I stumbled across a news story about Leno vs. O'Brien and it made me sit up and take notice of the times these 'late show' style programmes are on.

My question is, do folks in the US actually stay up until 2AM to watch these shows? By contrast in the UK the only thing on at that time of night is either a show of limited appeal, a repeat of a prime time show with in vision signing for the deaf or possibly a film. From reading the news item, it seems the shows are really popular. Do people in the US need less sleep? Or do you simply record it and watch it the day after. I'd never be able to get up for work if I was watching TV until 2AM.

What show is on at 2:00 am ? Isn't Conan on at 11:00 PM ?

The 2AM stuff is the less valued programming by the network to be sure. There are a lot of people in the US with varying work schedules, so it's completely up in the air in terms of who's watching. At least if you're not the folks at Neilson.

The most valuable post-prime time "talk show" window is 11:30pm to 12:30am. These programs are on after the local news which goes from 11-11:30 or 11:35.

Viewership is probably pretty high but obviously not as high as during the 8pm-11pm prime time block. That's why the programs are talk shows which are comparatively cheap to produce versus sitcoms and 1-hour scripted shows. They're filmed in the afternoons, so the hosts, guests and live-audiences don't actually need to stay up.

This whole cock-up is because NBC have been managed by sub-human cretins for years who obviously don't know much about selecting, showing and keeping ratings-winning programming.

Well, there's a first and second tier (my terminology) of late-night shows. Letterman's show (The Late Show) and The Tonight Show, currently being fought over by Leno and O'Brien, are the first-tier shows. They start at 11:35PM (on the East and West coasts) and last until 12:30AM. Then there's a second-tier of shows that start at 12:30AM and run until 1:30AM. These tend to be geared at people who are likely to be up late: namely, college students. They tend to be more offbeat and subversive in comparison to the more conservative 11:35 shows. NBC actually has a third program that runs from 1:30 to 2:30.

It's notable that Letterman's show was the 12:30-1:30AM show after The Tonight Show when Johnny Carson was the host there. When he got passed over by NBC for the hosting duties, he defected to CBS in direct competition with his former lead-in show. Conan was then hired by NBC to run Letterman's old show. Leno did not have a late, late, show; he was the regular "guest host" during the end of Carson's stint on The Tonight Show. Carson had entered into a phase of pre-retirement and had Leno do one show a week.

Have you seen how much coffee they drink?

Peter

The news article mentioned Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Last Call with Carson Daly as being on after Conan. Wikipedia tells me that Last Call starts at 1:36AM Eastern.

Bitt, you're thinking of SNL which is 1 hour and 30 minutes long.

Yeah, I went back and fixed my times.

I believe the posting population of this BBS is likely greater than the viewership of the Carson Daly show and perhaps 80% of the Jimmy Fallon show.

Fallon routinely has as guest some dude from the Engadget site. Does that sound like programming for a wide audience? They're basically filler, and likely just showing a movie would probably be a wiser idea.

This whole mess with NBC wanting to bump shows, as Bitt mentions, juxtaposes beautifully with their passing over of Letterman for the Tonight Show back in 1992. Putting Leno on every night at 10pm was the rough equivalent of just shutting down their broadcast from 10-11. Even Fox affiliates with syndicated programming (Seinfeld, etc..) probably had higher viewership.

Didn't they have Conan on the tonight show because Leno wanted to retire ? He must have got board fast.

I'll stick with The Golden Girls and skip them all.

It's unclear to me whether Leno wanted to "retire" or if NBC asked him to. There's some indication that NBC asked him to, in order to hang onto Conan by promising him The Tonight Show in five years' time, and they now want Leno back because Leno's primetime show is performing poorly and Conan is performing poorly in comparison to when Leno was on.

I fear that this may be the end of a fifty-five year dynasty. I can't imagine any viewer being pleased with any outcome at this point.

Axing Leno's show and not giving him a new one would set everything straight again. Simple.

If Leno had wanted to retire, why would NBC give him a new show with a 10pm time slot? Every night of the week. I don't buy the retirement angle. How could any exec with even a pea-sized brain go for that idea? 4 bloody hours of talk-show bullshit a night? What were they smoking? I mean, they'd do better with Homeless Fight Club or Nanny Paratroopers or something.

Leno is just unfunny. Maybe funny to look at for a second, but I don't think it matters who writes for him, it's just boring. Damn, Ellen is more entertaining.

Yeah, as a Conan fan, I'm pretty pissed about all this. I don't care if Leno was pressured to move on, he should have been, and it was clear to everyone with a brain that his 10pm show would be a ratings disaster. I think his highest ratings were for that show he had Kanye on right after the whole Taylor Swift thing where Leno asked him if his dead mother would have been proud of him. Nice. Conan had a super hot show, and was getting lots of offers to do other things, but he, like most hosts, coveted the Tonight Show. Now I sort of wish he could have done something more interesting, because he hasn't been given a chance to make the Tonight Show his, as much as he's been made to fit the mold of the Tonight Show.

Our comedy tastes meet when it comes to Leno, Bruno. I've never once found him funny. I do find it interesting, though, that I've heard several comics give their take on the situation, and they all talk about how funny Leno used to be in the 80's.

The whole situation is certainly the fault of the execs at NBC (as Letterman has had so much fun pointing out this week, as he has a bit of an axe to grind with them). They've given Conan almost zero time to let him find his audience, and now they're cowtowing to Leno and moving the entire schedule around for him. I don't know if anyone mentioned it yet, but what NBC wanted to do was to give Leno an 11:35-midnight show, then have the Tonight Show come on at midnight and run to 1am, pushing everyone back a half hour. Conan pointed out, of course, that this would mean that the Tonight Show was actually airing...tomorrow. This seemed to be the last straw, and he released this excellent statement on the situation, which everyone seems to be considering his resignation from the show.

I want to defend the Fallon show for a moment, though. I was skeptical he could pull it off at first, but I must say that his show is actually quite good. He has some funny bits, like where he plays various ridiculous songs as Neil Young. And his band, the Roots, is the most interesting in late night. And yeah, I'm super excited that he frequently has Josh Topolsky, editor of Engadget, on the show. He's essentially the Jack Hannah of gadgets.

Lastly, nobody, thank God, watches Carson Daly. Nobody.

Yeah, true. I meant things that are going to happen, though. I feel pretty certain that all of this is being driven by NBC brass, and if they haven't given up by now with all the backlash, they aren't going to.


I'd argue that Leno in the context of The Tonight Show is unfunny. He really was a great standup back in the 80s. Part of the problem is that he insisted on having a very small writing staff on the show, and he very much geared his performance at the show's older audience, which frequently made him come off as very reactionary. When he's being Jay, as opposed to being the host of The Tonight Show, he becomes much funnier. Honestly, I never felt like he settled into the show. It always felt like he was guest-hosting for Carson for 17 years. I think he had a concept of what the show was, and it was never him.

That said, and I know I'm a dork for saying this, I think the Headlines segment is hilarious.

I agree with the past few posts. I even like Jimmy Fallon in other things, I just don't see much of a point to his show. But again, I'm not a fan of this show format anyway. I used to watch Letterman back on his original show and then again when he moved to CBS, but it's been a long time since I've watched any of these from start to end.

If I'm staying up until 1am it's going to be doing something else. If it's watching TV it's catching something from the PVR recorded earlier or a movie.

Maybe NBC can try a Heroes spin-off 5 nights per week at 10pm. Something originally made for the web. Groan.

Like I said in my post, that's what all the comics have been saying, though I wasn't really watching standup at my age back then


That's what I was worried about with Conan, and it became somewhat true. All of a sudden all his jokes just seemed toothless and less irreverent/zany. Someone watered down my Conan, and I didn't like it! Plus, he had to leave the masturbating bear behind

[qoute]That said, and I know I'm a dork for saying this, I think the Headlines segment is hilarious.[/quote]
Though I'm sure you know that that segment could be done by anyone and had nothing to do with his humor.

That's the thing for me. We record Conan and have the Tivo keep the 5 most recent episodes (for when someone says "did you see that thing on Conan?"), but I rarely watch it. Hell, you can see the list of TV I have to watch in the other thread. I don't have time to watch talk shows!

I was always solidly on the Letterman side of the old wars, though I found there was only so much of him I could take.

Still, I can't help but be amazed that there is so much comedy on between 11 and 1 every single night. Between Letterman, Conan, Stewart, and Colbert, you always have something. I usually take that for granted!

Of course everything should be evaluated in context. For instance, I think Andy Richter is one funny mofo, but you wouldn't necessarily know that from watching some random 5 minute clip of the new Tonight Show.

Here's a better formatting of my comment - "Leno is unfunny at what he does." The show is also low-budget crap that couldn't be saved regardless of who was hosting.

Two talk shows per network per night maximum. Someone quickly get that through Congress. And George Lopez shouldn't be allowed to host anything but a Tijuana-only broadcast of a variety show co-starring Charo. Seriously, who gave that guy a talk show?

Preach it! That man is flat out hilarious. Andy Richter Controls the Universe was brilliant, and I even liked Andy Barker P.I. Did anyone see Quintuplets? How was that?

And yeah, George Lopez is awful. I wonder, does he ever tell a single joke that isn't based in some racial stereotyping?

Interesting video. That really makes it seem like it wasn't Leno's decision. It doesn't change my mind about the current situation, though.

Even this far down the thread, I'm still having trouble reading the name "Conan" and it not being a big bloke with a sword.

Peter

And you're a hell of a lot closer to Ireland than we are.

Random thoughts, in no particular order:

The late night segment in the U.S. used to be very simple: Johnny Carson followed by David Letterman. When I was in junior high and high school, I taped Letterman and watched him the next day after school.

Also, keep in mind that the U.S. is four timezones. In US-Central, we see shows the same time as US-Eastern, which is to say, a show scheduled at 11:30pm Eastern shows at 10:30pm Central. Seems much more civilized. They then tape delay things for US-Mountain and US-Pacific.

The modern proliferation of cable TV has really messed things up. I watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (10pm-11pm US-Central). There's only one Comedy Central, nationwide, so west coast people could watch Stewart at 8pm their time. Stewart and Colbert are repeated again three hours later, or something like that, so west coast people can also watch them in the evening timeslot. Yes it's confusing.

Speaking of proliferation, we now also have Jimmy Kimmel on ABC. As such, the evening talk-show slot has become quite crowded. I'd say it's very much up in the air how this is all going to shake out. If NBC buys out Conan and he ends up on Fox, we'll then have five major evening talk shows duking it out (the four networks plus Comedy Central). It's deeply unclear the market is big enough to support all of that. My money says that Conan doesn't go late night but instead ends up somewhere completely different.

Who knows, maybe he decides to build a SNL (or Python)-esque sketch comedy show.

There has been a surfeit of late-night talk shows in the past, too. Carson went up against Joan Rivers, Arsenio Hall, Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett, Joey Bishop, David Brenner, Jimmy Breslin, Pat Sajak, Ron Reagan, Dennis Miller, etc. Letterman, Arsenio, and Griffin are the only ones that made any sort of headway.

Um, wow. I can only assume that that was made by the same folks who did the Tiger Woods one.

Actually, that was a pretty good rendition of Jeff Zucker. I couldn't tell by sight, though, if they were depicting Conan or Letterman. Maybe they were confused.

Wow indeed. That was insane. I wasn't aware that Captain America's power included blinding people with the top of his head. That has to be the same people as the Tiger Woods one.

That was definitely Conan, you can see Letterman briefly at the end taking sides with him.

My question is who is the last guy who takes part in the super hero battle? Is it Jimmy Fallon? Because it looks nothing like him. It also looks like he's throwing his feces.

It looks like I'm not the only person in the UK keen to understand the popularity of late night TV in the US.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8450575.stm

It was curious to see that the article mentioned that the hours of 6 to 8pm were considered part of UK prime time. "Prime Time" in the US and Canada doesn't start until 8pm. 6pm is normally local or national news. 7pm you may find some game shows on (traditionally) and now also quite a number of entertainment industry / tabloid shows, such as Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, etc.

I'm speaking of course about the broadcast channels. So-called "cable" channels, that are also available of course on other for-pay formats such as Satellite, have entirely different programming formats and may not have any differentiation of "Prime Time," airing the same types of shows at any point during the day. However, the ones that have big-name original drama/comedy programming will usually first-air those shows during a prime-time slot.

I've only experienced a little bit of UK format television while watching UK satellite in Portugal. And of course what I've read on the net since then and watching various UK series. I can't say I'm a fan of the format, including the fact that shows aren't necessarily arranged into a neat grid of 30 minute slots. But mostly I'm really disappointed that most UK series run only 6 episodes. That's because there are so many UK series I simply adore and I'd love to see a lot more of them. At least 12 episodes per series would be a good start.

Translation when I say "series" above I'm talking about a US "season"

In the US, primetime shows start for pacific and eastern (-5 and -8 GMT) timezones at 8pm, and one hour earlier for mountain and central (-7 and -6 GMT). Alaska and Hawaii (-9 and -10 GMT) also have their primetime starts at 7pm.

Makes me wonder how they handle the time zone difference in Russia, since they have 11 to deal with, compared to the 6 the US has.

In Russia, the time zones deal with you.

Yeah, I know that Central and Mountain have offset schedules, I should have mentioned that, but I was thinking mainly about base schedules. The central zone for instance is just the East coast in real-time, whatever that time happens to be in Central (-one hour). This also means prime time ends earlier (relatively speaking). They could probably adjust the time zone for their own schedules, but is the reason they don't simply one of population density? The East and West coasts have huge populations, but I don't know how they break down exactly as a percentage of the whole US.

Anyway, we need at least 12 episodes of the IT Crowd, stat.

I'd rather have 6 good episodes of a show than 12 crap ones. Of the few US shows that I do watch, it's been quite easy to spot the 'filler' episodes.

It still boggles my mind that while Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant can convey the everything they needed to in 14 episodes of the Office, the US version has been going on for over 100 episodes.

..and don't even get me started on McSpaced....

quantity != quality

This bit of Wikipedia kind of answers the question:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_the_Soviet_Union#Soviet_satellite_services

I was curious, and found this from 2006. For the continental US only, the percentages are:
Eastern: 48.1% (141.6m)
Central: 29% (85.4m)
Mountain: 6.4% (18.7m)
Pacific: 16.6% (48.7m)
Total: 294.5m

With the occasional exception, I find that the limited number of episodes in British TV shows limits the exploration of characters. I tend to find that characters, especially in comedies, are little beyond caricatures, and the jokes are usually just jokes. This works really well for some things, like Fawlty Towers, and is a detriment to others, like Coupling.

So, no, quantity does not equal quality, but sometimes you need a decent amount of something to tell. You don't drink 5 mL of wine.

I'm sure some of the cultural confusion is rooted in pub/bar hours. By my understanding, it was illegal to sell alcohol after 11PM until 2005, whereas bars even in the backwaters of the US had regularly been open until 2AM for decades.

WTF?

"Limited number of episodes" ???????????????

Letmesee... Coronation Street, anyone?
A Touch of Frost ?
House ?
Top Gear ?
And those are just the (extremely few) that a non-TV addict from the colonies such as myself is familiar with.

But even ignoring their longevity.. it's quality not quantity that matters most.

-ml

The majority of British TV shows produce less than ten episodes per series, and there are seldom more than two series a year, and usually only one, if that.

Coronation Street is a soap opera and plays by different rules, but, for the majority of its run, aired only two or three episodes per week, while US soap operas aired five a week. As far as raw numbers go, Coronation Street has aired about 7250 episodes, while General Hospital, for example, has aired about 11750, despite being well over two years younger. Regardless, this would fall under "occasional exception".

Top Gear is hardly a typical example, either. I have no US show to compare it to, but it still only makes, on average, about 13 episodes a year, and that's two series per year.

Unless there's another one that I'm not familiar with, House is a US production, despite having a British lead and an Australian cast member. It's pretty typical in producing 22-24 episodes per year.

A Touch of Frost, however, is a great example of what I'm talking about. In seventeen years, it produced forty-two episodes, or just under 2.5 episodes per year. Looking at it another way, Monk produced forty-five episodes in three years, and it's underproduced for a typical US show.

Of course it's about quality over quantity. But I'd rather have a greater quantity of quality shows. Limited quantity hasn't exactly kept British programming uniformly quality, though. (Footballers' Wives, I'm looking at you.) My complaint is that British shows are (often) almost over before they've started.

I think that just isn't possible though, it is the nature of the beast that there is a limit to how many quality episodes you can make before you start doing slight variations of the same stuff over and over again (or start having to kill of major characters to inject interest).

Even the quality US shows have long bad patches, thanks to the problem of just trying to churn out so much material each year.

Can you imagine how bad things like Green Wing would be when forced to produce 22 episodes a year for at least five years ?

The converse problem to this in US programmes, which I think House suffers from and Heroes was ruined by, is that of characters changing wildly in motivation and philosophy, with no in-story reason, from one episode to the next -- which I can only suspect is connected to the practice of generating the huge amount of screenwriting needed for a 22-episode series, by giving each individual episode to one writer from a large pool. (And, I suppose, by not having a powerful-enough script editor.) On most British 6-episode series, the same team of writers works together on each episode.

And where the lurches in characterisation aren't sudden enough to make the patchwork effect obvious, I'm sure it's easy to mistake them for an intentional character arc. As TS Eliot wrote, more people think it a work of art because they found it interesting, than find it interesting because it is a work of art. And he was writing about Hamlet, which, even if you televised the full text, gets all its character arcs done in much less time than a season of House.

Peter

Quality and Quantity aren't mutually exclusive. You don't have to give up one for more of the other. I'm not talking about making unlimited or an unreasonable amount of episodes. I'm talking about what Bitt mentioned, which is to give a series the opportunity to explore some additional avenues, including expanding some story lines and better developing some characters (this isn't always a problem, I'd argue the players in IT Crowd work well as characterizations).

IT Crowd which I used as an example originally, could have done a stellar 12 episode series. I find that in each of the three series, I've felt the production was cut artificially short. There has always been a case of wanting to see a bit more about some tangent they touched.

While doing a long run, such as 22 episodes you may get some stinkers, I'd rather have a 12 episode series with 10 great episodes and 2 mediocre ones than simply 6. Having a small number doesn't guarantee success nor quality either, especially when it's a program that doesn't necessarily tell an arced story.

The US Office past the first season really didn't (doesn't) have anything to do with the UK version. And where one might consider that the UK version told a story in X number of episodes that the US hasn't been able in XX, that's not the point IMO. The show is still doing very well and it's the type of program that allows for plenty of variety without producing too many dull episodes.

Anyway, I'm not picking quantity over quality, I just want more quality episodes. And if history has shown us, that's something achievable. I don't know how budgets and revenues are doing for UK based programming right now, but it strikes me that the main reason for short series is tradition.

Heroes in the US hasn't faltered or failed because of its yearly episode count. It's simply a complete lack of direction and foresight coupled with bad scripts, including plot lines, on the parts of the showrunner and writers. They could have been producing 6 bad episodes a year. At least with trying for 20 they may have a chance for 6 decent ones in there somewhere.

I'd rather watch 6 good episodes that have to see the 2 (or more) bad ones.

But in UK TV you don't necessarily get 6 great episodes. You just get 6 episodes. The same as you'll get 12 or 18 or 20 or 22 in the US. Even of the shows that I quite like, I cannot for a second convince myself that all 6 episodes have been equally good. It just doesn't happen often enough to be a factor. Certainly not often enough to be turned into an argument for purposefully producing less (6 instead of 12 as an example).

If this argument held water, every movie, at least every "first" movie if a series ends up being born, should be great. Or at least good. After all, there's only a single one to be made. Should be easy to come up with a one-off story.

Many shows simply need a few more episodes to elevate the entire show. Having more room can make every episode better, not necessarily worse. I guess I'm a glass half-full type of person.

Clearly, I watch a lot of TV, and I know I've seen some pretty bad episodes of many shows, but I can't agree more with Bitt and [surprisingly] Bruno

But they've pretty much said everything I would on the subject. I very much agree that quality and quantity are not mutually exclusive.

And please, don't use Heroes as an example of this. That show would be terrible at any length.

This thread is clearly off topic now.

The other issue I have with some UK programming is the scattered or irregular production schedules. You don't necessarily get the new series of a show coming back around at the same time its previous series did. Nor do you necessarily get the new series within a year. This may have something to do with broadcast schedules as well if not solely attributable to production.

This doesn't knock the quality, but it's a PITA for impatient sods like myself looking for a fix.

I have a wonderful counter example of quantity and quality. Not the best, but just something recent. The Tudors, which is a co-production, featured only 8 episodes this past series/season. That's the smallest one of the past three, and IMO, the overall weakest. Yes, you can argue that the historical elements fueling the story lines weren't as captivating as those previous, but that's not wholly responsible. It's really just felt like the show has lost a lot of steam. The recent series/season did end rather abruptly as well, completely surprising me that there wasn't to be at least another one or to episodes coming.

As much as I love plenty of shows with 22-24 episodes, I can concede that 12 episodes really is a very good length. That seems to be the length that most cable TV shows are aiming for, and I think it works well. As much as I crave a new episode of Dexter right now, I know how incredible its 12 episode arc was this past season.

While I crave new Dexter, I crave a new season. I don't mind that seasons are only 12 episodes, since the story is generally well developed within those episodes. But I'd love to have two seasons every year. You know, instead of seeing multiple seasons of Dancing with the Stars every year.

You (USA-ians) do realize that a lot of the British shows don't leave Britain?

And that an "hour long" show (eg. Top Gear) is frequently more like 65-70 minutes long, with ZERO commerical breaks?

Which means a 14 episode "year" of Top Gear is about the same time length as a 20 episode USA show, which has only 40 minutes or so of content per broadcast hour?

-ml

I was talking about the sit-com style shows that are about 24 minutes (including opening logos/animations and credits) and 6 episodes per series. I also do realize a number of shows in the UK feature longer series (8 to 14 episodes), including reality-based programs like Top Gear and The F Word for instance. But those shows don't help me with my IT Crowd fix.

I guess my thought is that, ultimately, if you limit yourself to only what's "needed", you miss out on some tangential stories that often end up being some of the best. Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose again comes to mind. Imagine if The X-Files had been produced in Britain with 8 episodes a series. That episode would never have been made, or even considered.

The recent episode of Fringe centering on the Watcher is in the same category.

That said, there are notable exceptions to my claim. The one that comes immediately to mind is The Girl in the Fireplace, from the first David Tennant series of Doctor Who. Also, Blink, from the following season. (Notably, both Steven Moffat episodes.) That said, Doctor Who shoots 13 episodes a series, which is probably a good compromise between the two extremes.

Also, consider seasons two through four of Babylon 5, which shot 22-ish episodes per season. Which of those episodes were useless filler? Given, a couple, but no more than two a season, and I'm pretty sure they were there intentionally in order to provide some comic relief.

And again, I just love that episode.

Another, more silly example: The Zeppo

As far as I know there are two reason for short seasons:

1) The writer having time to write the show. Typically for UK comedies (and possibly most other non-soaps) they are written by one writer, or a pair working togther, whereas US programmes are written either by committee or by different writers.

2) Getting the cast available for that amount of time (and crew, since some are considered essential to writers/producers).

3) UK seasons are booked and often completely made before broadcast, so possibly committing to a long run is not attractive.

A third reason: Incompetent, moronic network executives who cancel the best TV series ever run halfway through its first season after changing the sequence of the episodes, changing the time slot, and failing to promote the program.

I was astonished that Joss Whedon gave Fox another chance after that debacle.

tanstaafl.

Well, I think he was referring to the short seasons of UK TV, which is what we've been arguing over, rather than shortened seasons, which is what we get from good shows in the US

As for Joss, I believe the latest news is that he might do a show for FX. Maybe Fox doesn't have him under contract anymore...

I think it's fair to say that in the UK significantly changing a timeslot for a show (other than a one-off for a sporting event say) is pretty rare. A show has to pretty much get a confirmed zero viewers before stuff like that happens. There have been a couple of shows in recent memory I think, but it's still seems pretty rare.

Even rarer is a series being cancelled mid-showing. Usually if a series is unpopular it's simply not renewed at the end of it's run. The only example I can think of off the top of my head was a show called Bugs. It barely survived the chop at the end of it's third series (each one weighing in a massive 10 ep's each). But in the last season it got canned with 3 ep's to go and the remainder didn't Tx until a year later.

Making Waves was another fairly recently.

I recall that the extras (who were Navy people) had a whip-round to underwrite the DVD pressing because it was the only way they would ever get to see it! Wikipedia mentions that it was exclusively sold through the Navy News website which seems to tie up.

From what I read there, half of the 6-episode £5m series was never shown on TV!

*sigh*

And here in the US, even popular shows frequently get time changes and even get moved to other days of the week! I'll never figure it out.

One particularly popular trick by the studio execs is to air a new show just after an already popular show for a season, then move it to another night of their choosing to see how it does. House, for example, aired after American Idol, and fortunately did pretty well after the move to another night (I think it's moved twice, actually - wasn't it on Tuesdays a couple seasons ago before moving to Mondays?).

But other shows just get moved for no reason. Some do okay after the move, others don't. The timeslot of death, though, is generally considered to be Friday evenings. Some shows develop there an do fine. Smallville, however, I think will not last long after this season's move to Friday.

It pretty much depends on the demographics of the show. If it's older folks, it generally does fine on Friday. If it's younger folks, who are far more likely to go out on Friday nights, it does less well.

True, though the latter is the popular demographic for advertisers (though that never made sense to me, as the older demo is the one with the money...).

I'm sure younger people spend more of their disposable income.