Dream Tropes Wiki/Friday Night Death Slot

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The infamous Friday Night Death Slot is the television equivalent of ritual seppuku in North America. Viewers, especially those in certain coveted demographics like 18-34 year-olds, just don't watch as much TV on Fridays as on other nights because they're doing other things: hitting the bars, going to a sporting event, going on dinner dates, seeing a movie (see below for why this is especially relevant), or hanging out with friends. Compounding this, the Friday prime-time slot is especially likely to get pre-empted by events like Big Games or Award Shows on local affiliates. Scheduling a show on a Friday - especially early in the evening, such as 8 PM Eastern - is the kiss of death. This goes double if the show isn't family friendly, as folks with kids are more likely to stay home on the weekend, or hasn't developed a loyal following.

Fridays are thus often reserved for relatively cheap-to-produce content that doesn't require a lot of continuity to understand. That used to mean lots of mid-level half-hour sitcoms (see: The WB's past Friday lineup as well as ABC's 90s TGIF block), reruns, movie airings, shows that the network is neglecting (see: Screwed by the Network), and in recent years a lot of Reality Shows. Sometimes a network will fill an especially moribund slot with a No-Hoper Repeat of a popular show from a different night.

The good news for shows on Friday is that expectations are low and shows can get away with ratings that would get them cancelled on any other weekday. The bad news is that Friday shows often struggle to meet even that lowered bar and have a high turnover rate. A show surviving in a Friday slot is greeted with surprise; when a show is moved to one, fans worry that the network has turned against it. When a show starts in a Friday slot, and not as a "sneak preview" or "special viewing event," it's pretty much assumed to be doomed.

However, there is a certain sweet spot timeframe on Friday where networks actually shoot for viewers- the time when they expect people to be bunkering in at home after a long day. Some shows that air during this desirable period (usually starting around 7:00PM with a lead-in set of programs, peaking at 8:00PM with riveting shows laced with comedic wit, getting into more serious, intense, and mature programs into the latter portion of nightfall, and then concluding at 11:00PM) are of the action or drama genres, which tend to be solid if they can hit all the right notes and can carry the night well when assembled into a block of action programming, especially if it falls under Crime Drama.

The opposite of this trope is a Thursday primetime slot, often awarded to the most coveted TV programming. Advertisers realize that American consumers do the majority of their shopping on the weekends, and often on Friday after work, likely because Friday is the typical payday at most workplaces. This means that advertisers are desperate to get their product on the airwaves on Thursday so that it's still on people's minds when they go to the stores on Friday. The better the advertising rates for a timeslot, the more effort goes into the content for that slot.

A relatively recent development is the vertical integration brought about by the mergers of the 90s and 00s; this means that the networks' parent MegaCorps now covet that Thursday night advertising for movies from their affiliated film studios that will be released...on Friday. Thus, the networks are forced to maintain a weak Friday lineup to ensure strong box office numbers. All six major American networks, with the exception of Fox (following the 2017 sale of the 20th Century Fox film studio to Disney) have studio relationships:

* ABC - Owned by Disney, which heavily promotes its Friday night Disney Channel programming for children and families, but revived its long-time TGIF brand with a lineup of family-oriented comedy in 2018.
* CBS - Controlled by National Amusements, which also controls Paramount Pictures, and now has their own studio in CBS Films. Since CBS spun off Viacom in 2006, however, they don't hew to the FNDS concept as closely as the other three networks.
* The CW - Gets it both ways; two owners, two different studios. CBS owns 50%, while Warner Bros. has the other half, but they've found good success with genre or niche programming such as The Originals, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Reign.
* NBC - The latest network to acquire a studio relationship after the network's 2004 purchase of Universal Pictures. Telemundo is also a NBC network, but the sheer audience loyalty to its primetime telenovelas keeps it competitive on Friday nights.

Some networks and shows manage to find a surprising amount of success on Fridays. CBS's family-friendly Ghost Whisperer has done respectably. NBC's successfully moved Las Vegas from Monday nights to Fridays, as its large, dependable fanbase was willing to follow it and lots of celebrity guest appearances helped boost ratings. CBS has a history of major Friday successes, such as the lineup of The Incredible Hulk, The Dukes of Hazzard and Dallas in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were also able to make Saturday nights work with a 1970s lineup that included All in the Family, M\*A\*S\*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, and The Carol Burnett Show. ABC's family comedy TGIF block in The '90s, with such shows as Family Matters, Boy Meets World, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, was perhaps the most spectacular subversion of the Death Slot, as Friday night was not only a moneymaker for the network but also one of its few success stories in what was otherwise a decade-long slump. And let it not be forgotten that The X-Files was born in this timeslot on Fox, and grew its legendary fanbase here for three years before moving.

Cable shows, which can cater to narrow niche audiences, have always had more luck on Friday than network TV. [adult swim]'s Friday lineup and USA Network's Monk and Psych Friday airings are both critical and audience successes. Sci-Fi Channel's Sci-fi Friday lineup is one of their best ratings blocks. Both the Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis TV series met with great success in this lineup, as did the imported Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica, and even the re-airing of Firefly (ironically, a victim of this trope during its original run) in 2005, the network's 2nd-highest rating in the November Sweeps despite its availability on DVD. More recently, Eureka and Merlin have both succeeded in the Friday night lineup.

Another potential aversion of the Friday night curse is the emergence of on-demand video services in the 2010s such as Netflix and Hulu, where TV shows can be watched at one's convenience. Back in the days of physical video rental, the busiest days for video stores were Fridays and Saturdays.

See Dump Months for the cinematic version of this trope.

## Examples

### TechEruo Network

* Due to John K.'s allegations, The Ren & Stimpy Show only aired at 12AM Saturday and only did because of a licensing deal from Nickelodeon.
* TechEruo Kids often gave those to any Disney Afternoon show not The New Adventures of Winnie The Pooh, DuckTales or Goof Troop.

### Other Networks

* In El Kadsre, *Caroline in the City* was moved to Saturdays (on Star TV) and Sundays (on Banushen Television) to Thursdays (on Star TV) and Fridays (on Banushen Television), although the latter followed *Holding the Baby*, a U.S. remake of the U.K. sitcom. This lead to NBC cancelling the show on May 1999.