Uh-oh.
Fox has decided that it will move “Fringe” to Fridays starting in January.
The network announced the move Friday afternoon, saying the series will move from Thursdays at 9 p.m. EST to Fridays at 9 p.m. EST. The move happens January 28.
This may not be good news for the show.
The immediate reaction from fans can be summed up by Televisionary writer and TV aficionado Jace Lacob, who instantly tweeted “Well, #Fringe, it was great knowing you…”
Ratings this year have been declining a bit, though the series does well in DVR numbers and has similar demographics to the “Chuck” audience that got a renewal for a full-season by NBC.
It may not be time to panic yet, but it is time to be concerned for the future of “Fringe.”
If they lose fringe what else do they have…. time to look for other shows not on fox
Are there just less DVRs in use than I think? To me it doesn’t really matter when a show is on. Put it on at 2am on Tuesday morning. I’ll just watch it on Wednesday night.
When the 8pm showing of Dirty Jobs or Mythbusters conflicts with other viewing I know I can just catch the 11pm showing and watch them the next day.
It should matter if a show gets moved to Friday but for some reason it still does.
Andy: DVRs are in use, but typically can only record one program while watching another, or record two at a time. So if there are three things on at the same time, you’re SOL.
Also, ratings is all about eyes on in real time. They aren’t officially counting DVR viewings or repeat broadcasts within the same week, something I thought NBCU got right with their early Heroes episodes… higher numbers with the reairings on Scifi Channel and USA Network, and a counting method that is allowed. What they did wrong was cave into the complaints by the other big nets, who either didn’t have other channels to re-air their high profile pilots and episodes on, or weren’t in a position to use those other channels in the same way.
Everyone knows the TV ratings counts are broken, but not a whole lot of people want to fix it because that means admitting the system they’ve been basing their existence on has been an illusion from the time they realized they were too far behind the innovation curve to really be relevant, or it’s been a con to hide the fact that they’ve been fudging the numbers for so long to keep more money for themselves.
Huh. That also sounds a lot like the BCS, now that I think about it.
Really bad move putting “Fringe” up against CBS’s blockbuster Friday night lineup. “CSI: NY” and the now rated number one show for Friday nights – Tom Selleck’s “Blue Bloods”. As much as I love “Fringe,” it can’t hold a candle to Selleck’s show. Thank God for DVRs.
Well, who do you suppose at Fox wants to take down Fringe?
Fringe on Fridays, huh? Well there is no competition on SyFy. So I guess its a go!
It was nice having Fringe for as long as we did. With LOST and BSG gone, what sci-fi of that caliber will we have left to obsess over once Fringe is gone as well?
I fear this is the beginning of the end for Fringe. I love the show and would love to see it continue, but clearly the heads at Fox feel differently.
Well, they’re either:
1) Trying to kill the show because it’s more expensive to produce than some RealityCrap.
2) Actually get the “time-shift” thing that people are doing. (People like me who can’t watch realtime because of that little thing some of us refer to as a “work schedule”.)
3) Hoping to re-capture the lightning-in-a-bottle that The X-Files had when they became a cult hit on Friday nights.
I thought it was moving to Fridays because it got pushed over by “American Idol”.
But regardless, I say “Boo!” Now it’ll be back on at the same time as “Supernatural” again. Different day of the week, but same time.
Great, now my DVR will have time conflicts. *sigh*
Time to start saying goodbye to Fringe.
Guess the executive bastards don’t want to own up to their mistake of moving it form Tuesday night where it was doing really good.
Also, don’t forget to blame the general population that watches garbage like Grey’s Anatomy, rather than something good like Fringe.
Such a shame, this is an amazing show.
@TallGirl: “Hoping to re-capture the lightning-in-a-bottle that The X-Files had when they became a cult hit on Friday nights.”
From what I remember, X-Files didn’t do well at all on Friday nights, which is why Fox moved it to Sundays where it inexplicably took off like a rocket. Obviously, that’s not an option these days when the network has so much invested in their massive Sunday night animation block.
@Kyle: “I thought it was moving to Fridays because it got pushed over by “American Idol”.”
Apparently so, since Fox seems to have moved AI by one night to Wed.-Thurs. rather than its previous Tues.-Wed. slots. This happens to at least one show every year, and I guess it’s Fringe‘s turn. Though I doubt that Kitchen Nightmares is going to be a great lead-in for our quirky sci-fi family drama. ::sigh::
http://www.collider.com/2010/11/19/fringe-friday-fox-announces-midseason-series-premieres/
I just looked at a Wiki list of shows which were moved to Friday night and died or were started on Friday night and never made it and there are just too many to list. It’s not called the Friday Night Death Slot for nothing.
However TallGirl, you were wrong about the X-Files. It started out slow but became a success in it’s Friday night time slot. It was only moved to Sunday night in 1996, several years into it’s run. I hope Fringe can beat the odds but it doesn’t look good to me.
The toughest competition on Friday night will be Supernatural on CW. The two shows have a similar viewing audience. The next will be if Syfy comes up with a decent Friday evening show. I think the the best evening would have been Wednesday. It’s usually the night I catch up on my DVR’d shows or watch something on Netflix.
Another great show that TPTB are trying to kill. It’s like they only want to keep stupid crap on TV anymore.
Not the death time slot.
Anything but the death time slot!
Lame. Frakking Fox, can’t leave well enough alone!