Audiences Still Love 'The Nanny'

Fran Drescher, formerly best-known as The Nanny, returned to television on Black Friday to surprisingly
strong ratings.

Debmar-Mercury's The Fran
Drescher Show
opened its test-run on six Fox-owned stations with a 0.8
rating/2 share in six metered markets. That's down just 11% from the show's
average lead-in of 0.9/2, and even with its year-ago time periods.

Premiering on the day after Thanksgiving is not common
practice, but apparently plenty of people were home sampling daytime
television. The talk show is airing in a three-week test run that will end on
Friday, Dec. 17.

Fran Drescher is executive
produced by Drescher, Scott Sternberg and Peter Marc Jacobson, Drescher's
ex-husband and with whom she created, wrote and produced The Nanny.
Debmar-Mercury is distributing and producing along with the Fox Television
Station group, which is an equal production partner for the purposes of this
test, although that will change should the show move into national syndication.

Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.