodes: Fringe.
Unfortunately, the three shows Fox launched in place of The X-Factor have all pretty well
bombed. Utopia debuted early and was already a dead show walking when
premiere week hit, drawing fewer than two million viewers and a demo rating of
0.8. Red
Band Society and Gracepoint,
similarly, have debuted to disastrously low numbers that rate below pretty much
everything aired on the other three networks so far this season.
These are dire times for Fox. They’ve got basically one good night
(Sunday), and a couple of building blocks, but so much of the fall schedule is
in tatters. At this point, execs have to
just be praying that American Idol
returns up in the spring and looking to next year. The good news is that chief executive Kevin
Reilly was fired this summer, which means that the new programming execs can
blame any bad news on him. The bad news
is that the network has no obvious way out of this mess.
Let’s take a look at the night-by-night schedule (new shows
in Bold).
MONDAY –
8:00pm – Gotham
9:00pm – Sleepy Hollow
The good news is that Gotham
is, through two weeks, a legitimate hit, drawing more than eight million
viewers and a 3.2 rating for its premiere and dropping only about ten percent
to week two. Those are really good
numbers and worthy of celebrating. The
bad news is that Sleepy Hollow inexplicably
returned down fifteen percent from last year’s finale and fell a further
fifteen percent in its second week. It
seemed like Hollow was going to be a
building block for Fox moving forward, but it needs to stop dropping now. Granted, DVR ratings are typically very good
for Sleepy Hollow, but the networks
are still a little slow on turning those ratings in dollars. I should be clear that, even down thirty
percent from last year’s finale, it’s still the second-highest rated drama on
the network, behind only its lead-in, Gotham.
Tuesday –
8:00pm – Utopia
9:00pm – New Girl/The
Mindy Project
And here’s the problem with waiting a week or two to write
about the new fall season: Utopia,
after posting several weeks of mediocre ratings, has already been pulled from
the Tuesday night schedule. In its place,
Fox will air animated series repeats for two weeks, followed by the World
Series. In November, MasterChef Junior, originally slated to
air on Friday nights, will move to the slot.
It’s desperately needed, too, because not only did Utopia’s terrible ratings sink it, but they clearly had a
deleterious effect on the two comedies, whose ratings this year have been
fairly pathetic. Neither show is really
in danger, if only because Fox has little with which to replace them, but this
was a big hole for Fox last spring and it’s only growing bigger.
Wednesday –
8:00pm – Hell’s
Kitchen
9:00pm – Red Band Society
Hell’s Kitchen is
a perfectly serviceable show for Fox.
It’s not drawing big ratings, but it fills a hole and is flexible, able
to move around of needed, or premiere pretty much any time during the
season. Red Band Society, unfortunately, is another ratings hole, not as
deep as Utopia’s and with a little
bit of positivity thanks to a not insignificant DVR bump, but on any other
network it would likely be on the brink of cancelation or moving to
Fridays. On Fox in any other year,
people would be wondering if the show would make it to November sweeps. But on Fox in 2014, it’s almost certain to
air at least 13 episodes. I don’t see it
earning a renewal, however, because, again, there are new executives at Fox,
who have no investment in Kevin Reilly’s shows.
Add to that the fact that Red Band
Society is not produced by Fox and there’s no reason to invest in the show
long-term.
Thursday –
8:00pm – Bones
9:00pm – Gracepoint
The eternal stalwart, Bones
is now in its tenth season and feels like it could run twenty at Fox, so
long as the stars want to stick around.
The show has long been an underrated player at the network, piling up ratings
just above average while constantly being moved around the schedule (Bones has now aired regularly on every
night of the week but Saturday and Sunday).
It’s not a huge hit, but should stick around for as long as everybody
involved wants it to be.
Gracepoint is
something of an odd duck here. It’s a
remake (shot-for-shot at some points) of a British series that aired last year
on BBC America to fairly dismal (though not for BBC America) ratings. I’m not sure what audience, exactly, Fox
thinks is going to turn up for this show.
It’s a moody, atmospheric crime drama that doesn’t fit in well with the
procedurals of the world. It’s not that
it’s bad, it’s just, why not go watch Broadchurch,
its inspiration, instead? Gracepoint just feels unnecessary. Apparently, viewers agreed, with the series debuting
to fewer than five million viewers and a 1.2 rating.
Friday –
8:00pm – Masterchef
Junior
9:00pm – Utopia
As I mentioned earlier, Masterchef
Junior will soon be vacating this night to take Utopia’s place on Tuesday’s.
Utopia, in turn, will be moving
up to 8:00, followed by repeats. This
was always going to be a rough night, though at least with Masterchef Junior it would have competitive for an hour. Now, though, it seems Fox is content to just
put anything on.
Sunday –
8:00pm – The Simpsons/Brooklyn
Nine-Nine
9:00pm – Family Guy/Mulaney
For the first time in a decade, Fox is not scheduling a
night full of live-action comedies in the fall.
This is clearly a vote of confidence in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which won a Golden Globe last January, but
struggled in the ratings on Tuesday nights.
It will have a much better launching pad this fall and might be able to
turn into a hit, if it can avoid being a ratings dip between the two animated
series. Mulaney is clearly the runt of the comedy litter, shuffled off to
the anchor slot on Sunday nights, but Fox has already ordered and produced a
lot of episodes, so expect it to continue airing, even if its moved to another
night.
This will not be a good year for Fox. They were always going to regression in the
ratings if only by virtue of losing the Super Bowl and the NFC Championship
Game. But having to replace The X-Factor and facing year-to-year
drops for many of its returning shows means the former juggernaut, who won nine
straight seasons during American Idol’s apex, will likely finish last only
three years removed from its last championship.
Tyler Williams is a
professional librarian and an amateur television critic. You can reach him at TyTalksTV AT gmail DOT
com or on Twitter @TyTalksTV.
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