Wednesday Shootout

Filed in archive Business Trends on September 11, 2007

Do any of these new shows appeal to you?

Fox has a show called "Kitchen Nightmares" which is a reality show starring the demanding chef Gordon Ramsay, the star of another hit reality show on Fox.

ABC has "Private Practice" which is a spinoff of that network's breakout medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" and aimed at the network's core upscale female audience.

CBS is overhauling "Criminal Minds," replacing the show's star, Mandy Patinkin, with a new actor, Joe Mantegna.

NBC Universal, a subsidiary of General Electric Co., has "bionic woman," a sci-fi drama in the mold of last year's "Heroes" and targeted at the same audience of young men.

The CW, co-owned by CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc., has "Gossip Girl," a hair-pulling high-school soap opera aimed at young women.

I am asking because they are all scheduled to go head-to-head Wednesday at 9:00pm, making a dramatic five-way race for viewers' attention starting next week. This time slot features more freshman shows than any other time period.

Thursday night traditionally gets all the glory in broadcast TV. That's when the networks schedule their heaviest hitters.

"It's a lot of good material in one slot, and it is a little daunting," said Mike Darnell, the executive vice president of alternative programming for Fox. "You assume by the time you're four weeks in, the good ones really exist there, and the ones that aren't good will have started to die."
With the exception of Fox, all the networks say they scheduled Wednesday night without paying much attention to the competition.

But is it realistic to even think about shows competing against each other? I mean, people have so many options in the vast TV landscape that .. . ABC has scheduled three new shows for Wednesday, a rarity in television, where despite digital video recorders and TiVo machines, networks still bank on strong lead-ins from established shows.

This year's crop of shows, however, won't have long to prove themselves. In three months, Fox's "American Idol" and ABC's "Lost" come off break and are likely to return to Wednesdays.