Fox Picks Up Four Shows, Dumps Five

Good news today for fans of Manic Pixie Dream Girls and bad news for fans of White Sox-loving cops. With the fall season coming to a close and network upfronts on their way, Fox has picked up four new shows, including The New Girl, a Zooey Deschanel vehicle that features Mrs. Ben Gibbard as a suddenly single teacher who moves in with three guys. Also picked up were J.J. Abrams’ Alcatraz, I Hate My Teenage Daughter, and a Bones spin-off, Finder. To make room, the network is dropping poor performers Breaking In, The Human Target, Lie to Me, Traffic Light, and Sean Ryan’s cop drama The Chicago Code. Rumor is the rest of their lineup will be filled with shows with singing and Seth McFarlane. [Ed. Note: That was a startlingly accurate joke]

Bubble Watch: FOX Pulls Running Wilde for November Sweeps

Poor Mitchell Hurowitz just can’t get a break, now with FOX pulling his latest show Running Wilde from the November sweeps period, instead airing reruns of Raising Hope. This comes hot on the heels of the news that the network in considering replacing the show with a comedy starring Christian Slater, who, as we all know, attracts huge audiences. While Running Wilde started a little slowly, I’ve found its last few episodes to be pretty decent. If nothing else, this is probably a big blow to a potential Arrested Development movie, but given this is Hurowitz’s third project with FOX, I’m probably completely wrong.

CBS in Talks With Hulu, TVs to Soon Be Obsolete

Hey everyone! Sorry we’ve been a little quiet here at TUiW this week, Jonah and I were locked in an epic 11 hour tennis match. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming:

A little bit of interesting TV news for you this morning with the news that CBS, Viacom, and Time Warner are in talks with Hulu to add programming to a long rumored subscription service on the website. The proposed subscription service, which c could start testing as early as this month, would be available for $10 a month, and would reportedly supplement the free content on the website, giving subscribers access to old episodes, presumably without ads. Subscribers would also be able to watch Hulu though an iPad app. CBS shows have previously not been available on Hulu, instead appearing on the unreliable and poorly run CBS website. Hulu is a joint venture between NBC, ABC, and Fox, but the site was once home to Viacom’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. When both were taken off the site in April, Hulu’s viewers left as well. With the possible addition of CBS, the site would have programming from all four networks, as well as several basic cable channels. Should Time Warner and Viacom join as well, many of the popular cable shows from TNT, TBS, MTV, and Comedy Central could be featured on the site

I think it’s easy to scoff at the idea of paying for shows available for free on network television, but a subscription service to Hulu could really revolutionize television. In the era of DVR, plenty of people either record their favorite shows or wait for them to appear on DVD to avoid commercials and/or to watch them at their leisure. A subscription service to Hulu could allow the networks to make up for the falling ad revenue, which could help shows with lower ratings stay on the air. Truthfully, the $9.95 per month rumored fee would also be pretty close to Netflix’s $8.99 for instant streaming, which has also been very popular. Hulu Plus, as it’s rumored to be called, could really be a huge boon to network television.

What are your thoughts on Hulu Plus? Would you sign up for a subscription?

CBS Again The Most Watched Network

Well America, you’ve done it again. For the seventh time in the last eight years, CBS has won the banner of “America’s Most Watched Network,” averaging 11.77 million viewers for the network TV season, which officially ended on Wednesday. Also a victory for CBS was that they had seven shows place in the top ten, including NCIS, The Mentalist, NCIS: Los Angeles, Criminal Minds, The Good Wife, and CSI: Miami. They were followed by Fox (9.98 million) , ABC (8.54 million), NBC (8.21 million), and the CW (2.02 million). Fox won the coveted 18-49 demographic with help from American Idol, Glee, Family Guy*, and House, with CBS behind them, and ABC and NBC tied for third, with the CW trailing far behind in fourth. As far as overall viewership, CBS stayed flat with last year, while Fox and, surprisingly, NBC were up 4%. ABC fell 4%, with the CW slipping 2%. So there you have it. I’m sure that football/The Super Bowl helped CBS a little, but let’s all take a moment to notice that NCIS and NICS: Los Angeles were top ten shows.

*I have to say, I find it funny that Family Guy is one of the more successful shows on Fox considering that it was once canceled by Fox for having bad ratings. Good one Fox.

2010 Upfronts: Fox

Upfront week continues with our second of the day, Fox.

Monday

The network’s biggest drama, House, kicks off the week for the network at 8 on Monday nights. It will be followed by two new dramas, the first being Lonestar from “Party of Five” creators Chris Keyser and Amy Lippman, their first new show in 10 years. The show is more or less a prime time soap opera set in the Texas oil business. It will be replaced in the spring by the new show from The Sheild creator Shawn Ryan called Ride-Along, a Chicago based cop drama starring Jason Clarke (Brotherhood), Jennifer Beals and Delroy Lindo.

Tuesday

We’ll finally see just what Glee is made of, as it kicks off the comedy night without a lead-in from So You Think You Can Dance or American Idol. Instead, Fox is banking on it being a good lead in for a few new comedies. First is Raising Hope, the new comedy from My Name is Earl creator Greg Garcia, in which a slacker not only discovers he has a child he didn’t know about, but he has to raise it when the mother gets sent to jail. Next is the most anticipated new comedy of the season, Running Wilde, which features an Arrested Development reunion of Will Arnett, creator Mitch Hurowitz, and AD producer Jim Valley. The show is about an immature, rich, jerky guy (Arnett) who decides to woo the much more put together and nicer Kerri Russel, who was his childhood sweetheart. In the spring when American Idol returns, it will go on for 90 minutes starting at 8, followed by either Running Wilde or another new show Mixed Signals, a show about three guys in all sorts of wacky romantic adventures. Sounds original!

Wednesday

In the fall, the surprisingly renewed Lie to Me will kick things off at 8 and will be followed by Hell’s Kitchen at 9. In the Spring, the Idol results show and Raising Hope will serve as the lead in to Glee at 9.

Thursday

Nothing will change with the Thursday night lineup, with Bones and Fringe leading the charge.

Friday

The Human Target landed itself on virtual Death Row for Fox at 8 on Friday (see: Terminator, Dollhouse), and it will be followed up by the bland buddy cop summer series The Good Guys, which will continue through the fall. Kitchen Nightmares will take over 9pm slot in the spring.

Sunday

The Sunday Animation Bloc will return as normal in the Fall, with football coverage preceding The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show. In the Spring, a new show, Bob’s Burgers, will join them.

Other Notes

The Speilberg produced Terra Nova, which is about a family that time travels to prehistoric times to save humanity, did not get scheduled, which doesn’t bode well for the show. The rumor is that Fox wanted several 24 writers to take over the show, including Brannon Braga, who was widely unpopular when he was in charge of the Star Trek series.

Other than that, it’s hard to say what we’ll get from Fox. Their shows tend to either be successful and widely popular, or they die quickly or painfully. Running Wilde has the most promise given how awesome Will Arnett and Keri Russell are. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…