Don’t Always Blame Timeslots

You may have seen a previous post of mine that mentioned the idea of cursed timeslots. Well, I’ve followed enough show ratings that I know that timeslots are not always to blame for a show’s failure. Sometimes a show can thrive in a timeslot and another show comes over and fail at the same timeslot. So I thought that I would mention why blaming a timeslot for a show’s cancellation isn’t always going to work out after all.

Maybe it will always be strange and something people aren’t used to when a show airs during the hiatus of another show. But that tends to always lead to low rated shows. The Blacklist: Redemption failed where The Blacklist succeeded. Agent Carter failed where Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. succeeded. Those are just two examples and there are probably more.

One of the problems that I notice when it comes to looking up ratings is that I get total viewers in my only source available at the end of the season which is not the more important demographic of a certain age range. You do have to wonder why every show uses the same demographic. Surely a show like The Muppets isn’t for 18-34 year olds, but that doesn’t change anything. It is also worth noting that shows aren’t always cancelled because of low ratings. Just look at The Great Indoors.

To point out my confusion about this, look at The Muppets versus The Real O’Neals. Both shared the same timeslot. In terms of total viewers, The Muppets did better. But it was cancelled at the end of the season while the other show stayed around longer. The same was true about Angel from Hell which was cancelled despite doing better in its timeslot than 2 Broke Girls did.

Another reason not to blame timeslots for a show’s failure is because a show can thrive in any timeslot. Just look at Supernatural. They have probably aired that tons of different times, yet it has never been in danger of cancellation. Even when it aired on Fridays, Bones never was in danger of cancellation. I’ll admit that it is over now, but that was more due to a long hiatus between episodes than it constantly changing timeslots throughout its life. Of course, sometimes a show constantly changing timeslots means that it will end as they are just airing it whenever until it is over. Just look at Nikita or The Good Guys. But the fact remains that these shows all had different timeslots, not one, cursed one.

I don’t know what else to add to this. I guess this was just a response to my previous post on cursed timeslots that I wanted to inform my blog readers that a timeslot isn’t always to blame. At least a whole ton of people read that other post. But I don’t want to create clickbait so here’s a clarification of that previous post about cursed timeslots.