New Directions perform at Regionals on “Glee.”
(Adam Rose - Fox)
ooey Deschanel
(Greg Gayne - Fox)
For next season, Fox has picked up its freshman Zooey Deschanel chick-com, “New Girl”; Ryan Murphy’s three-season-old high-school musical, “Glee”; and Greg Garcia’s sophomore family comedy, “Raising Hope” — as Fox continues to build a four-comedy block on Tuesday nights.
Fox programming chief Kevin Reilly described them thusly in Monday’s announcement:
●“New Girl” — Reilly called it “the hottest new appointment series for young adults.” We call it: a comedy series that launched with about 10 million watching and is now averaging 8.3 million viewers this season and is tied for No. 3 among all new programs, with the 18- to 49-year-old viewers who are the currency of broadcast TV. (CBS’s “2 Broke Girls” is ranked No. 1, Fox’s “The X Factor” Wednesday edition is ranked No. 2; “New Girl” is tied with “The X Factor’s” Thursday edition and ABC’s “Once Upon a Time” for the third slot.)
●”Raising Hope.” Reilly called it “one of the smartest and most unique offbeat comedies.” We call it: down 19 percent, year-to-year, with an average of 5.6 million viewers, and down 10 percent among those 18- to 49-year-olds.
●”Glee.” Reilly called it “a genre-defying global cultural phenomenon.” We call it: a series that averaged 10.2 million viewers last season and is averaging just 8.9 million this season. It ranks No. 49 among all broadcast shows, and ranks 22nd among 18- to 49-year-olds, which is down 7 percent year to year. “Glee’s” season performance is being inflated by many more hiatuses than it’s had in previous seasons; this year’s airings are 18, compared with 26 at the same point last season, which means fewer reruns.
Things didn’t go so well for Fox’s other comedies. “I Hate My Teenage Daughter,” you’ll recall, was recently pulled from the schedule, and its remaining episodes shipped off to Summer Burn-off Theatre.
Meanwhile, “Breaking In” looks as though it’s destined to become That Fox Sitcom That Got Canceled Twice, after first being canceled when it was a break-in caper starring Christian Slater, only to be plucked from the dead pile and turned into a workplace comedy with Megan Mullally joining Slater.
Would that mean Slater has starred in three failed broadcast TV series since 2008, or four?
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