By John J. Joex
As one of the only genre shows still airing new episodes during the holiday season (in fact, one of the few network shows at all with new episodes), Human Target again posted low numbers this past week as it only mustered a 1.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 5.75 million viewers. And it makes me wonder if FOX has any long-term future plans for this show at all. When it debuted in January of last year, it looked like a promising new, Prime Time-friendly action franchise. But it never really caught on. In part because of FOX’s constant schedule juggling early on, but even once it settled into its Wednesday 8 PM EST timeslot, it still failed to build much of an audience. Still, they gave it the nod for a second season but then announced it would air on Friday nights. So what was the point? They claimed that this was part of an attempt to re-energize the night (just like they are currently claiming with the Fringe move), and you have to think that a network would not just throw away money on a second season for a show that they planned to cancel anyway. Okay, make that logic dictates that a company would not do that, which we know does not always apply to the thinking process of broadcast network execs. But then this season, after one of FOX’s new shows (Lone Star) took a quick dive, they reshuffled the schedule again and moved Human Target back to its original Wednesday slot but pushed its premiere from October 1st to November 17th. Better timeslot, but the late premiere came at a time when people are already traditionally tuning out because of the upcoming holiday season. And why does one show getting cancelled delay the premiere of another? Why couldn’t they have just slotted Human Target into Lone Star’s Monday 9 PM EST timeslot where it might have done pretty good? Now HT does have January to look forward to where it will move into a cozy post-American Idol timeslot, but with its current poor performance, will that be too little too late? Maybe FOX will give it a chance and if it does very well in its new hour they will keep it around. But it also would not surprise me if they announced it cancellation before it even makes that move. Keep an eye out on this one, because there’s no telling how this story will unfold.
The only other genre ratings news for the week is for Undercovers with NBC having decided to burn off that show’s remaining episodes through the holiday weeks. This last Wednesday’s airing pulled only a 1.1 rating in the 18-49 demo with 4.2 million viewers, a series low.
Source: TV by the Numbers
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