Tag Archives: Fox

“Rosewood”-Post #2

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The Fox Network seems to be continuing its male/female partner dynamic tendency with their upcoming fall comedy-drama “Rosewood”. Fox already has many shows that center around a male and female duo, such as “Bones”, “Sleepy Hollow” and “Minority Report”. “Rosewood” will continue this trend with a pathologist and detective duo that come together to fight crimes in Miami. Morris Chestnut and Jaina Lee Ortiz team up in “Rosewood” to create an interesting dynamic on screen. Ortiz plays a distant and abrasive counterpart to Chestnut’s fun-loving and outgoing nature. This seems strangely similar to Fox Network’s “Bones,” where the female plays the more distant and cautious partner to the outgoing male anthropologist, which is starting its 11th season this year.

With the predestined ending of “American Idol” this coming January, Fox is putting all its marbles in it’s hit series Empire. Thus, putting “Rosewood” in front of Fox’s leading series says a lot about how the network feels about their new comedy-drama. Fox is counting on “Empire” to promote its 2015-16 season launch of a fall slate.

 

Rosewood – Post #1

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Rosewood is an upcoming Fox Drama series that centers around a private pathologist as he helps Miami law enforcement solve brutal murders. Morris Chestnut stars in the Todd Harthan (previously known for Psych) series alongside actresses Jaina Lee Ortiz and Gabrielle Dennis. One of the writers credited towards the series is Nkechi Okoro, who is best known for Bones.

The main cast and most of the writer’s room for this new drama is very diverse proving that television for 2015 is “hammering on the door diversity”. It looks like Fox is trying to follow Empire’s success with Rosewood, which adds a diverse lead to the network’s slate. Rosewood will also act as the leading in show for Empire on the station’s schedule. “Fox has recognized that reflecting multiculturalism in its programming is absolutely essential to the company’s survival if it wishes to have continued relevance to millennial and post-millennial audiences.” This adds to Fox’s strategic plan to attract more viewers. Rosewood premieres September 23rd in primetime.

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Scream Queens – Post #1

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In a little over three weeks, the highly anticipated two-hour pilot episode of Scream Queens will finally air on FOX at 8 pm. I say finally because of the impact of FOX’s marketing methods, which started way back in February, initially without ever filming a single frame. As producer Ryan Murphy set his key cast members in place, Joe Earley, Fox Television Group’s chief operating officer realized that it didn’t make sense to wait until the first episode was shot to begin releasing ads.

Earley paid special attention to the shows combination of blood and bubblegum, adapting this vibe to the show’s first 12 second teaser featuring a college-aged girl blowing a giant bubble that is popped by a knife revealing the show’s logo. This video was released on February 13th, a Friday. March also consisted of a Friday the 13th, where a second video teaser was released featuring Emma Roberts. The show’s actors as well as Murphy himself have frequently tweeted and uploaded to Instagram to keep potential viewers invested in the show.

Seven months is an unheard of lead-time for a show on broadcast, but it may become more common as TV continues to lose its dependency by viewers to watch content. We will see if the early start was worth it on September 22.

World’s Funniest Fails Season Recap

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In the final two episodes of World’s Funniest Fails, the show received a (you guessed it) .8 to make the .8 streak continue to 7 episodes ! (Although it may not show that on my slide chart because the last two weeks ended up getting cut off). The streak of .8’s in my opinion really helped solidify a renewal for the show. Is .8 a lot ? Not exactly, but in the friday night death slot you’re just looking for overall consistency and I think WWF proved that. WWF ended their first season with an overall average rating of .88 with 2.82 million viewers. Not too bad for a show everybody was guaranteeing would be canceled before the season concluded. AV.Club says “World’s Funniest Fails is now the No. 1 show in its time slot among teenagers and males 18-34 and No. 2 among adults 18-34 in general, setting the IdiocracyDoomsday Clock forward by several minutes.” Not too shabby, not too shabby at all. Additionally, Terry Crews recently left Who Wants to be a Millionaire to focus more on World’s Funniest Fails. Now while there hasn’t been any news about a renewal this move could be a definite clue point to a second season. It was a great first season, here’s to many more !

World’s Funniest Fails 5-6 Week Recap

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World’s Funniest Fails continued it’s streak of .8 ratings throughout the last two weeks (5/6). That marks almost 5 straight weeks in a row that the show reached a .8. While the numbers don’t sound significant, WWF outperformed the previous show FOX had originally slotted in it’s place. The ratings are heavily impacted by the fact that the show is on at 8pm on Friday nights, aka the death slot. However, the continuous streak of .8 ratings (with slightly under 3 million viewers) suggests that World’s Funniest Fails may have found and maintained a loyal audience for their show. It could be that Terry Crews does indeed have a sufficient amount of followers, or it could be a spillover from people who loved watching him on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Regardless, I think FOX hit the nail on the head by selecting him as their host. He definitely knows how to host a game show and it was good to see him flourish in another role. Let’s be honest, who doesn’t like Terry Crews?

Weird Loners – Blog Post 9

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Surprisingly, Weird Loners has managed to stay fairly consistent in their numbers. The week of its premiere, it had a 0.7 rating with 1.91 million viewers from 18-49. This past week, it maintained its 0.7 rating with a slight decrease to 1.72 million viewers from 18-49. That’s pretty good given the reviews it got!

I know I have given Weird Loners a lot of grief, but I think it’s important to establish some factors that have contributed to the demise of this show…

  1. Competition:
    1. Not going to lie, its competition is pretty weak. The only real “competitor” is also a new show — One Big Happy — which has also been struggling to find a loyal audience. That said, Ellen has been promoting this show like no other (makes sense given that she is an executive producer on it). I can imagine the fan-base for Ellen may be more impressive than that of New Girl (which then leads into Weird Loners).
  2. Time Slot:
    1. It’s never easy to excel on a Tuesday night at 9:30pm c. I would argue that anywhere from 6-9:30 pm is a difficult time slot to fill. It’s, at the very least, a ‘transitional’ part of everyone’s day. The fact that it starts in the middle of the hour — at 9:30pm c — as opposed to 9pm c, adds an additional stress to this show. I can tell you, personally, that I would never watch a show in them middle of an hour for a half-hour if I didn’t like the show before it (New Girl). 
  3. Difference in Writing:
    1. As mentioned earlier, New Girl leads into Weird Loners. I think the network made this decision because they thought that both shows were very similar. Well, folks, these shows are NOT two peas in a pod. In fact, there is such a stark difference with regards to writing style and content that it would be unfair to clump these two shows together under the umbrella term “sitcom.”

As we near the season’s end, I will be curious to see if this show is able to make a comeback or if it will continue to descend to its imminent cancelation. Thanks for reading!

Last Man on Earth- Week 6 *RENEWAL*

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Fox has renewed Will Forte’s Last Man On Earth for a second season. Following the good debut demo rating, rising to a 3.3 in L+3, and the premiere attracting 1.3 million streams in the first three days, Last Man On Earth had followed a ratings course consistent with a episodic series, falling to, 3.0, 2.6 and 2.7/2.4 in L+3 (18-49) for the most recent back-to-back originals. But those are good numbers, Last Man does very well in the younger/male demos, ranking as the N.1 new comedy this season in adults 18-34 and men 18-49. It wins its Sunday 9:30 PM slot in adults 18-49 and 18-34, repeatedly builds onto its Family Guy lead-in, and the network brass had been happy with the Forte’s creative direction.

This announcement was huge because Last Man and other comedies like Weird Loners were ordered direct-to-series last spring. Fox has renewed three new winter series including Gotham, Empire and now Last Man.

David Madden president of Fox Broadcasting Company entertainment was quoted saying, “It’s one of those rare shows that continues to add depth and dimension to its unique premise, week after week. We are so thrilled that this incredibly bold, original and inventive series has been embraced by both fans and critics, and we cannot wait to see where the creative genius and inspired vision of Will, Phil and Chris take us in season two.”

World’s Funniest Fails Weeks 3/4

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Back again! World’s Funniest Fails continues to keep its ahead above water in the death slot, on Fridays @ 8pm. For a show that should have been off the air a while ago World’s Funniest Fails is making quite the statement as of late. Since February 13th, the total viewers have gone up every single week with the most recent viewing coming in at just under 3 million total. While the ratings have now been stuck at .8 for the last four weeks the show is definitely making progress. Fox has officially ordered EIGHT, yes you heard that right, eight! new episodes. From Variety, “WORLD’S FUNNIEST FAILS ranks No. 1 in its time period among Men 18-34 (tie), Teens (tie) and No. 2 among Adults 18-34 (tie) and has improved upon FOX’s prior season average in the time period with entertainment programming in Adults 18-49 (+38%), Adults 18-34 (+60%), Teens (+50%) and Total Viewers (+45%).” Killing it! Hopefully Terry Crews and Co. can keep their momentum going through March into April and May. Stay tuned ! And don’t forget to check the show out, Fridays @ 8pm on FOX !

Weird Loners – Blog Post 4

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The launch date for Weird Loners on FOX is rapidly approaching! March 31st will come sooner than you may think.

With about a month before its premiere, I thought I would check out what FOX has done to promote Weird Loners via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

This is what I found…

Facebook: 

  • Since May of last year, there have been a total of 13 posts. 
    • 6/13 released within two days of Valentine’s day.

Twitter:

  • 30 tweets

Instagram: 

  • 10 posts

Ultimately, I think FOX is doing a poor job of promoting Weird Loners. This show may want to take some pointers from ABC’s American Crime whose promotions began over a year ago.

It was definitely smart for Weird Loners to take advantage of Valentine’s Day for promotional value but that simply won’t deliver FOX the ratings they are looking for.

Most of Weird Loner’s social media buzz relates with the audience’s ability to relate to the show’s title. Thus, if this show hopes to become a major competitor, they are going to need to step up their promotion game ASAP. 

 

Weird Loners – Blog Post 3

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Casting galore! Reports state that Becki Newton may also guest-star on the show’s sixth episode. Newton — known for The Goodwin Games, Ugly Betty and How I Met Your Mother — may make a meaningful addition to what may turn into a hit show.

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Something tells me FOX is shaking in their boots. All these “guest” appearances seem to be their primary publicity ploy. I can only imagine what are they trying to compensate for…

Why bother launching a show you think will tank? Time will tell!

For more information about Becki Newton and Weird Loners, click here.