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Welcome once again to "The 10 Things You Need to Know About the New Season," our annual feature about, well... the 10 things you need to know about the new season. The goal of this venture is to address not only common questions people have about television but to also demystify (or potentially reaffirm) stigmas out there about certain networks, time periods, genres and so forth. So with that in mind let us put on our journalistic caps and give you the cold hard truth about what's potentially ahead for some of your favorite new and returning shows...
3. Shows at 10:00/9:00c fail at the same rate as those at 9:00/8:00c.
NBC handing over its 10:00/9:00c hour to Jay Leno has sparked an industry discussion about the difficulty of launching shows in the 10:00/9:00c hour. But is it really? Check out how new shows on the broadcast networks have fared in the following time periods since the fall of 1999:
| time | abc | cbs | fox | nbc | upn | wb | cw | total |
| 8:00 PM | 11/34 (32%) | 9/28 (32%) | 6/31 (19%) | 13/49 (27%) | 3/15 (20%) | 8/14 (57%) | 1/6 (17%) | 51/177 (29%) |
| 8:30 PM | 5/17 (29%) | 6/15 (40%) | 9/26 (35%) | 5/20 (25%) | 5/7 (71%) | 1/11 (9%) | 1/2 (50%) | 32/98 (33%) |
| 9:00 PM | 11/38 (29%) | 7/17 (41%) | 19/60 (32%) | 10/27 (37%) | 2/20 (10%) | 12/30 (40%) | 3/8 (38%) | 64/200 (32%) |
| 9:30 PM | 5/19 (26%) | 4/9 (44%) | 3/14 (21%) | 5/18 (28%) | 2/6 (33%) | 3/10 (30%) | | 22/76 (29%) |
| 10:00 PM | 17/58 (29%) | 11/29 (38%) | | 11/34 (32%) | | | | 39/121 (32%) |
| other* | 1/7 (14%) | 4/6 (67%) | 3/10 (30%) | 2/6 (33%) | | 0/2 (0%) | 0/4 (0%) | 10/35 (29%) |
| total | 50/173 (29%) | 41/104 (39%) | 40/141 (28%) | 46/154 (30%) | 12/48 (25%) | 24/67 (36%) | 5/20 (25%) | 218/707 (31%) |
Surprisingly, shows at 10:00/9:00c and 9:00/8:00c have the same success rate while shows at 8:00/7:00c aren't much worse. In general, each time period stays pretty close to the broadcast average of 31%. Sure there are some interesting deviations - just 19% of new FOX shows at 8:00/7:00c made it to a second season while The WB batted an impressive 57% in said slot - but most are endemic of the network's overall success rate. All in all, while a spot on Sunday nights is preferable to toiling away on Fridays, 10:00/9:00c is just as much of a challenge as any other time period.
TOMORROW: Which genre has had the most success?
* includes shows that aired at 7:00/6:00c and those that didn't have a regular weekly time period
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