Broadcasting & Cable has an interesting read on how the networks’ mid-season shows have fared (mostly, not all that well!). It won’t be any surprise to people who regularly follow the ratings, and neither will this:
Preston Beckman, executive VP, strategic programming and planning at Fox, says Lie To Me is likely to return next season, as the network will give it summer repeat airings.
“As ABC has learned painfully, when you put shows on in the spring you have to really be careful how you evaluate them,” he says. “[Lie to Me] feels like a show that with patience and in the right time period, next year can really grow into a player for us.”
I believe “likely to return” in this context loosely translates to “unless the ratings for its final episodes blow, it’s coming back.”
Robert, you’re going to ruin your reputation if you keep putting up these positive posts. LOL
I don’t know why they didn’t just leave AI in the same place at 8pm, it would have provided more viewers for LTM.
great news one of my new favs
Good news!
woooooooooooooo
* good stuff.
The real question is this: even though it’s lowest rated episode got more than double the numbers, will TSCC fans misconstrue this as a beacon of hope that Fox may renew Terminator thinking that “if given the right time period” and treated with “patience” it could be grow into a player in a 3rd season?
lol…
@Ben, you note: “I don’t know why they didn’t just leave AI in the same place at 8pm, it would have provided more viewers for LTM.”
I suspect that the FOX people perceive the situation as follows: They can do more “damage” to the other nets in the very competitive 9 p.m. time slot (LOST, Criminal Minds) by using AI there. In addition, LTM is capable of winning the demos in the less-competitive 8 p.m. hour, even with modest-to-meager ratings. Thus, the current schedule makes sense for FOX.
I really like LTM so far, but the most recent couple episodes went a tad too dark, and didn’t have time for supporting-team character development IMHO. I’m happy to see that FOX is showing a little patience with the series.
I’ve been ok with Lie to Me getting a bit dark, although they could have held off the main reason for Lightman becoming the human lie detector (Depraved Heart) for a while, especially considering on Fox’s other show with an English actor (House, MD), they held off on that (Three Stories) until the season 1 finale.
Has to be said though, Tim Roth has always been an excellent actor (even before Lie to Me) and getting him to play Lightman was as an inspired a casting decision as it was getting Hugh Laurie to play House. Lie to Me could become as big as House with the right people behind it, looking out for it.
I will be very disappointed if it doesn’t get a second season because it’s been my favourite new show this year.
Yay!!!!! Lie To Me is awesome… Tim Roth is awesome, I agree with Dave! The rise of the british actors is coming…
Will Fringe be back for next season?
Didn’t some big NBC executive quit just to be a producer on this show? She’s lucky because it’d suck if this got cancelled.
I’m enjoying Lie To Me a lot right now and I’m fully expecting it to be back next year. Whether it can survive a full second season is another issue entirely though. I’d like to see them pair it with House next year, purely because I’d like to see it survive and I think a House lead-in would pretty much guarantee that at this point. I won’t however hold my breath on that.
LIE TO ME has to survive in the Fall without AMERICAN IDOL. So Fox moved it to test the waters. It isn’t pulling great numbers, but it’s pulling good enough numbers. Even the 2.5 was good enough. Fox is happy with LIE TO ME, but not if it starts to bleed viewers. Running it in the summer is smart.
not surprising, it’s performing very solid.
networks always should run first year shows as reruns over the summer. How else do you build an audience?
By getting people to watch the first time around?
Of course they will keep it, they need something to stick on Fridays.
Alex and, there’s a difference between “instant hit” and “build an audience” hit. Getting people to watch the first time around is great, but not common. The only example that comes to mind this year is “The Mentalist” on CBS. That seems to be something people are watching the first time around.
House was not a mega-hit out of the box. It did some building. So did Bones. Same with X-Files (long, long ago). Same with – for the gabillionth time – the NBC mega-hit Seinfeld. That show *should* have been canned, by conventional wisdom, after its first…and second…and third seasons. Sometimes, a series does takes time to become a “hit.” I appreciate that FOX sees such potential in LTM. On the flip side, I don’t see how such potential can be seen in “Dollhouse.” It’s not holding a solid enough core audience. Quite frankly, I don’t see the characters as anyone worth getting to know. The leads on LTM and Fringe are growing on us average viewers. We want to get to know them. Perhaps that’s a key difference between a show with potential, and a show that just didn’t cut it.
How many of the shows that ‘build an audience’ do it via summer repeats and how many do it through airing original episodes? Seinfeld for example picked up during its third season because its original episodes got moved behind Cheers not because it got repeated over the summer.
Alex, most shows that grow between seasons did because of repeats in the summer. However TV doesn’t repeat over the summer like it did in the 80s and 90s. So it’s less common now.
That’s something of an unproveable blanket statement.
Using purely anecdotal evidence, I became a fan of X-Files when I caught reruns. I became a fan of House when I caught reruns. I became a fan of Big Bang Theory when I caught reruns. I became a fan of Burn Notice when I caught reruns. Those reruns may or may not have been on in the summer. Point is that the repeats indeed were the reason those series gained my viewership for the next new season. To some degree, NCIS may be building new viewers due to the repeats on USA network. Bones may be building viewers due to TNT reruns. In any case, I can see how reruns may help to attract new viewers. Summer repeats don’t always work (alas, my beloved Jericho); but they do often help, IMHO.
That’s good to hear, I missed the last (firefighters) episode but catching it on Hulu. Hope that didn’t hurt their ratings lol, as if I know how they calculate ratings anyways.
THANK GOD! Lie to Me is one of the BEST SHOWS on TV and Tim Roth is terrific. The plots are interesting and well developed. The acting SUPERB. The story lines play out with intriguing twists and dovetail nicely with current figures illustrating THEIR LYING WAYS.
All in all, the most brilliant CONCEPT and thought-provoking series. It even has a good take-away with “signs” to watch for from lying eyes in everyday life.
Alex, what other reason would they grow between seasons?
Now we can add DVD sales, but DVD sales are so minimal in overall terms that word of mouth and repeats are about it.
Obviously summer repeats don’t help a show that grows during a season.
It’s common sense.
Nick you know as well as I do that there are a million and one variables that can and do lead to a show gaining an audience from season to season and that repeats (whether they be over the summer or on cable) are a just one of them. A change in timeslot, night, lead-in, lead-out, competition, storylines, cast, promotion, hype and just general circumstances such as the situation at the network, other shows on air and awards can, do and always have contributed to season to season growth.
Trying to argue that summer repeats are the magic ingredient to growing an audience is flawed to say the least.