July 23, 2008
Flashpoint Flings Swingtown
Friday's episode of Canadian drama Flashpoint managed to bring back about 85% of the audience for round two and was the most-watched program of the night on both sides of the border. (The decline could be attributed to the Joker Effect, as ratings for Friday were depressed compared to the previous week, while 10 million people took in the newest Batman film.) In a sign of confidence, CTV and CBS, which broadcast Flashpoint in the States, have been replaying the show on Sundays to boost exposure. The tactic was one way to counterbalance Flashpoint's so-called "dead zone" timeslot of Friday at 10 p.m. (Although if eight to nine million viewers can find a show at the time, is it the slot that is the problem or the lack of involving programming?)
Not that Flashpoint has to worry about the "dead zone" anymore. Yesterday, CBS and CTV announced that the cop drama would move to Thursdays at 10 p.m. immediately. The move, at least for American viewers, will displace the other freshman summer drama, Swingtown. The Molly Parker drama about swinging couples in the 70's will move to Flashpoint's old time slot—not a good sign for Swingtown, although doesn't it feel like more of a Friday night kind of show anyhow? The pressure will be on Flashpoint to pull in bigger numbers this Thursday now that it has two of the biggest shows on television as lead-ins: on CBS, CSI, and, on CTV, the results show of So You Think You Can Dance.
In Canada, Swingtown broadcasts on Global and will remain on Thursday nights. So, Swingtown, even after getting exiled in the States, will get to take on Flashpoint on its home turf. (Although the swingers don't even make the top 30 shows in Canada, while both airings of the cop drama do.) Flashpoint shouldn't get smug though: the ratings for the second episode of Swingtown actually beat those of last week's Flashpoint. Of course, Swingtown was in the better Thursday timeslot, but it's a reminder that television execs will love you briefly before moving onto the next hot young thing.
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"not a good sign for Swingtown, although doesn't it feel like more of a Friday night kind of show anyhow?"
Ha ha!
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Many people who have enjoyed Flashpoint and plan to settle in on Friday night to watch a new episode will be out of luck. This sort of scheduling change seems to happen a lot, making it hard to follow what few shows are interesting. I think such scheduling changes contribute big-time to dropping audiences.
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If you're still watching tv according to when the broadcasters want you to watch it, with commercial breaks and everything, you're doing it wrong.
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The funny thing is that unless you're a metered household (one that is part of the ratings survey), it doesn't really matter what you're watching on TV. In fact, catching a show online (on the official site, of course) might be one of the only ways for a non-metered viewer to register what he or she is watching.