David Huberman is this week’s commenter-turned-poster. David is a 30-something professional in the Internet backbone engineering world who watches way too much television. You can usually find him writing about fine art, politics, and horse racing over on his personal blog.
It’s time for FOX to add more time
“Tonight on FOX, it’s an all new House, followed by the premiere of 24!” Then it’s your local news.
FOX’s pattern of two hours of nightly primetime programming, followed by an hour of local news, is familiar to all of us. According to Wikipedia’s entry on the Fox Broadcasting Company, this pattern was created when FOX was new to avoid being classified as a “network” by the FCC in the mid 1980s and, in turn, to avoid the federal regulations that were in place (but are no longer). Given the success of a 23 year-old FOX, and given the high number of quality shows it has to program, I think it is time for FOX to add a third hour to their nightly primetime schedule.
FOX has eight quality one-hour dramas to program: 24, Bones, Fringe, House, Prison Break (I know, I know), T:SCC, and the new Dollhouse and Lie to Me.
FOX has four reality shows to program: American Idol (often three hours a week), Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (clearly none of us are), whichever Gordon Ramsey show is on, and Don’t Forget the Lyrics!.
FOX has two hours of law enforcement programming (two half-hour Cops episodes, then an hour of America’s Most Wanted) and a two hour block of Animation Domination.
That’s 19 hours on weeks where AI is three hours of programming. If FOX scheduled 8pm to 11pm seven nights a week, they would only need to find two hours of fill.
In their current format of 14 hours, there isn’t enough room for all of this. In the wintertime, especially, AI takes up three hours most weeks, and Saturdays and Sundays are locked (you don’t play with programming that has 20 years of proven success), so FOX is left with seven hours of programming but 11 hours of shows.
With FOX’s proclivity for cancelling shows quickly (would any of us really be surprised if a FOX show was cancelled during its pilot episode airing?) along with a relatively stable slate of programs (giving almost no flexibility to try out new shows), and given the genesis of the current 14-hour schedule, I think 21 hours a week of network programming makes sense – both for FOX to make more money with, and for we the loyal viewers to enjoy.
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Nov 17, 2008 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
I don’t know where you live, but here in Seattle, people like having the news on at 10PM each night … enough so that KING5 news started airing news at 10PM on KONG6.
The formula they have chosen seems to have worked for, as you said, 23 years … so why change it?
They should start their programing at 7pm. Here in Quebec the prime-time line-up is always from 7 to 10pm. A lot of show have great success at this hour.
that is a time zone issue in the US. Primetime is defined as 8-11pm EST. And is only starting at 7 in the midwest.
Fox did not want to be a network originally because Murdoch wanted to avoid certain government rules – NOT the purest of motives.
Your point is well taken, but there are two good reasons for keeping things the way they are.
A) all shows have a half-life. So even AI will eventually drop precipitously. Having shows ready to go as replacements (whether it is AI or something else) is smart.
B) since most local news is on at 11pm across the country, a 10pm newscast does very well for the local stations, and since a network is no stronger than its weakest station, this makes good economic and programming senses
The REAL issue is why House, Bones,24 and Fringe are not on ABC/CBS/NBC!!!
I agree, they really need a third hour. They have way too many shows, and not enough time to fit all of them.
I think they certainly could add another hour the night, they have some good shows. Here’s the thing, it’s just more to watch,tape or DVR. I’m often glad that Fox and CW don’t have a third hour cause I’m already taping three shows at 9pm central time.
Bad enough that Bones is moving to Thursday where I tape 4 shows at 7pm.
I mean I think they could do more shows like 24. Have Prison Break or T:SCC be fall shows. I’m fine with that. Same can be down with AYSTA5G and Don’t Forget the Lyrics. One fall/winter , one winter/spring
as it is I watch a sh-t load of TV my DVR is always hovering betweenn 70-99%full and I often use two vcrs (monday and thursdays) and sometimes I still need to catch my Fox shows from Monday online. So I don’t know if I can handle any more
just my thoughts
they will not do this — it would upset their affiliates. Note that Fox still isn’t a network the way the other networks are — no daytime shows, no saturday afternoon programming, no weekday late night, etc. Fox affiliates make a lot of their money on their local programming and advertising. Fox is not going to upset their affiliates this way, especially when it’s working for them.