No numbers here, but I think this is a pretty good idea for Disney Channel, which since it’s not advertiser supported could presumably change its schedule more easily than networks that are. Certainly much more interesting for fans than, say, Fox filling Christmas Night with a 4 episode mini-marathon of ‘Til Death.

Disney Channel viewers will determine the network’s New Year’s Eve programming lineup by voting for their favorite episodes and music videos at DisneyChannel.com, beginning Friday.

The winning programs will air Dec. 31 from 6 p.m.-12:30 a.m. in a block entitled “New Year’s Star Showdown.”

via THR.com.

Another Friday, and another batch of freak out worthy ratings for Fringe and FlashForward.

How long will FOX tolerate the middling ratings for Fringe?

Barring a decision by FOX to move Fringe to a better time slot, or some statement from FOX along the lines of “We love this show, we love JJ Abrams, and we don’t care how bad the ratings are we will air this show forever,” I wouldn’t plan on it being back for a third season.

I know, we’ll hear a lot of “wait for the DVR numbers”,  “New Moon opened last night!” and “It will be back to a 2.2 next week, just wait and see…”

Hear me, Fringe fans: root for a better time slot anyway!

Fringe is no Lost

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FOX is giving Fringe the low-budget promo treatment by way of “viral” marketing, that Variety has dubbed, a major marketing push.    The Variety story notes that there’s both an off-air and on-air push, but the on-air push seems to be this week’s show itself, plus inserting subliminal images of the observer in its Thursday night programming this week.

According to the Variety article Fox marketing chief Joe Earley is hoping a few more viewers will watch live, or at least within 3 days.

FOX will also be sending people dressed up as the observer out into the streets in a few cities (L.A., NY, Boston, Chicago, and Atlanta) who will be handing out Tabasco sauce (the Fringe faithful know that the Observers love them some spicy food).

Our experience has been these type of stunts don’t translate to ratings.  We’ll find out Friday morning.

This Thursday is final Thursday of the November sweeps period.

A good Thursday night of television that in addition to Fringe’s Dr. Walter Bishop actually wearing a tinfoil hat, included a 30 Rock shout out to one of my favorite shows, ESPN’s Around The Horn (5pm ET).  The spoof,  Sports Shouting, is billed as the time slot competition that always beats the fictional TGS in the ratings.

I wish Around The Horn could add fake crawls under the panelists.  If you have it on your DVR, though the two spoof scenes aren’t on the screen long, it’s worth using the slow motion feature to catch the crawls.  My favorite was the one of all the soccer scores where every score was 0-0 (see picture below).

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A nifty little detail via Mo Ryan if the current schedule plans for Dollhouse calling for a finale on January 22nd hold up:

If Jan. 22 is indeed the date of the “Dollhouse” series finale, prepare yourself for a Whedonverse smackdown. “Dollhouse’s” final episode will air the same night as new programs from two alums of Joss Whedon’s various writing staffs. Steven S. DeKnight, who wrote for “Dollhouse,” “Buffy” and “Angel,” is an executive producer of “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” which premieres Jan. 22 on Starz. Also debuting that night is “Caprica,” a “Battlestar Galactica” prequel that counts Jane Espenson among its executive producers. Espenson is a veteran of many Whedon projects, including “Dollhouse.”

Read Mo’s full post on the Dollhouse cancellation.

Update: Syfy released it exclusively to Mo Ryan’s “The Watcher” blog but Mo said no problem since “exclusives are measured in nanoseconds these days!” so it is now included above.

Here’s her math  about the 1 hour reduction:

The series will premiere with a two-hour pilot that is already available as a standalone DVD. Eight additional hours of “Caprica” will air through March. Then the show will take a break and the remaining nine hours of “Caprica’s” first season will air some time in the second half of 2010.

If you’ve done the math in the previous paragraph, you’ve realized that “Caprica’s” episode order has been reduced by one hour. Syfy had originally commissioned a total of 20 hours for Season 1, but the show, which is currently in production on the last third of the season in Vancouver, will now consist of 19 hours.

My predictions last week stunk and I was off by like 60% with adults 18-49.   Somebody stole my psychic  fortune teller hat and replaced it with a dud!

In its premiere V had a 5.2 rating with adults 18-49 and averaged 14.3 million viewers in the final numbers.

So what do I think will happen tonight?   Well, after my poor showing last week, first we’ll have a guest prediction chime in via “Travis Yanan’s” Twitter account:

My guess range is 4.3-4.7 but that’s really based on absolutely nothing more than a semi-standard 15% drop & margin of error

After last week I am tempted to go the reverse direction and declare that fabulous word of mouth will drive the ratings even higher.  But, based on all the production hiatuses and changes to showrunners I’m kind of worried that the second episode might be complete crap and that viewers will flee after 10 minutes. But maybe that doesn’t happen until the third or fourth episode.  Or maybe it doesn’t happen at all.

I’ll go just a little higher than the top  of  Travis’ range and predict a 4.8 adults 18-49 rating and 12.5 million viewers.

In her review of the premiere of ABC’s V, Chicago Tribune TV critic Maureen Ryan made references to similar genre shows that had debuted this fall, including Stargate Universe.  Her comments weren’t exactly flattering which led SGU executive producer Brad Wright to leave a comment on her blog, where among other things he said:

[…] fortunately there are enough viewers and reviewers who think SGU is neither boring, poorly plotted, or sexist to keep us on the air long after “V” is just a letter in the alphabet again.”

Talk about putting the V in ratings enVy!  Wright might be right that V will go back to just being a letter in the alphabet, but to make that comment after the stellar ratings V pulled in its premiere still is a bit surprising to me.  Mo felt compelled to respond to Brad’s comment.

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