Discussion Main / FridayNightDeathSlot

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: This is trivia , started by captainpat on Nov 1st 2011 at 5:42:16 PM

Took the following out for being "inversions" (which involves the show being moved out of the Friday slot elsewhere, and seems like it could be a different trope):

• Big Time Rush started off on Friday nights after it premiered. Thankfully, most of the episodes that aired there had a new iCarly as a lead-in. But when it didn't, ratings got ugly, especially when Disney would air something new at the same time. A few episodes of Victorious suffered horribly from this as well. Since 2011, both shows have only had one episode to air on a Friday (and most likely only because that Friday was Earth Day, too), whereas iCarly has had none (though iParty with Victorious was originally scheduled to air on a Friday in June, but was moved to the following Saturday instead).
• Inverted with Blue Bloods. Premiered at CBS on Fridays at 10 PM, and did surprisingly well for its time slot. It later was moved to Wednesday... where the ratings went up only slightly, and the ratings that were acceptable on Friday were subpar for Wednesday. It was soon sent back to Friday, but did get renewed.
• Inverted in the case of Life, which has actually been moved from Friday nights to a Wednesday lead-in for Law & Order.
• Inverted by HBO's Mr. Show. Its "Fridays at Midnight" time slot was considered decent for the avant-garde comedy show. However, the show was moved to "Mondays at Midnight" for their fourth season. The show's own commercials criticized it as "a busy work-night when everyone's asleep." The creators chose not to return for a fifth season because of the time slot.
• Thus far inverted with Supernatural in its sixth season, as its ratings are one of The CW's strongest, resulting in it being renewed for a seventh. As of the 2012/2013 schedule it has moved to Wednesday.
• 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.

Took these out, either for not being related to Friday timeslots or using weird justification for failing:

• CSI NY lasted three seasons after being moved to Fridays, but it was obvious after the move that things were getting worse. The amount of episodes went down each season (23 to 18 to 17) and renewal was never a certain thing after the switch,so the writers started writing the season finales as potential series finales. In the last two seasons,it was Only Barely Renewed, with season 9 coming down to the fact that it was cheaper to produce than CSI: Miami and that CBS wanted to try an NY themed programming block on Friday with Blue Bloods and Made in Jersey. NY moved to an hour earlier, then moved back to its old slot when Jersey flopped. In its final season, ratings fluctuated, but most eps still got 8 million viewers or so. However, CBS apparently wasn't impressed by the 'key demographic' numbers anymore and didn't give the series a 10th season. Melina Kanakaredes' departure may also have harmed things a bit, but the time slot was a huge factor as well, combined with CBS's lack of decent advertising.
• While not really Friday, Nickelodeon has sometimes put a few cartoons (such as Kappa Mikey and Tak and the Power of Juju) on Sunday morning - when many children are asleep or at church.
  • Also not really Friday, Making Fiends, a Nicktoon that began in 2008, and hasn't had a new episode since, has been airing early Saturday and Sunday mornings (At 6:00 AM), when most people are asleep.
  • Sunday morning was also where Mattel bought Nick time as if it was an Infomercial to air full-length Barbie movies to entice kids to beg their parents to buy the film on DVD two days later.
    • The original Nicktoons block, with Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren & Stimpy Show was scheduled on Sunday mornings.
• Venezuelan channel RCTV managed to got some programs who survived this dreaded slot. The last of those was a war-of-the-sexes Game Show titled "Aprieta y Gana", who lasted four years and would lasted five if it weren't cancelled, despite being still popular.
• Smallville managed to survive being here in season 9. Season 10, however, started with the tagline that this is the final season.
  • Of course, with contracts expiring and such a lengthy run, everyone was counting on Season 10 being the last before Season 9 even ended.
• In the 1960s American Television, any show scheduled against NBC's mega-hit Bonanza at 9pm on Sundays was practically a sacrifice play such as the final version of The Garry Moore Show, a television mainstay for over a decade which lasted only 5 months. That changed only when the CBS groundbreaking comedy show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, took a crack it and became a hit that had its own problems with the network execs over its content.

CSI New York and Smallville in particular don't seem to be this trope, as they continued long past the point they were put into the Friday timeslot, and were only "killed" due to cast issues/slighly lower ratings after nine seasons and a natural ending to the series, respectively.

Removed this Thread Mode.

• Family Net
  • Strangely enough, Family Net is keeping the WCL on that time slot in November, making the show safe for now.
    • Well, the last airing of the WCL on Family Net is November 3, after which Family Net will air Christmas specials on the time slot!
      • It's the new year, and Family Net has dropped the WCL from the line-up in favor of 'The Venue', a series featuring live concerts and stand-up comedy!
      • Well, The Venue will be off the Family Net line-up in May, being replaced by Live at Oak Tree!
    • Family Net will be cancelling the Friday-specific roster in October, cancelling the Parables movies, relegating Faithprints to an early-Saturday morning time slot, and keeping Live At Oak Tree in the Saturday-night time slot!
    • Averted as of July 2012, where Faithprints was given a prime-time Saturday time slot, ironically replacing Live At Oak Tree!

not sure If I agree about saturday in the Uk being a death slot, Doctor who which is one of the UK's most popular dramas airs on saturdays, I reckon sunday is the closest the UK has to a death slot.

I've noticed something interesting about Fox and the Friday Night Death Slot. The reason Fox is so notorious with regards to the death slot is that it takes risks on the types of shows that tend to be death slotted, while CBS, NBC, etc. tend not to risk it. Fox seems to have a fascination with niche shows but also a tendency to not let them stretch their wings.

I've noticed something interesting about Fox and the Friday Night Death Slot. The reason Fox is so notorious with regards to the death slot is that it takes risks on the types of shows that tend to be death slotted, while CBS, NBC, etc. tend not to risk it. Fox seems to have a fascination with niche shows but also a tendency to not let them stretch their wings.

Should there be any mention of simmilar death slots abroad? In Norway it's on Saturday nights. All the best/most popular shows are on Friday night.