TSCC & Prison Break to Stay through the 4th Quarter on Fox According to Fox VP
Fox’s Monday night lineup of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and “Prison Break” could also use some ratings improvement. The two frequently post fair numbers, but “Break,” in its fourth season, has seen significant ratings erosion, down 18% in adults 18-49 from its premiere last year.
“Terminator” did well during its premiere season in January, but ratings deteriorated 27% in adults 18-49 from its last original episode in March to its season premiere in September. Preston Beckman, Fox’s executive vice president of strategic program planning and research, said the network is going to stick with the shows through the fourth quarter.
He said because “Terminator” and “Break” have continuing story arcs that aren’t close-ended episode-to-episode, it makes it difficult to recruit new viewers.
“These are niche shows,” he said.
The shows are also heavily watched using digital video recorders and on the Web, which makes it difficult to know what their real audience is, Mr. Beckman said.
*Happy Dance time* Does this change our campaign strategy? Not really. We still need to let Fox know that we’re not happy with where the show is situated in the line up and that we believe that it will perform better on Wednesday nights paired w/ BONES rather than PRISON BREAK. Then again, if Fox isn’t paying attention to the ratings but IS paying attention to the DVR numbers and everything else - maybe they’re supporting these 2 shows more than we realize.
Does this mean that they’ve ordered the back 9 episodes? We don’t know that yet - but things certainly look encouraging that it will happen!
