FRIDAY
CRAIG:
SHILO:
ACTUAL SCHEDULE: 8:00 American Housewife; 8:30 Fresh Off the Boat; 9:00 20/20 (2 Hours)
CRAIG: ABC Friday makes me scratch my head and is Constance Wu’s worst nightmare.
I don’t really understand moving American Housewife which did pretty well on Tuesdays to the Friday slot, but I also don’t get stopping Speechless. Minnie Driver has been screwed on this sitcom thing twice, I tell ya. But really, that was the surprise cancellation of the year and I fully expected a FOTB/Speechless block. Now ABC is lacking a consistent player while renewing a series with a leading actress who doesn’t seem to want to be there. Hrm.
And hey, at least two hours of 20/20 will be a solid block.
SHILO: I’m surprised that 20/20 is scheduled for two hours in the fall. I know that it did very well when ABC reverted to that scheduling in the middle of this season, but I figured they’d try something else in the 9:00 hour before eventually expanding 20/20 again. The show should do well since it’s more compatible with ABC comedies than their dramas, but something to keep an eye on is the battle with two-hour Datelines.
The 8:00 hour is interesting. I’m glad that ABC is holding comedy there because they have no comedy competition and this is a good hour for them to build some syndication packages. American Housewife at 8:00, though, I wonder about. I know that Fresh Off the Boat was able to seriously close to gap between itself and ABC’s mid-week comedies while airing Fridays at 8:00, and that American Housewife did a fine job as the Tuesday at 8:00 anchor, but a move to Friday is still a move to Friday and Housewife getting this type of demotion going into its syndication season makes me question how ABC actually views it. Though it doesn’t have the acclaim of fellow ABC Studios comedy Black-ish, it’s still a syndication friendly show that’s owned by the network, acted as a solid utility player, and kept them plugged into the female viewers that Karey Burke claims they’re chasing. Could they know something about its syndication prospects that we don’t, a’la Speechless?
