Readers: CBS will lead on Thursdays
'Thursday Night Football' will lift the network the first month
September 25, 2014
It’s hard to bet against a network that has football in primetime.
With “Thursday Night Football,” CBS will dominate Thursday nights during the first month of the fall season. And when football is over, top sitcom “The Big Bang Theory” will give CBS an edge.
That’s according to a recent Media Life poll on the new TV season, which started Monday, asking readers to weigh in on the strengths and weaknesses of every network across every night.
Asked to pick which network will finish first on Thursdays, 61 percent chose CBS.
ABC came in second at 32 percent. No other network received more than 3 percent.
“TNF” is already posting huge ratings. The first two games have averaged a 6.0 adults 18-49 Nielsen rating, and there’s nothing on the other networks that can compete with that.
Still, once “TNF” closes out its season on Oct. 23, the night will become more competitive. Readers say ABC will benefit from airing its trio of Shonda Rhimes-produced shows against football for the first month of the season, when the programs are expected to draw lots of female viewers.
“After football, ABC should take this night with the Shonda Rhimes block. She is a force to be reckoned with,” notes one reader.
Asked which returning show is poised for a breakout year, half of readers picked Rhimes’ fourth-year drama “Scandal.”
And they voted Rhimes’ new 10 p.m. drama “How to Get Away with Murder” as the new Thursday show with the most potential, predicting it will be picked up for a second season.
Readers have less confidence in the night’s other new programs. They say the prospects for NBC’s “A to Z,” Fox’s “Gracepoint” and CBS’s “The McCarthys” are iffy, voting them likely to be canceled after finishing out their initial episode order.
And they say the prospects for NBC’s new comedy “Bad Judge” are just plain bad. They predict it will be gone by November sweeps.
Finally, readers think CBS’s “Two and a Half Men” will go out with a whimper. Asked which returning show is likely to see the biggest ratings declines, the largest share of readers, 24 percent, picked “Men.”
NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” was second at 17 percent.
Tags: abc, broadcast, cbs, fall TV, fox, nbc, the coming fall season, thursday preview
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