ABC: Always Bold Choices
ABC knows how to make a fall schedule. The network has dissected nearly every night of the week in an attempt to use its powerful hit dramas as anchors on their respective nights. The biggest more for ABC is the shift of their number one show, “Grey’s Anatomy” to Thursday nights where it will take on “CSI” and NBC’s new “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.” Sliding in after “Grey’s” will be “Six Degrees” from J.J. Abrams (”Lost,” “Mission: Impossible 3″). Also on the night ABC will take on NBC with a a pair of new comedies in the opening hour. Thursday is the most lucrative night of TV because movie studios want to promote their new Friday openings. NBC used to make bank on Thursdays, but now CBS takes in the lucre.
Sundays will stay intact for the most part with the new dramedy “Brothers and Sisters” with Calista Flockhart (”Ally Mcbeal”) and Rachel Griffiths (”Six Feet Under”). The nauseating reality show “Dancing with the Stars” lands on Tuesdays leading into another new dual block of comedies. The “Dancing” results show will air Wednesdays before “Lost.” Book-ending Wednesday night will be “The Nine,” about lives that intertwined after a bank robbery. ABC also announced that “Lost would air with fewer gaps between new episodes. Starting in October ABC will air seven new episodes of “Lost” followed by a winter hiatus. Then the show will return in late January or February and run straight through the rest of the season. Thank God.
ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson was quoted in Variety, “It’s a more expensive schedule, but I think the audience is more demanding now. The audience has so much more choice, we have to work more originals into our schedule…It’s something we’re charged with doing.” ABC’s gamble paid off the the launch of “Lost,” “Housewives,” and “Grey’s”. Of the broadcast networks, ABC has the most upscale audience and that is what advertisers love.
NBC might want to reconsider its Thursday night plans now or ABC could very well tap the final nail in their coffin.
Read about ABC’s new shows.
Read about NBC’s new shows.
Below is ABC’s Fall Sked:
ABC’s Fall Schedule
(new shows are in bold CAPS)
[all times Eastern]
MONDAY
8:00 “Wife Swap”
9:00 “The Bachelor”/”Supernanny”
10:00 “What About Brian”
TUESDAY
8:00 “Dancing with the Stars” /“SET FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE” (midseason)
9:00 “LET’S ROB. . .”
9:30 “HELP ME HELP YOU”
10:00 “Boston Legal”
WEDNESDAY
8:00 “Dancing with the Stars” /”George Lopez”/”According to Jim”
9:00 “Lost”
10:00 “THE NINE”
THURSDAY
8:00 “BIG DAY”
8:30 “NOTES FROM THE UNDERBELLY”
9:00 “Grey’s Anatomy”
10:00 “SIX DEGREES”
FRIDAY
8:00 “BETTY THE UGLY”
9:00 “MEN IN TREES”
10:00 “20/20″
SATURDAY
8:00 “ABC Saturday Night College Football”
SUNDAY
7:00 “America’s Funniest Home Videos”
8:00 “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”
9:00 “Desperate Housewives”
10:00 “BROTHERS & SISTERS”