Grid Effect

NBC has announced plans to run an episode of Friday Night Lights in the 10pm Monday slot, which is usually held for Studio 60, on October 30th. What this means for both the future of both series’ I am unsure. One thing I do know is, if they are trying too get any carry over viewers from Heroes that is averaging 13 million viewers in the 9pm Monday slot, they are going to be severly dissapointed. Because while I wouldn’t necessarily qualify Friday Night Lights as a show about football (it is more about the town than the team), that is how general public perceives it. And any casual fans they could attract will be preoccupied trying to cut their gambling losses from Sunday and watching Monday Night Football on ESPN.

Studio 60, on the other hand, is sitting the week of October 30th out. And I never really monitor these things, Like what the pre-requisites are to a series getting the axe. But I cannot imagine this is a good sign. If it and FNL were trading slots, that would be a little more encouraging. It seems to me that NBC execs think Friday Night Lights should be getting higher ratings and its mass appeal should be reflected better in the Nielsen’s, but for whatever reason it is only getting six million an episode. So they thought of an ill-advised plan to market it better towards its target demographic. Which they apparently think are the same people who watch Heroes.

A little news flash, but just based on the surface assumptions your average TV viewer is going to have about these two series, the kid who played football never hung out with the comic book collecter. They were two mutually exclusive subsets of people in high school and unlikely to have the same viewing habits. I hope I’m wrong. I enjoy FNL and do not want to see it cancelled. If its applicable I think there best option would be to run it after one of the many Law and Order franchises, there is a broader audience of people who watch those And more carry over potential for a series like FNL. Really anything is better than rivaling a football series against actual football.