We’ve arrived at Friday in our tour of the fall primetime schedule, and former head of NBC Scheduling Mitch Metcalf, former head of NBC Current Programming Ted Frank and I have our predictions ready. (Here are our predictions for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.) Friday is the least-watched (other than barely-programmed Saturday) and least dramatic night of the week, but there are still some changes and battles worth exploring. Note that our judgments on new series are based on the network trailers, which tend to accentuate all that’s potentially best about their shows.
8PM: ABC has moved THE NEIGHBORS into what had been the Malibu Country slot at 8:30PM after LAST MAN STANDING, and it’s one of the schedule’s more puzzling moves. Although technically Last Man and Neighbors are both “family” comedies, Neighbors is a quirky single camera piece that’s an odd fit with the extremely old-fashioned multicamera Tim Allen vehicle. We don’t think the hour will collapse for ABC, but we don’t see it picking up, either. UNDERCOVER BOSS and ABC’s comedies will continue to contest the hour’s lead, with DATELINE giving stability but no real punch to NBC. JUNIOR MASTERCHEF won’t make FOX a contender in the hour, but sometime in late fall BONES will take over that slot, and while its numbers will taper off from its Monday airings, it should put the network into the mix.
9PM: CBS’s shift of HAWAII 5-0 into this hour may give the network slightly more than it had with CSI NY, but not to any meaningful degree. SHARK TANK should continue to win 9PM convincingly for ABC, with NBC’s GRIMM (which didn’t get much from its post-Voice airings on Tuesdays this spring) behind it. FOX is sitting out the early fall with reruns, but later in the season will bring RAISING HOPE and the new ENLISTED here–neither is likely to have much impact.
10PM: NBC is following Grimm with the new DRACULA, which seems like a good fit. With the BLUE BLOODS viewership increasingly aged, this should be a very tight duel between all three networks for the 18-49 demo, and the winner week-to-week may depend on how sexy the night’s lead story on 20/20 happens to be.
We’ll finish up the schedule later today with a look at Sunday, giving you the full fall line-up to contemplate over Memorial Day Weekend.
Predictions for other nights:
MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SUNDAY
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