5th Grader Gets More Homework
By Jim Benson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/1/2007 12:44:00 PM
Producer Mark Burnett’s two strongest shows will run head-to-head for more than a month now that Fox has announced that it is extending the Thursday night run of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
Fox has added four more episodes to air 8-9 p.m. ET Thursdays on top of two previously announced airings March 15 and 22. The game show is slated to air after American Idol 9-10 p.m. Thursday and March 8.
That puts the Jeff Foxworthy-hosted game show head-to-head with Burnett’s Survivor on CBS for a total of six weeks. When NBC aired Burnett’s The Apprentice on Thursdays, it had an agreement with Burnett to air the show out of the path of Survivor at 9 p.m. (excluding “super-sized” episodes that started 15 minutes early).
But Survivor, while still a top-10 show, has slipped some since then and The Apprentice has been relegated to a new night following a ratings decline. This time around, it appears that Burnett did not have that same leverage with Fox.
To accommodate the move, Fox is benching Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy and Nanny 911 until a later date. It will double-run Family Guy 9-10 p.m. March 15 and install a second weekly airing of the hit animated comedy at 9 p.m. on Thursdays. On March 22, American Dad will make its debut at 9:30 p.m., also giving it two weekly airings.
The new 5th Grader game show has received high marks in the ratings, with the premiere Tuesday becoming Fox’s highest-rated series debut in 13 years; best-rated series premiere on any network in more than five years among adults 18-49 (11.2 rating/26 share) and in eight years in viewers (26.6 million).
The series debut also made the honor roll by retaining the largest audience ever out of an American Idol lead-in among adults 18-49 (93%) and viewers (88%), and it beat Idol with teens (8.7/28 vs. 8.3/26) and men 12-34 (7.7/24 vs. 7.0/23).
Wednesday’s edition retained 83% of adults 18-49 and 79% of viewers from Idol.
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It will be only four weeks 5th grader will face Survivor. 5th grader will not face competition from the reality hit on March 15th and 22nd, because CBS is running the NCAA basketball tournament on those nights, knocking Survivor off the prime-time schedule.
Terence Henderson - 3/1/2007 11:17:00 PM EST
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