While many buyers say this fall’s TV lineup leaves much to be desired, The O.C. (CTV/Fox) has proven to be a shining exception.
Launched in simulcast to great success this summer (5.4 in Toronto, 18-to-49, BBM), the series, which is being touted the new Beverly Hills 90210, is a testament to the ongoing, scheduling nightmare of simulcast. Because Fox placed The O.C. in the Wednesday 9 p.m. time-slot, where CTV is in simulcast with The West Wing, the broadcaster was forced to prerelease it this fall on Monday at 9 p.m. against football, Everybody Loves Raymond and Las Vegas.
The move, which saw The O.C. relaunch on Oct. 27, didn’t seem to cause the sophomore series any harm, having pulled in a 6.9 rating (Toronto BBM) against adults 18 to 49 and ranking number one on its night against females, pulling in a 12 rating against females 18 to 34 and beating out CSI: Miami, which followed.
‘What’s unusual about the show,’ says OMD managing director Sherry O’Neil, ‘is that it crosses quite a few demos. We liked it when we saw it, but we didn’t expect it to have such a broad appeal.’
Meantime, the race to find a Friends replacement for next season has come to nothing at this point. While Global’s Two and a Half Men is holding steady as the number-one new show this fall (not counting The O.C., which launched in the summer), its ratings have fallen from a 7 in the first two weeks of the season to 5.2 for the Oct. 13-26 period (see ‘Top 10 New Shows’ below).
Coupling, based on a successful British series, was NBC’s big hope to replace Friends, but it was recently relegated to the bench, at least temporarily. This doesn’t surprise O’Neil who says the show was clearly miscast. ‘The cast is way too old. It should have been what Friends was when it started, not when it ended. It should have been a bunch of young unknowns who click.’
Meantime, the return of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, featuring James Garner as the grandfather figure, ruled the night on Nov. 4 when it debuted in its new incarnation.
Run up against a 90-minute special Fear Factor on Global, the successful sitcom, which recently lost star John Ritter to a heart attack, grabbed a 9.5 rating in the 18-to-49 demo and a 10.6 for the 25-to-54 in demo in Toronto (Nielsen).
But how long such ratings will last is anyone’s guess.
As tradition would have it, shows tend to flop when their name stars drop – think NBC’s Chico and the Man, which fell off the map after star Freddie Prinze shot himself in 1977.
Fall season 2003: Already axed
Skin (CH/Fox)
Coupling (Global/NBC)
The Lyon’s Den (Global/NBC)
The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H. (Global/CBS)
Boomtown (CTV/NBC)
Luis (Fox)
The Ortegas (Fox)
The Mullets (UPN)
