Continuing our run of posts pondering about each night of new Fall TV, KSiteTV’s Craig Byrne and Shilo Adams are back, asking each other about the new TV coming to us on Tuesdays this year.
As always, this is split into one question per page, and you can navigate at the bottom of the article.
CRAIG: Is there a chance Utopia could be a huge bomb for FOX?
SHILO: It’s more likely that Utopia is a huge bomb than a huge success. I suppose that the unusual structure of the show could garner it some early casual viewers, especially since it’ll be the first broadcast show to premiere this fall, but there’s too much going against it for me to believe that it’ll be the out-of-the-box success that FOX needs.
Broadcast reality shows that buck the norm tend to do little ratings damage and I don’t think that Utopia has a big enough concept to change that, particularly when you look at just how bad a 2014 FOX has had thus far. If the network isn’t drawing much in the way of total viewers and deemphasizes the importance of live audiences, a show like Utopia, which will rely on that type of audience initially, won’t have nearly the ceiling that it would have if FOX were in better shape.
While the Friday Utopia episodes feel like nothing more than a placeholder, the Tuesday editions will have New Girl, which dropped about 60% of its live audience over the course of its third season, as a lead-out. That lack of a casual viewer-friendly lead-out is especially damning when you look at the other shows airing Tuesdays at 8:00 – casual viewer magnet The Voice and total viewer king NCIS, with Dancing with the Stars, which had its 16th cycle finale average over 15 million viewers, to air at least two results episodes in the hour. With FOX having quite a bit of scripted content in reserve, it’s just an unfriendly situation for a show that won’t have much in the way of time-shifted viewing and likely won’t have much critical buzz to make up for any ratings deficits it might incur.
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1 Comment
Utopia is failing so far in ratings, so I’d say yes, it’s a bomb.