Talk:Friday night death slot/Archives/2012

Comments

Re: 'Programs that buck the phenomenon', Homicide: Life on the Street should be included since it aired on Fridays at 10pm for six seasons. - noble experiment 00:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I was a bit surprized by the frankness of the phrase "In the case of The X Files, many of its original viewers (i.e., nerds)," although I must admit I can't come up off the top of my head with a better way to phrase it.

Wouldn't it be good to have some kind of explanation to this phenomenon? --Allycat 19:19, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone else think Star Trek gets too much of this article? FrozenPurpleCube 15:52, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Friday Night Smackdown! should be mentioned on this page as well. When UPN moved this show to Friday after airing on Thursday nights for 5 seasons, it was though by many to be in anticipation of it being cancelled due to Raw being moved back to the USA network. Smackdown is now one of the highest rated network shows on Friday nights. Lawnboy1977 19:21, 21 November, 2005 (AST)

Friday Night? In Germany 20:30 is referred to as "evening", 20:15 being prime time. Regardless, this seems to be an American phenomenon. On German TV shows sometimes span Monday to Thursday, but leave the Friday for actual movies (be it straight-to-TV or Hollywood). I guess Germans just don't have anything better to do than watch TV on Friday evenings -- well, those who watch German TV in the first place, anyway. -- Ashmodai 14:20, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure some of the shows listed as succeeding on Friday nights actually aired on Saturday nights (which probably has the same negatives as airing on Friday nights, but nevertheless were not Friday nights). Some fact checking would be useful to be certain of accuracy. KP 09:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, no one did any fact checking, so I did what I could. Dallas seems to have started on Sunday night later moving to Saturday night, while The Love Boat and Fantasy Island seem to have been Saturday night shows. I don't question that Saturday night is likely hard to succeed in for the same reasons Friday night is, but the article is about Friday night shows specifically. -KP 22:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Truly, Friday is and has been tough to schedule for American audiences over the last several years. Friday may be the place (at least some) shows go to die, while Saturday is currently the graveyard, containing no original scripted programming for a few years now. — ArkansasTraveler 22:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

What kind of badly argued article is this? After exposing a 'phenomenon' it provides an equal number of examples and counter-examples, which leaves the reader totally unconvinced that there is even such a thing as a 'Friday night death slot'. Either someone find some real proof or delete this artice.

The phenomenon has been referred to (by various similar names as well) for years. "Everybody" supposedly "knows" that Fridays are a bad night to show new episodes of a series (in America, that is). Therefore, noting the shows that have failed after starting on or being moved to Fridays (I'm especially thinking of Wonderfalls, which was canceled after four episodes despite general critical acclaim) is important, because it is shows like that that tend to make people believe it's the "time slot of death". However, it's equally important to note exceptions to the "rule", as those shows' successes, especially on networks such as NBC and CBS, who normally have higher expectations for ratings, are often surprising to people BECAUSE of this perception of the "time slot of death" and do in fact run contrary to the general perception of Friday being a bad place to air a show.

Now, I find it silly to say that both sides can't be presented, Mr. or Ms. Does Not Sign Their Posts, because of course there "is no such thing" as this. It's not an industry term, and it's not a concrete phenomena that's been proven and time-tested, hell it's not even an academic theory, as far as I've heard; it's a concept that's risen over the years in response to the general public's observation that many shows, most of which did not appear to suck, got canceled after being stuck on Fridays, even if they were in "prime time", especially on the lower, bigger networks (NBC, Fox, CBS, ABC). Whether or not shows actually do have a higher chance of being canceled if stuck on a Friday night is frankly irrelevant; all that matters as far as this article is concerned should be that many people believe that, showing evidence as to why they believe that, and showing evidence that also contradicts the "common knowledge" that shows are never successful on Fridays. That's all that need be done, and most of it is, although the structure could use a little work for sure. Runa27 01:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I personally don't think Malcolm in the Middle suffered in the Friday Night Death Slot considering it stole the Sunday night spot of gold in between Simpsons and X-files. That spot was the only place guaranteed to keep a show running based on the popularity of the shows before and after. On a sunday night most would watch Simpsons and X-files, and for the half hour in between very few people would go to another channel. This was a spot originally promised to Futurama and once Fox started moving it to different slots every three weeks it got cancelled. The same thing happened to Family Guy. Both of those shows were popular and only had low viewers based on bad management of Fox. Malcolm in the Middle stayed in the Sunday slot for many years and appears to have run it's entire course rather than get cancelled - it covered the entire time of the title character's high school years. It certainly doesn't merit mention as a show killed by the slot.Abrynkus 21:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The note of WWE Friday Night Smackdown implies that the merger of WCW and WWE is what caused the ratings increase for the Friday Night move. The merger happened in 2001 and the move to Friday Nights happened in 2005. The two are certainly not related. It also notes the low ratings that Smackdown had on Thursday nights, but it neglects to mention that Smackdown was the highest rating program on UPN at the timeUnheardConcept (talk) 19:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC).

Poorly formed article, several tags added

This is a very poorly written article, formed in a non-encyclopedic style that has very little regard for WP:NPOV. I'll go on to say that this article is fairly significant in explaining a meaningful slot in the US Broadcast Television market, but it just isn't up to par. I will be tagging it with several tags, and hopefully will work to improve on it later. -Chris Saribay 00:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite

Gave it a complete write, incorporating all your suggestions, but could not find references. Hope you like! 206.27.244.254 18:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Verification

Does anyone have citations for this article? It reads like WP:OR, or like an urban legend. Certainly people seem to perceive it to be true, but hopefully there has been some sort of statistical work done to see if such a phenomena really exists. This article is linked from a number of articles, but not a whole lot. Perhaps it's worthwhile to address the truth (or verifiability) now. --GargoyleMT 02:04, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Dallas

The term "Friday night death slot" only refers to the last hour of primetime, 10:00-11:00. One remarkable exception is Dallas, which became the top rated show on TV when running in this slot back in 1980.

I have never heard it used in so limited a fashion. Then again, when I originally heard the term, it was explicitly defined as referring solely to the showing of science fiction programming on Friday nights. The idea being that sci-fi tends to appeal to a teenage demographic, who in turn tend to not be home on Fridays, making the tendency of networks to program science fiction on Friday's a bit of a guaranteed death sentence.

I think we can say it's a phrase that takes on different shades of meaning in different contexts. --Suttkus 05:26, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Verifiability and sources

I recently tagged the article with the "Unreferenced" and "Missing Citations" tag. The article is pretty good, but doesn't have any references, citations, sources or even a single external link. Although most of the information can be verified by reading every article on the television shows mentioned, the article should include external links and footnotes for viewers. This issue has been raised before by GargoyleMT -- Mtmelendez 9 January 2007 (UTC)

A sampling of citations for the term's use, all of which predate my creation of this article back in August of 2004:

• June 1999 11th Hour: However, the Friday night death slot (again, see Millennium), combined with 1013's preoccupation with the second X-Files movie -- and not to mention the tendency of Wong-less 1013 series to plummet in quality after an initial good run -- makes one wonder if Carter will experience his own harsh realm once the XF well runs dry.
• August 2003 USA Today.com: How well do you think Jag will do in the Friday night death slot?
• Sept. 2003 IGN: Firefly premiered last season on the FOX network in what has come to be known as the Friday Night Death Slot.
• Dec. 2003 Adrants: After moving "Wanda at Large" to the Friday night death slot, FOX has canned the Wanda Sykes series after viewership plummeted to just 3.8 million viewers.
• April 2004 TeeVee: But I won’t now, because Fox cancelled it. After four episodes. Three of which aired in what executive producer Tim Minear lovingly called “the Friday night death slot,” with the last competing against a couple of obscure, little-watched series called CSI and The Apprentice. (Incidentally, while Minear may well have used the phrase, there's no reason to believe he coined it.)
• July 2004 blog comment: They aired it on what is called the Friday night death slot, and they bounced it around a lot and pre-empted it fairly often.

Shmuel 22:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

As a long list of references (covering more than two decades!) attesting to the term's use and the accompanying belief in the phenomenon has been added since the Original Research tag was placed, I've taken the liberty of removing it.

With that said, I agree that more references covering all the specific cases cited would improve the article. If y'all feel that adding the tag back is in order. I won't object, but I'd suggest that you might consider adding it to specific sections, not the article as a whole, and that you use the talk page to note what, specifically, the article is lacking at present. Shmuel (talk) 23:28, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:curses

What about it? Is puting it on this article a kind of joke? -- 200.226.73.118 18:50, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Added on to the article

I gave an explanation near the top about where people are on Fridays, and added a section at the bottom to explain what networks do in lieu of an original airing of an entertainment program. More experienced Wiki writers are welcome to clean it up.Kuahmel (talk) 20:19, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

UPDATE: Just fixed it again to read better while still noting the added idea of going out of town that some guy keeps insisting on adding back in.Kuahmel (talk) 03:28, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Over sourcing

Is eight sources enough for one sentence?! C'mon, people! ask123 (talk) 13:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Normally I'd agree, but this article has been tagged more than once in the past for lacking references and/or being original research. Under the circumstances, this direct response is probably justified, establishing about two decades' worth of cultural currency. Shmuel (talk) 17:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

'Well known in television'

I'm amending this to say that this a phenomenon in US television - there is a whole world out there you know! For sitcoms in particular in the UK, a Friday night slot has traditionally been something to aspire to. 'Friends' aired at 9pm on Channel 4 for its entire run and was one of the most popular shows ever screened on that channel. 206.165.150.70 (talk) 15:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with any UK equivalent of the Death Slot, it could well be a US-specific thing. To add to what User 206.165.150.70 says above, the BBC moved the long-running news quiz Have I Got News for You from its traditional 9PM Friday slot to 9PM on Thursday, making room for the third series of Ashes to Ashes. It remains to be seen whether this will be continued once the latter has finished or what the overall impact on the ratings on either show will be. CommanderJades (talk) 19:20, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Habits vary all over the world. Certainly in the UK Friday & Saturday nights are traditionally much more important - indeed the 1970s BBC1 standard Saturday night is often considered the greatest line-up the BBC has ever done, with many popular shows whilst a lot of big shows have gone out on Friday nights. The British "death slots" tend to be away from the evenings - some shows have been moved to Saturday mid afternoons - or are more specific and defined by the competition on other channels. Being scheduled opposite EastEnders or Coronation Street is traditionally considered to be a killer for all but non-niche shows and the term "death slot" has been used for that. Timrollpickering (talk) 18:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Las Vegas

Las Vegas can't be both "successful in the ratings until [it was] moved to Friday nights" and an exception to the rule, can it?

Which one should it be?

Cwp2112 (talk) 22:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Close to Home exception?

Exceptions to the rule - CBS : I realise it only lasted two seasons (why, i don't know) but Close to Home actually did better on Fridays than it did on Tuesdays. Most every week it beat Ghost Whisperer in the ratings and each season of Close to Home overall ranks better than Ghost Whisperer for the respective years. In my opinion that would make it worthy of inclusion in the list. The reason i ask is that most shows in the list ran longer than 2 seasons. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 07:22, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

DVR Irrelevancy?

I would think that the invention of the DVR would make this whole concept irrelevant. You can't "miss" a show if it's being recorded. For example, most of the shows I watch I wait until after they've been recorded to skip commercials, regardless of the day it's on. It's my understanding that this has no bearing on the Nielsen Ratings if it's watched within a week.67.142.166.24 (talk) 12:42, 19 August 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.166.24 (talk) 12:40, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, watching the show on DVR does add to the Nielsen ratings if it is watched in the week after it's broadcast. However, most advertisers set their payment scales based on what are referred to as "Live Plus Same Day" ratings (i.e. the people who watch the show in its timeslot plus DVR users who watch it before 3 AM in the broadcast day on which it aired), and therefore Friday shows still have smaller ratings than Sunday-Thursday shows.Theorycreation: Create Truth to Destroy the Lies (talk) 14:29, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

The DVR has some impact although it's not that big a leap forward when you consider machines that can record have been around since the 1960s and got heavy household penetration in the 1980s. But even if people have the machines in their homes that doesn't mean they automatically use them to overcome the schedules - many people are creatures of habit and a lot will still tend to watch regular programmes at the time they go out and tend to use timeshifting largely just to cover one-off events when they're not able to watch a particular episode, rather than to regularly follow a series that goes out when they're not in. (It's actually surprising how many people take years to explore the features on equipment and will often use it much the same as they used the previous equipment it replaced. Habit is what it is.) Timrollpickering (talk) 00:10, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Laugh-In

Is it really plausible that three cast members of Laugh-In would refuse to renew their contracts to protest the way NBC treated Star Trek? I seriously doubt it. Particularly in the case of Goldie Hawn, who won an Oscar in the spring of 1970 shortly before her term on Laugh-In ended, I suspect that their decision to leave Laugh-In was based on their belief that they had better opportunities elsewhere rather than a gesture in support of Star Trek. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:36, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Relavence of Examples

The table for NBC was recently updated with Chuck as an "example" of a show that failed after being moved to Friday, however this addition brings up a VERY serious question about the other shows: Chuck was in no way being "killed" because of its ratings after being moved to Friday nights, it was decided by the network UPON RENEWAL that Chuck would end on its fifth season and that season would air on Friday nights. I have already removed it from the chart since is not a legitimate example of a television show that was cancelled because of a sharp decline in its ratings after being moved to Fridays. However this brings into question the validity of ANY of the examples listed on this page. This article needs references that actually state CONCLUSIVELY that the shows mentioned here were specifically cancelled because of falling ratings after being moved to Friday nights. Otherwise you only have a lot of original research and hearsay.

I would also argue that the significance of the article itself relies on someone providing references showing that airing Friday night can be attributed as THE cause for the cancellation of a given show.Ambaryer (talk) 22:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Requested move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Friday night death slot → Friday night prime time – Otherwise, how about Friday night television? "Death slot" sounds mean, unless everyone before this article was created called it something else. --George Ho (talk) 05:49, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. No, as can be seen by the lead, this article is actually about the term "Friday night death slot". As can be seen by this search, it is a relatively common term. Jenks24 (talk) 09:50, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Needs expert of this topic

If "requested moves" and AFD won't work, maybe this article needs cleanup. I don't know why sections still are there, but they are very OR to me. No one knows how the term originated, is convinced that Friday night is a very tricky prime time night for television by sources, and... well, has interest to clean up this article.

People say that this article is well-sourced. I checked the sources, and only the lead is reliable enough to be kept. I don't know why people included examples; they are too distracting, and I couldn't remove all examples because... even OR statements tell the truth, right? If sources are needed, what are acceptable search terms besides "friday night death slot"? "Death" may not be included in sources; would "Friday night" be all right? --George Ho (talk) 14:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Friday Night Death Slot refers to the pattern of television programs which have been rescheduled to Friday night and cancelled within the same season due to declining ratings. It is helpful, but not required, to provide sourced evidence that they show would have remained on the air had it not been moved to Friday night. Shows which are moved to a different night may lose their audience due to conflicts with other show timeslots, confusion, or moving to a night (such as Friday) where the target audience is doing other activities like socializing. Nothing complicated about it. It's a theory evidenced by a prevalence of examples as well as statements by production staff involved in TV programs. Removing examples removes the evidence of this theory. Feldon23 (talk) 11:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

You're speaking statements that are challenged for verification, such as shows that may or may not be successful on Fridays. For instance, success of TGIF lineup requires sources that mention this topic itself. I learn how to avoid original research when I tried to add copyright status about Storm in a Teacup (film) (see discussion). Sources that discuss exceptions to this topic must also mention the topic itself. I have recently removed all the unsourced information per WP:V and WP:OR. --George Ho (talk) 11:30, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Cleaned Up TOO Much

I think this article was cleaned up TOO much and needs more information. 68.44.179.54 (talk) 14:53, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, yeah? Where are sources that mention Friday night first-run shows? --George Ho (talk) 14:54, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

How research is this topic and its title?

I don't get it. Friday nights are typically bad for television, but they were strong for ABC family crap during the 1990s. If we use sources to determine "Friday night death slot", then odds of success would be... I don't know. However, this article should be about Friday night itself, not about examples. Can this article be retitled "U.S. Friday night television", as there have been no UK Friday shows endangered by low ratings? --George Ho (talk) 16:12, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

There are reliable sources that support the term "Friday night death slot" and specifically in the sense of moving shows into that slot, and not so much of shows being set to run in that slot from the start. Thus, its not about the dirth of viewership of Friday nights in general, but the specific scheduling of shows there. As necessity it will be examples of shows that were scheduled there from original blocks and (in most cases) later cancelled. We don't need to list every show ever in that slot, only notable examples (eg Firefly, Fringe, etc.) that have backing sources about that aspect. --MASEM (t) 16:54, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

... I don't know how the lead is implied, given that "death slot" might invite negative facts about Friday night television. However, if it is not original research, why am I having doubts about "friday night death slot"? Speaking of the term, I found this: [1].

I have an idea: let's turn "Friday night death slot" into a section of this article and rename this article Friday night television. Then invite general information about Friday night television itself and examples of successful Friday night shows. Here's outline (outline does not equal section):

1. Birth of Friday night television
2. Incline of Friday night television
3. Peak of Friday night television
4. Decline of Friday night television
5. Struggles of Friday night television, known as "Friday night death slot"
6. 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s

Therefore, Friday night can be both success and failure. --George Ho (talk) 17:18, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

(another comment) I found this while I used '"Friday night" (tv OR television)': [2]. --George Ho (talk) 17:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

There's nothing special about "friday night television" as a topic; it would have to be discussed almost season by season. Again, the point of this article is not to talk about friday night television but specifically the fate of shows that are rescheduled there that are more often than not shortly cancelled, making it a death slot. That's not original research - again, much of the articles around Fringe's renewal for 4th and 5th season revolve around the fact it was moved to that slot. --MASEM (t) 17:30, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

What would be the original research and not the original research then? I could not find examples related to Friday night. Maybe I'll make them:

Friday nights television originated at the birth of television airing on first Friday night.

Maybe this one:

"Friday night death slot" originated in the 1980s.

Maybe this one but from article, not by me:

The FOX network created a promotion advertisement for Fringe that lampooned its reputation of the Friday night death slot prior to Fringe's move

--George Ho (talk) 17:52, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

One problem is that we don't have articles for "Monday night programming of American Television", and so on. If there are specific comparison by days, it is typically season by season (eg the impact of NBC's old Must See TV on Thursday nights). So making one just for Friday nights, it doesn't make sense. There's also the question of notability of those topics.

"Friday night death slot" is a term of art by the industry to describe a specific phenomena: the scheduling of existing (rarely new) shows into Friday night, where they rarely last more than a season, if not cancelled. There are exception: FOX's version with both the X-Files, and later trying to recapture that with Fringe, for example. But there's plenty of sources so there's no original research going on. But, by necessity, to talk about this topic, we have to use examples (and counter-examples), so the issue is to avoid overloading this page with trivial, unhelpful examples. The trimming to reduce the FOX's contribution is okay. And remember, the counter-examples have to be those that are in relation to fighting the death slot curse (of which Fringe is prime for given how it is discussed in sources). --MASEM (t) 15:34, 29 April 2012 (UTC)