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Friday Night Death Slot: Difference between revisions
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It also has to do with the concept of vertical integration, where television networks who used to not care about whatever movies were playing at theaters during the weekend now must advertise those films on Thursday nights because they're now owned by large media companies with film studios. All six major American networks have studio relationships;
* [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] - Owned by [[Disney]]
* [[CBS]] - Controlled by National Amusements, which also controls Paramount Pictures, and now has their own studio in CBS Films. Since CBS spun off Viacom in 2006, however, they don't hew to the FNDS concept as closely as the other three networks
* [[The CW]] - Gets it both ways; two owners, two different studios. CBS owns 50%, while Warner Brothers has the other half
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The [[Dump Months]] are the cinematic version of this trope.
Some networks and shows manage to find a surprising amount of success on Fridays, ranging from [[CBS]]'s ''[[Ghost Whisperer]]'' to [[NBC]]'s successful move of ''[[Las Vegas]]'' from Monday nights. ''GW'' is somewhat family-friendly and ''Vegas'' had a large, dependable fanbase, a mostly comedic style, and a lot of celebrity guest appearances along with the preexisting tendency to re-air it on Fridays anyway, so these aren't all ''that'' surprising, but fans of the shows certainly breathed a sigh of relief when they survived to be renewed. In addition, [[CBS]] in its history had numerous series that got great ratings for Friday, the lineup of ''[[The Incredible Hulk]]'', ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'' and ''[[Dallas]]'' in the late 1970s and early 1980s are the major example. (Meanwhile, Saturday nights, which is an even ''more'' iffy time for TV programming at present, were practically CBS's bread and butter in the '70s, thanks to a lineup that included shows like ''[[All in The Family]]'', ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|M*A*S*H]]'', ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]'', ''[[The Bob Newhart Show]]'', and ''The Carol Burnett Show''.) [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]'s ''TGIF'' block in [[The Nineties]], with such shows as ''[[Family Matters]]'', ''[[Boy Meets World]]'', and ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'', was perhaps the most spectacular subversion of this, as it not only turned the entirety of Friday night into a moneymaker for the network, but also one of its few success stories in what was otherwise a bad decade for the network.
More common and less surprising is the fact that Friday lineups do much better on cable. Such as [[Adult Swim]]'s Friday lineup, [[USA Network]]'s airing of ''[[Monk]]'' and ''[[Psych]]'' on Fridays, or more impressively, [[Sci Fi]] Channel's [[Sci Fi]] Friday lineup, which they claim is one of their "biggest" nights as far as ratings go; both the ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' and ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' TV series met with great success in this lineup, as did the imported new ''[[Doctor Who]]'' series, the [[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|2004 version of ''Battlestar Galactica'']], and even the surprisingly successful re-airing of ''[[Firefly]]'' in 2005, which managed to be their second-highest rated series during [[November Sweeps]] of that year, despite its easy availability on DVD. (That is, it ''was'' their biggest night, before they separated ''SG-1'' and ''Galactica'', canceled the former, moved the latter to Sundays, pretty much gave ''[[Doctor Who]]'' away to [[The BBC|BBC America]], and generally built up more animosity towards the channel than had existed towards them after they canceled ''[[Farscape]]''. And then back again, since ''[[Eureka]]'' is{{when}} their most-watched show.)
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{{examples}}
* The [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] [[Game Show]] ''[[The Name's the Same]]'' held a 7:30 Monday slot since it was [[Uncanceled]] in October 1954. It moved on June 28, 1955 (after its ''third'' host change in less than a year) to Tuesdays at 10:00, then on September 16 shifted to Fridays at 10:00. The series was canned on October 7, after just '''four''' episodes at that slot.
* Though a number of factors combined to kill it in just 14 episodes (only 11 of which were ever actually aired, in the wrong order), part of the reason ''Firefly'' got canceled by Fox was because it was in the 8 PM (Eastern) Friday slot, failing to attract the more adult audience at which it was aimed and being constantly preempted by sports broadcasts to boot. Its success in the 7 PM Friday slot on cable years later is usually considered ironic. Creator [[Joss Whedon]] now reportedly refuses to work with the network ever again precisely because of how badly they burned him with ''Firefly''. Of course, producer Tim Minear didn't even ''allegedly'' vow such a thing, but in light of other shows of his that have aired on the network including the next listing, probably should have.
** Eliza Dushku, however, had a contract with Fox, and so she brought Joss Whedon back to Fox for ''[[Dollhouse]]'', which aired 2009-2010 on Fridays. Despite poor ratings, Fox renewed this for a second season (still on Friday), although it was canceled fairly early in its second run due to the already low ratings declining further.
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* As of Season 2 in September, ''[[Nikita (TV series)|Nikita]]'' will be in this slot on The CW. It seems to have done well for itself regardless of poor ratings last season, having had a larger episode order and huge fanbase. However, some fans view it as a death sentence.
* Inverted with ''[[Transformers Prime]]''. The show started its run in the death slot, but was taken out of it and moved to Saturdays. It seems to be thriving now.
* The second season of [[The Mole (TV series)|The Mole]] not only got the '''Friday Night Death Slot''', it aired only ''two weeks after 9/11'', a time when most people were decidedly not in the mood to watch a cutthroat reality show. Three episodes of bad ratings later, the show was put on hiatus by [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]], and didn't re-air until the following summer where it competed in its time slot against the first season of [[American Idol]]. Only due to good word of mouth and a loyal fan base was the show not completely crushed.
* ''[[Extreme Makeover: Home Edition]]'', after eight seasons was moved to Fridays, and was canceled at its next season finale.
* ''[[A.N.T. Farm]]'' has aired every new episode on a Friday including the pilot. As a result still became popular and pulled in good enough ratings to be renewed. However, all first-run television series targeted at preteens and young teenagers (whether they have a [[Periphery Demographic]] like ''iCarly'' or not), will generally receive better ratings on Friday or Saturday nights due to the lowered ratings standards for cable television and the fact that such shows target a younger audience than broadcast network shows, that would most likely be too young to date/go spend time with friends outside the home by themselves. Therefore the type of ratings that a tween series like this gets in a first-run airing would often get a series cancelled/put it in danger of cancellation on network television than it would on cable.
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