ABC Wednesday Falling Apart

As previously reported, ABC has announced that it is pulling the ratings-challenged Wednesday night drama "The Nine". But the rest of their line-up is not doing much better. Will the network return "Lost" earlier than previously announced?

Last May, ABC addressed the concerns of the loyal fan base of their hit-series "Lost", who were getting increasingly annoyed by the constant repeats sprinkled throughout the season, by announcing that the third season of the island mystery drama would be split into two parts. The first six installments would air as a mini-season in the fall 2006 and the remaining 16 episodes would air non-stop over 16 consecutive weeks beginning in February 2007.

Mixing all-new original episodes with repeats is nothing new in the US television industry. In fact it is the industry standard that has worked well for the networks for many decades. For economic reasons, the networks usually do not order more than 22-24 episodes of a series per season.

The season however begins after the summer holidays in September and ends the following year in May. That means there are 35 weeks in a season, that is at least 13 weeks will be pre-emptions or reruns (if, of course, the show is successful enough to air throughout the entire season).

This model works for most of the sitcoms and procedural dramas with self-contained episodes that are always resolved by the end of the hour. But highly serialized soap operas or mystery series and thrillers, such as "Lost" or "24" do not to well in repeats due to the nature of their storytelling. For this reason, the networks have started experimenting with non-stop seasons, usually by bringing the show later in the season and then burning if off within five months or so.

ABC may, however, have made a mistake of gigantic proportions by shelving one of their prime assets for 3 months. As many have predicted, the new Taye Diggs thriller "Day Break" with a somewhat confusing time-shifting premise did not strike a chord with masses.

In fact viewer erosion for the pilot episode (13 million to 8 million, all within one evening) as well as the embarrassing 5 million viewers who tuned into the second installment this week, means we will most probably be saying good bye to this series very, very soon.

But, with "The Nine" already gone from the 10 PM hour, "Day Break" on the way out and the new Williams Shatner game show pulling in this week less than 40% of what "Dancing with the Stars" used to average in the timeslot, ABC's advertising revenues are in serious trouble. "Lost" is scheduled to return on February 7.

Obviously, the drama will not be returning in December. ABC should give "Day Break" another chance and December is normally filled with reruns and special holiday programming anyway. But unless ABC is able to pump some life into the anemic 9pm series, the beloved mystery drama might be coming back to ABC as early as January.

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