Friday Night Death Slot

Thank God it's Friday...unless you're on TV.

Marty: Hey, why don't we just watch some good old-fashioned network TV?
Larry: ON FRIDAY NIGHT?! Bleeeeeeck!

— The Neighbors after the series was moved from Wednesday to Friday nights

The infamous Friday Night Death Slot is the television equivalent of ritual seppuku in North America, but it varies in a few other countries.^note In Israel (where the weekend is Friday and Saturday, and Sunday is a working day), the UK, and Norway, the very best shows are often reserved for Friday nights. This is particularly true of Channel 4 comedies in the UK - the likes of Peep Show and The IT Crowd are always aired on Fridays. However, a UK version of this could be Channel 5, which airs shows that the other channels aren't airing anymore. 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 8:00 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, 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 assume 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 from the outset.

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 7:00 PM with a lead-in set of programs, peaking at 8:00 PM 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 11:00 PM) 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. Ironically, ratings data indicates that while Thursday is higher rated than Friday by a wide margin, it still lags behind other weeknights, which can make slotting a show there feel like a Death or Glory Attack, even with an established audience. ABC is particularly familiar with this in the night's 8:00 pm hour, which suffered low ratings and persistent turnover for almost thirty-five years before Grey's Anatomy finally entrenched itself after being moved there from the 9:00 hour in the fall of 2014.

A relatively recent development is the vertical integration brought about by the mergers of The '90s and 2000s; 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. Four of the five major American networks have either direct or indirect 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, only to a mix of reality series and an expanded two-hour 20/20 a year later.
• CBS - Owned by Paramount Global, which also owns Paramount Pictures. When CBS spun off from Viacom in 2006, before re-merging in 2019, they didn't hew to the FNDS concept as closely as the other three networks.
• The CW - Gets it both ways; two owners, two different studios. Prior to major station owner Nexstar buying 75% of it, Paramount owned 50%, while Warner Bros. had the other half (they both continue to own half of the remaining 25% each), but they've found good success with genre or niche programming that none of the Big Four would want on the network 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 an NBC network, but the sheer audience loyalty to its primetime telenovelas keeps it competitive on Friday nights.
• Fox - The odd one out: despite being founded by 20th Century Fox as well as probably helping to start this trend, it was split off from the studio in 2019 after it was acquired by Disney (since they already own ABC, and the FCC wouldn't allow one company to own two of the major networks), making it the only network without a studio affiliation.

Some networks and shows manage to find a surprising amount of success on Fridays. CBS's family-friendly Ghost Whisperer did respectably as well as many of its action series reboots (like Hawaii Five-0) and the Long Runner Police Procedural Blue Bloods. 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 '70s and early '80s (later, the latter two of those, and Falcon Crest). They were also able to make Saturday nights work with a '70s 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 Full House, 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. Syfy'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. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, 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 also Fridays and Saturdays. The COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020 also gave streaming services a boost as the lockdowns temporarily shuttered movie theaters and forced people who would normally go out on weekend evenings to stay home, with films slated for theatrical release directly released to streaming instead. It remains to be seen whether the shift to streaming will remain long-term.

See Dump Months for the cinematic version of this trope.

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ABC

• The American version of the Game Show Duel was originally a six-episode tournament that ran for five weeknights during prime time (similar to the initial run of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?) with a finale on a Sunday night. This show was commissioned by ABC as a result of the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike. After receiving high ratings during the show's first six episodes in December 2007, the show was renewed for ten additional episodes in a form of a weekly series. When the show returned in April 2008, however, it was moved to a 9:00 p.m. timeslot on Friday nights; this resulted in a major decline in the show's ratings (making it unable to complete with The Price Is Right $1,000,000 Spectacular and WWE SmackDown). ABC removed the show from the schedule after five episodes were aired, effectively canceling the series. The remaining five episodes aired in the summer of 2008.
• Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which was averaging 8-9 million viewers on Sunday nights, was moved to Friday nights in the middle of Season 9. The ratings dropped to 5 million viewers and the show was cancelled at the end of that season, though it at least got a proper Series Finale.
• Mike Judge's The Goode Family, a animated series that satirizes PC culture, received this dubious honor.
• For one-and-a-half years, The Greatest American Hero built up a reasonably good audience and rating on Wednesday nights. For its third season, ABC threw it and another Stephen J. Cannell show, The Quest, away via a Friday timeslot, not even airing the show's last four episodes.
  • Cannell's previous show Tenspeed and Brown Shoe saw the final few episodes of its single season burnt off on Fridays, in June, even though its initial ratings on Sunday nights were good enough to put the show in the Top 30 for the season — and it was a mid-season replacement!
• Happy Endings was moved to this slot in its third season. Within a week of the move becoming official, it was reported the producers have been shopping around for a new network to air the show in the event that ABC cancels it. However, the ratings, already unacceptable by nearly any broadcast standard, dropped to such microscopic levels that when ABC did cancel it, no one would touch it (despite supposed interest from USA Network).
• Here Come the Brides was moved from Wednesday to Friday night during its second season, and many ABC stations wouldn't even broadcast it. As a result, its popularity plummeted, and it was cancelled at the end of the season.
• The soap operas Loving, its Spin-Off The City (1995), and their replacement Port Charles all had terrible ratings throughout their runs, despite being sandwiched between two ratings powerhouses like the local news and All My Children in most markets, because in those same markets, they were up against another ratings powerhouse, The Young and the Restless. And that was their best timeslot—in many other markets, they were aired at a time when no one would watching, or not at all.
• Despite critical raves and an audience whose demographics would have today guaranteed its survival, ABC did everything they could to kill Max Headroom, the alleged reason being that the show's Biting-the-Hand Humor infuriated the network executives and advertisers. When putting it against Dallas and Miami Vice failed, they shuffled it into the Death Slot, which worked. The circumstances behind the show's cancellation are still seen as scandalous by science-fiction fans.
• The second season of The Mole played this straight and averted it. The show not only got the Friday Night Death Slot, it aired only two weeks after 9/11, a time when most people were decidedly not in the mood to watch a cutthroat reality show. Three episodes of bad ratings later, the show was put on hiatus by ABC, and didn't re-air until the following summer, where it competed in its time slot against the first season of American Idol. Only due to good word of mouth and a loyal fanbase was the show not completely crushed.
• The Name's The Same, a Game Show that held a 7:30 Monday slot since it was Un-Canceled in October 1954. It moved on June 28, 1955 (after its third host change in less than a year) to Tuesdays at 10:00, then on September 16 shifted to Fridays at 10:00. The series was canned on October 7, after just four episodes at that slot.
• Pushing Daisies was moved to Fridays after being Un-Canceled. It died another swift death shortly thereafter.
• Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place got this slot. However, unlike a lot of these examples, it wasn't moved to the spot because the network wanted to get rid of it. It was moved because it had proven to be quite popular in its Wednesday night slot and ABC thought the show's popularity would move with it and break the curse of the Friday Night Death Slot. It didn't.
• Tuesday nights have now become ABC's second Friday Night Death Slot due to fierce competition from rival networks dominating the night. For the past few seasons nearly every show scheduled on the night has either been canceled after one or two seasons at the most (Selfie, Manhattan Love Story, The Muppets (2015)) or moved to another night in hopes of salvaging it (Last Man Standing^note ironically to Fridays (see Aversions below) and The Goldbergs). The only real exception was Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and it mostly done low to fairly okay in the ratings before it got moved to Friday night for its fifth season; the show would later air in the summer for its final two seasons.
  • Selfie was but in the Tuesday Death Slot. Despite the fact that it received very good reviews, an All-Star Cast and was the most popular of the three romantic sitcoms ABC pumped out that season, it (along with the other two rom-coms) was cancelled after season one.
• The end of the 2016-17 season saw the cancellation of Dr. Ken, and more prominently, ABC dropping Last Man Standing due to production costs. For the following season, ABC experimented with scheduling dramas on Friday instead, with a Post-Script Season of Once Upon a Time, while 9:00 p.m. would be the Marvel Hour, with the new series Inhumans, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. moving in for midseason. Inhumans was a critical failure and got cancelled. ABC revived the TGIF brand for the 2018-19 season, with Fresh Off the Boat and Speechless moving in alongside the Game Show Child Support. Speechless would get canned the next year, and American Housewife took its place. Fresh Off the Boat would meet the same fate on February 2020, (barely) surviving one full season on Friday nights, but American Housewife surprisingly managed to retain pretty decent ratings and was ultimately spared, moving back to Wednesday nights mid-season as the network appears to have ended its latest attempt at a TGIF revival.
• From the cancellation of MacGyver (1985) after the 1991-92 season until it moved to ESPN starting with the 2006 NFL season, ABC had a Death Slot in the Monday 8:00 p.m. Eastern time slot preceding Monday Night Football; with shows such as The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles^note which moved to Saturdays for the spring before its demise due to a combination of low ratings and high costs, newsmagazine Day One^note moved to Wednesdays for its second and final season in 1994-95, Blue Skies^note splitting the time-slot with veteran American Football themed sitcom Coach, still relatively successful if aging; the series lasted one month before cancellation, with several cast members transported to the equally short-lived A Whole New Ballgame a few months later and Dangerous Minds^note a short-lived variant of the 1995 film of the same name. Then following MNF being moved to 8:00 for just the 1998 season, the remaining years of the game on ABC saw the slot occupied by newsmagazine 20/20 Downtown; an overexposed Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?; aging one-time hits such as The Drew Carey Show and for its final two seasons on the network, reality shows such as The Benefactor and Wife Swap.
  • Aside from MacGyver (1985), successfully filling MNF's pre-game/post-game slot was an ongoing problem for ABC starting when the series began in 1970. This was largely due to the fact the network couldn't get many of their affiliates to carry the program they aired before or after the game. In its place, a number of these stations would run local sports programs for whatever college football team was popular in their part of the country while others would run syndicated game shows, reruns, or old movies. Also, the fact games sometimes ran long further discouraged some of ABC's stations in the Pacific and Mountain Time Zones from running the network's show after the game since doing so might end up bumping into the slot set aside for their local news broadcasts at 10 or 11 p.m. What this all meant is a series set to begin either before or after MNF was going to have significantly fewer affiliates airing it than any other show on ABC's schedule. That, in turn, meant fewer viewers and all-but-guaranteed low ratings thereby dooming the series from the beginning. That's why eventually ABC began using the slot to kill off shows that were either ailing in the ratings or they just didn't like.
• In a related phenomenon, the timeslot after its popular game show Wipeout was a revolving door of one-season wonders left unrenewed, including Crash Course (a game show based around driving stunts and challenges, which was canned after three episodes), Downfall (a quiz show with Chris Jericho that dropped prizes over the edge of a building on a conveyor), 101 Ways to Leave a Game Show, Trust Us with Your Life, and Rising Star.

CBS

• Joan of Arcadia, despite surviving longer than Wonderfalls, got the boot not long after, failing to be renewed for a third season even though it was relatively popular and critically-acclaimed. Aired at 8 PM Fridays on CBS.
• Made in Jersey was cancelled after its second episode, after flopping in a New York-themed Friday programming block with Blue Bloods and CSI: NY on CBS.
• Moonlight (2007) is an especially weird case, as it was getting a good 8 million viewers on its Friday slot when CBS cancelled it. It was unfortunate enough to have been canned right before Twilight triggered a massive vampire fad. CBS must still be kicking themselves.
• In 1999, a very well-acted, well-produced modern update of The Six Million Dollar Man debuted on CBS. The show was titled Now and Again, and featured an intricate and tightly-woven running premise, stellar acting by Eric Close and Dennis Haysbert, Kim Chan as one of the most surreal sociopaths in TV history, and cameos by the likes of John Goodman and Mick Foley. It was an intelligent, thought-provoking show, which downplayed the premise's gimmick in favor of more real, dramatic interactions between the major characters. ...but its timeslot was 9 pm on Friday, the same as the original show, but with absolutely no lead-in to speak of; the network cut back on promoting it in the second half of the season (to the point where some viewers had no idea new episodes were airing). It faded away with little fanfare after one season and would only surface years later in repeats on Sci-Fi Channel.
  • A year later, this pattern would repeat with a remake of The Fugitive.
• Get Smart wound up being Uncanceled after four seasons on NBC as a Saturday night entry. Then CBS aired it on Fridays at 7:30...
• Touched by an Angel was initially aired on Saturday nights before a campaign by viewers resulted in it being moved to Sundays (where CBS has long reigned in the ratings). Upon being moved back to Saturdays in its 8th season, ratings promptly dropped yet again, and the show's 9th season was its last.

Fox

Fox is often referred to as one of the chief instigators of this trope, as they maintain a reputation for moving promising shows to the "death slot" in the middle of their season, causing ratings to plummet. The disproportionate number of shows moved to the Friday timeslot and then cancelled by the network is even referenced in The Teaser of Family Guy's first episode after being Un-Canceled; Peter Griffin calls out every single show Fox commissioned and then cancelled while Family Guy was off the air, many of which aired on Fridays.

In the 2000s, the 7-7:30PM timeslot on Sunday was also considered to be Fox's secondary "death slot" due to the high likelihood of that show being preempted by coverage of the National Football League that ran over its allotted time. It was made worse by Fox's refusal to delay broadcasting until after the game concluded like CBS does to accommodate 60 Minutes, so many episodes often wound up only being partially shown first run or not shown at all and being burned off later. Futurama, Oliver Beene, Malcolm in the Middle and King of the Hill all had their ratings killed and then get cancelled as a result of being moved into this slot before Fox began reserving it for NFL coverage starting in The New '10s.

• The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. creator Carlton Cuse (later executive producer of Lost) specifically blames this for the show's demise. However, this is a strange example - the pilot movie was so popular, the network actually ordered additional episodes. Cuse blamed the flawed rating system for incorrectly counting the show's fans, and unfortunately, since it aired in the era before DVD releases gave a better gauge of popularity, it couldn't be revived. Amusingly, the show Fox scheduled trying to get a residual audience from Brisco County Jr. is listed in the "Aversions" folder.
• Alien Nation got through a single season before it was canceled by Fox, though it wasn't caused by their Friday timeslot so much as it was the network's lack of funds from advertising revenue, causing them to ax all of their dramatic shows.
• Boston Public was moved to a Friday timeslot for its fourth season, and was quickly canceled mid-season, leaving two unaired episodes left to debut in reruns on cable.
• Dark Angel gave Jessica Alba a career boost (as well as a smaller one to Jensen Ackles) and had good ratings. Then Fox moved it to Fridays. When they canned it, they replaced it with (ironically enough) Firefly. Fans were not pleased, to say the least. Of course, the show's Second Season Downfall didn't help matters either.
• Eliza Dushku had a contract with Fox, and so she brought Joss Whedon back to Fox (after the latter claimed he wouldn't produce anything for the network again) for Dollhouse, which aired 2009-2010 on Fridays. Despite poor ratings, Fox renewed it for a second season (still on Fridays), although it was canceled fairly early in its second run due to the already low ratings declining further.
• Despite having a large number of well-known characters and a fast-paced narrative, the action/drama series Fastlane was canceled midway through its Friday run due to skyrocketing costs for each episode (more than $2.6 million per episode)., and ended on a cliffhanger.
• Though a number of factors combined to kill it in just 14 episodes (only 11 of which were ever actually aired, in the wrong order), part of the reason Firefly got canceled by Fox was because it was in the 8 PM (Eastern) Friday slot, failing to attract the more adult audience at which it was aimed and being constantly preempted by sports broadcasts to boot. Its success in the 7 PM Friday slot on cable years later is usually considered ironic. Creator Joss Whedon now reportedly refuses to work with the network ever again precisely because of how badly they burned him with Firefly. Of course, producer Tim Minear didn't even allegedly vow such a thing, but in light of other shows of his that have aired on the network including the next listing, probably should have.
• FreakyLinks was a paranormal drama where a man ran his own website, which chronicled strange urban legends and the circumstances behind his brother's death. The show began airing on Fridays and was canceled midway through the season due to low ratings.
• Fringe is one of the few series that survived the move to the Death Slot. Moved there in the middle of its third season from a prime Thursday night slot, the show continued to retain a core set of dedicated viewers passionate about the show. As the show was written with a definitive end, the vigor of the fans and that of Fox's Kevin Reilly (vice president at programming at the time) helped to ensure the show completed its story even with a shortened 5th season, reaching the magic number of 100 episodes for syndication rights.
• Glee was moved to Fridays at 9 pm for its sixth and final season, which also got cut to 13 episodes.
• After trope aversion The X-Files got moved to a more prominent timeslot, the Friday slot of death got taken by its spin-off The Lone Gunmen... who got the usual treatment from Fox.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: 2007-08 season: on Monday nights. 2008-09 season: moved to Friday nights. 2009-10 season: Terminated.
• After being renewed for a second season, Touch (2012) was moved to a Friday night slot and intended to air its season premiere in October 2012. The premiere was then pushed to February of the next year, and coupled with the weak timeslot and next-to-no advertising, the show died a quick death.
• Wonderfalls. Three of its first (and only) four weeks on Fox, it was slotted in the 8 PM Friday slot. It wasn't as family-friendly as its competitor, Joan of Arcadia, was and died fast. However, it did well on cable as well, when LGBT-friendly Logo aired it.
• Both Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? and Don't Forget the Lyrics! aired on Friday nights during the 2008–09 season, and were later moved to Syndication for the 2009–10 season (with the latter show returning in September 2010); both shows were ultimately canceled by their syndicators in early 2011.

NBC

• Also canceled via an 8 PM Friday slot, despite initially high ratings due to (undue) controversy about it: The Book of Daniel, a series about an Episcopalian priest whose family is having troubles and who apparently has hallucinations (we think) of speaking to a laid-back Jesus. Oh, and an addiction to painkillers. Yeah, that went over really well with the church-going audience. Some of the network's local affiliates (most notably WSMV in Nashville and KARK in Little Rock, Arkansas) refused to even air the series and only about four of its eight episodes were aired on TV at all, and three others were dumped onto NBC.com to languish in obscurity before everyone forgot it even existed.
• Chuck, a fan-favorite which constantly wavered back and forth on the edge of cancellation each year since the '07-'08 Writer's Strike, received this treatment for its final (2011-12) season, along with a 13-episode order. However, it was justified by executives as being done only because the fan campaign that saved it (during its third season) didn't translate into viewers.
• The Jim Henson Hour, Jim Henson's take on Walt Disney Presents, spent its first four weeks on Friday nights at 8:00pm in the Spring of 1989. This, along with Executive Meddling that resulted in a confusing show structure, led to extremely low ratings. NBC attempted to move the show to Sunday nights as a replacement for the series Spoony Spoon. The ratings for Henson Hour proved to be even lower for its fifth episode, and was quickly cancelled. NBC agreed to burn off the remaining episodes over the Summer, but only aired four of the remaining seven. An earlier attempt at promoting the series via a crossover with The Cosby Show proved to be pointless, as the Cosby appearance didn't air until a year after the cancellation of Henson Hour.
• Midnight Caller was moved here in its third season, since its rival thirtysomething was beating it in demographics. It never recovered and wasn't renewed for a fourth.
• Raines, a surprisingly good, somewhat subversive, more than a little weird Police Procedural about a homicide detective who may or may not be seeing the ghosts of his latest assignments. The show was bumped from a prime Thursday night slot to Fridays at 9:00 Eastern after just two episodes. It quickly dropped from the #23 highest-ranked show to #63 and only five more episodes were aired before it was quietly cancelled. Despite being put next to Las Vegas in the lineup. Of course, it was also a midseason replacement, which never really bodes well for a series' longevity.
• The return of Smash quickly circled the ratings drain in Season 2, so NBC announced in March 2013 that the remaining episodes would air on Saturdays rather than Tuesdays starting in April. The Onion's A.V. Club joked that the announcement not admitting that the show would be cancelled - and it was, come that May - was the television equivalent of parents claiming their kid's dog is being sent off to a farm to live out its days when it's actually being put to sleep.
• Star Trek: The Original Series survived being moved to an 8:30 Friday night timeslot for its second season thanks to a letter-writing campaign (following a short-lived sitcom Accidental Marriage, then a primetime edition of The Hollywood Squares), but could not survive being moved to 10:00 on Fridays for its third season, where its slashed budget (due to lower ad rates and higher salaries for the stars) prompted the departures of most of the series' writers. Gene Roddenberry resigned as line producer since he could see the writing on the wall. Its success in syndication would leave NBC regretting losing such a Cash-Cow Franchise, which due to mergers and acquisitions is now owned by rival CBS (with Paramount retaining film rights).
• Poor Emerald City. It didn't help that it went through Development Hell and was cancelled in production before it came back, but it was saddled with the infamous slot, causing its ratings to be crappy. The result? Cancellation after ten episodes. The ever-growing fanbase are calling for the show to be moved to Netflix or another streaming service and some are even calling for a second season to be made as the show was cancelled on a cliffhanger. Even Ana Ularu, one of the actors of the show, would be happy for a second season. Sadly, we may never know of the show's fate, but it might as well be dead for good. Shame.

Other Networks

• British channel E4 trumpets Thursday nights as its strongest night of the week, using it for premieres and first showings of imported American sitcoms such as The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother and New Girl. Coincidentally, the ad breaks are chocka with movie trailers. Fridays, by comparison, are a bit weak.
• In early 2015, Challenge (The UK equivalent of GSN) started airing the Australian Game Show Millionaire Hot Seat in a 9 PM time slot every weeknight. After nearly a month of airing, the time was silently changed to 10 PM (Challenge sited poor ratings as the reason behind the move), and soon after that, it vanished outright. Considering that the original UK version of the show is one of their most popular programs, to the point where it's on almost every day, it's mystifying to see how Hot Seat failed.
  • In September 2015, Challenge began airing Hot Seat again... but this time at a 2 AM timeslot. It returned once again with new episodes at a 4 PM time slot around April/May but quickly vanished after about a month.
  • Around April 2016, Challenge started to air The Chase Australia, promoting it heavily as it featured Anne Hegerty, one of the Chasers from the British version (Whilst advertising it and making it look like she was the ONLY Chaser). Like Hot Seat, it started at a 9 PM time slot, then after a few weeks, it moved down to a 7 PM time slot. A couple of weeks after that, it was pushed to a 2 AM time slot, with the daytime repeats cancelled. To add insult to injury, the remaining episodes that aired in the 2 AM time slot still had the 'New to' wordmark above the Challenge logo. By comparison, the British series is repeated quite frequently, and the US series usually airs after the UK series has run its current selection of episodes. As of mid-June 2016, it's been replaced with repeats of the British version (Whilst still using the 'New to' wording).
• From the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, some syndicated children's programs (either which networks thought wouldn't be successful, or were aimed at young audiences) would air during the dead hours of 5 AM to 7 AM. Many examples of this have happened throughout the years:
  • Anime like Robotech, the Ocean dub of Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon and the first 40 episodes of Pokémon: The Series ^note  Only some networks did this, as most aired it between 7:00AM and 8:30AM. were shown in these timeslots, as most networks did not see potential in these shows because they were different from other cartoons at the time.
  • The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin suffered from this timeslot on most stations that aired it, airing as early as 4:00 AM. This was probably one of the factors that lead to the franchise losing its' popularity.
  • Christianity-based shows usually get this timeslot if aired on networks not specifically catered to Christians. In the 1980s, reruns of Davey and Goliath aired during this timeframe, and in the 1990s, Adventures in Odyssey got this slot.
  • In the 90's, FOX and UPN affiliates got a syndicated preschool block that consisted of The All-New Captain Kangaroo, the first North American airings of The Wiggles and Bananas in Pajamas. Most affiliates chose to air these in the death slot rather than airing it around 8:00AM like most preschool blocks at the time.
  • PBS Kids gave this treatment to their runs of the Animated Adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, Make Way For Noddy and Elliot Moose.
  • As documented by Platypus Comix, the "Club Mario" incarnation of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! aired in Las Vegas (and possibly in other parts of the United States) at 7:00AM.
  • The 1995 two-week syndicated run of The Adventures of Timmy the Tooth aired on most TV stations at 6:00AM. This was averted for the Nickelodeon versions of this run in 1995 and 1996, which played at 1:00PM 7 days a week.
  • Cartoon Network's first preschool block in the 1990s (which consisted of Small World and Big Bag) was aired during these hours, which were as late as 6:30 AM for the East Coast and as early as midnight for people living in Hawaii.
    • Speaking of CN, the English dubs of a couple of .hack anime, Legend of the Twilight and Roots, aired at 5 AM EST when they were new.
    • Similarly, Mega Man: Fully Charged was stuffed in a 6:30 slot on Sunday/Saturday mornings, and rarely, if ever, got any reruns.
    • On a related note to Mega Man, try to find any action series on Cartoon Network from the mid-2010s that didn't air very early on weekend mornings, was well-promoted and got reruns.
• In 2011, former American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi premiered a new Bravo reality/competition series for aspiring songwriters on Monday nights, called Platinum Hit. Midway through the series, amid low ratings and with little advance warning, Bravo threw in the towel — and moved the series to 8 pm Fridays, where it quietly finished its run.
• Star Trek: Enterprise caught a double whammy: moved to the Death Slot during its and its network's final season. It was very well-known among a subset of Trek fans that the only reason it had gained a fourth season in the first place was to get enough episodes for syndication. Then, the show started to drastically improve in quality, bringing some fans some hope that there might be a Season 5. Those hopes were dashed when the Death Slot took away any improved ratings it might have garnered from the improved quality.
• Odyssey 5 was moved from Sundays (where it pulled in the best ratings in the network's history up to that point) to Fridays, where ratings dropped immediately and the show was canceled with six episodes left (the last episodes were burned off two years later).
• FamilyNet put airings of The Color Honeymooners as the lead-in to their Friday-night line-up (airing at 5 PM Eastern/4 PM Central, as FamilyNet considers that time slot as the start of prime time for them) starting in March 2010. They dropped it in August in favor of Landmarks and The Greats, two really obscure documentary shows that were about to be taken out of the channel altogether. This duo was replaced in September with additional showings of The New Flipper. That show, in turn, was dropped in October for Chuck Norris' World Combat League.
• Spider-Man: The New Animated Series was aired on MTV's Friday night slot. This seriously limited the audience, since younger kids were more likely to be watching the programming on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, and older teens were usually out doing stuff on Friday nights. The show only had one season despite the massive popularity of the movies, and even worse, ended on a cliffhanger.
• Nickelodeon's The Legend of Korra suffered from this during its second season. The show lost nearly half its audience when it shifted from Saturday mornings to Friday nights, something that can be attributed to the show's large periphery demographic of young adults. While The Legend of Korra would go on to have two more seasons after this, the ratings never again reached its previous highs and the show was removed from television during season three, finishing its run on Nickelodeon's website.
• Quite possibly the reason The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss only lasted two seasons on Nickelodeon between 1996 and 1998. The show's first time slot was 8:00 P.M. Sunday nights. Its second? On Nick Jr. at 11:00 starting in October 1997, when the target audience would be in school.
• Sheep in the Big City, an obscure cartoon that aired on Cartoon Network from 2000 to 2002, suffered this quite a lot throughout its run. The first nine episodes aired at 9:30 PM on the "Cartoon Cartoon Friday's" block. However, the last four episodes of the first season were delayed several months to Sunday evenings for no given reason. The show was initially cancelled after the first season because of low ratings. However, it was at the last minute greenlit for a second season, which began airing with the same Sunday evening time slot, later changing to Sundays at 9 PM. Inevitably, the ratings became even worse, and after the second season, the show was gone.
• Mexican TV networks have their version of this trope, at least when dealing with foreign shows: Rather than dumping any unwanted show at Fridays or any specific day, they are normally broadcasted at late hours, normally at 10 at 11 PM, when everyone goes to sleep. Another variation is also dumping them at work hours (from 8 AM to 1-2 PM), when everyone is at school or working, especially when dealing with animated shows.
  • Another variation, albeit exclusive to Televisa, was dumping them in cable TV rather than in their national TV networks. One of the most notable victims from this was Revolutionary Girl Utena, which was broadcasted at Unicable, a now-defunct channel which was normally used for broadcasting either reruns from shows originally broadcasted in regular TV or edgy shows unfit for being broadcasted in national TV.
  • Some Japanese cable networks, like their feed of Disney Channel, also send shows that underperformed on broadcast TV from any period ranging from one to five years after their debut to their channel. ^note  This is because most Japanese households don't have cable compared to most Western countries. Some shows to get this treatment include Pretty Rhythm, Aikatsu Stars!, Little Einsteins ^note  This show aired in Japan on broadcast TV first and not cable not only as part of Disney Time, but 24 hours before its' American premiere. and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
• In Japan, TV Tokyo uses the 10:00AM hour on Saturdays for this purpose, as most children have left to do activities with their families by then. The Pretty Rhythm series and Gon suffered from being cancelled as a result of this. The only aversions to this were PriPara, which did so well that it was moved to 6PM on Tuesdays, Pikachin Kit, and PAW Patrol, which was paired with the Disney Sunday block after it grew in success in its' original slot partway through its' run.
• jPod only lasted 13 episodes on CBC in early 2008 despite rave reviews due to a low viewership that was exacerbated by CBC moving it to Fridays halfway through the run.
• Antena 3, Spain's second biggest network, tends to use Thursday nights as its particular death slot, largely due to having given up on competing against rival Telecinco's highly-rated reality shows (and also against TVE's Cuéntame Cómo Pasó when there is a season going on). As such, Antena 3's Thursday prime time is usually filled with second-rate movies, foreign shows they bought but don't really have much faith in (such as Roots or Rush Hour — the latter of which performed so badly on the death slot it was pulled off the schedule after airing only two episodes, in the summer season), or original series that have underperformed on other days of the week, but for whatever reason they still want to finish airing (such as 45 RPM, whose streaming rights had already been sold off to Netflix).
• Party Down aired on Friday nights at 10PM on the premium cable channel Starz. Although it gained glowing reviews and a devoted fanbase, that wasn't enough to save the series from getting cancelled, only lasting for two seasons (20 episodes in total).
• The Happy Tree Friends television series lasted just 13 episodes, thanks to G4TV airing it at midnight on Monday nights.
• RuPaul's Drag Race is an interesting example, since Friday night isn't a death slot for the show itself, but for gay bars. You see, many bars host Drag Race viewing parties and might have a drag show of their own afterwards. These events provide much-needed revenue on slow weeknights. When VH1 moved Drag Race to Fridays, it was seen as redundant by bar owners since people go out on Friday night anyway. The backlash led to the show getting moved back to Thursdays. In 2021, Season 13 was moved back to Friday nights, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, people aren't going out anyway.
• Australian TV viewership figures are only collected 40 weeks per-year, with breaks around Easter and over the summer (around December to January). The major networks generally treat the entire non-ratings period as a death slot, usually scheduling reruns of domestic programs and imported programming from New Zealand and the United Kingdom en masse. That is unless they're airing a live cricket match, of course. To their advantage, pay television and streaming services tend to disregard this.
• When Pig Goat Banana Cricket aired its final three episodes on Nicktoons in August 2018, they were placed in the extremely awkward time slot of 4:30-5:15AM, so people without a DVR that worked or a willingness to head to copyright infringement streaming sites were unlucky.

Aversions

• Children's cable networks such as Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, or Cartoon Network have traditionally thrived on Friday nights. This is, of course, due to their target demographic of kids under the age of 14. This audience rarely has anywhere to be on a Friday night, in sharp contrast to even older teenagers. Fridays also have the minor bonus of kids not having classes the next day, so the target audience isn't doing homework and networks can potentially air premieres late into prime-time without worrying about sudden rating drops due to their target audience being shoved off to bed by parents. Because of this, these networks don't have a "Friday Night Death Slot" per se, with every night of the week being good for premieres as long as kids are awake to watch them.^note For example, the late 2010s shifted to a general trend of premiering animated content on Mondays or Thursdays and live-action content on Fridays or Saturdays. Instead, shows marked for death are shifted to slots where the target audience is less likely to be awake, such as late at night (usually around 11 pm or midnight) or early in the morning (between 5 am and 7 am).
  • Disney Channel and Disney XD use the late-night approach.
  • Cartoon Network, sharing channel space with [adult swim], does the early morning approach. However, some first-run acquired shows either get moved to Boomerang or removed entirely. Before they shared space with [adult swim], they would sometimes do the late-night approach. Until 2007, failing shows would be moved to late Friday nights/early Saturday mornings outside of their Fridays block.
  • While Nickelodeon, who has late night block Nick at Nite preventing them from the late-night approach, sometimes does the early morning approach, the channel's most likely to completely shift a show to one of its secondary networks.
• Fox's American Idol, at the height of its run, produced a variation on this trope. Executives at other networks referred to it as the "Death Star", as the dominance of its timeslot was so massive that it crushed all competition. It was well understood among TV critics that scheduling any show opposite Idol was the equivalent of airing it on Friday night, i.e. that the network had little faith in the show and was just burning off episodes before its inevitable cancellation. This only ended in the 2010s when its ratings started to decline, with other networks using shows like Modern Family and Survivor to attack and, by 2016, eventually bring down television's Death Star.
• The Tom Bergeron-era episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos initially aired on Friday nights on ABC, but apparently did well enough for the show to be moved back to its old Sundays at 7 p.m. timeslot. It's thrived there ever since. Given that the show was effectively treated as cheap filler by the network after Bob Saget left, the fact that its comeback came in a death slot is extremely impressive!
  • Tom did poke some fun at its timeslot on one Valentine's Day Episode, noting that if you were at home watching TV on a Friday night, then your romantic plans must have fallen through.
• Beauty and the Beast was an aversion for the first two seasons, and was only cut short by Executive Meddling and Linda Hamilton getting written out.
• Blue Bloods has averted this since its premiere, barely cracking the top ten for its sixth season.
• The Brady Bunch lasted its whole five-season run on Friday night and did decently ratings-wise. It only got the boot in 1974 against Sanford and Son.
• Chico and the Man was successful in part because it followed Sanford and Son on the schedule. However, after losing both co-star Freddie Prinze (who committed suicide shorty before the end of the third season) and it’s lead in, the ratings dropped tremendously and was canceled during the final season.
• After being renewed for a fourth season of only 13 episodes, Community was moved to 8:30 on Fridays in what was presumed to be its final season. Along with the studio-mandated ouster of series creator/showrunner Dan Harmon and several other prominent staff quitting, the resulting fan backlash may have been what motivated NBC to push Community's premiere into 2013 with a more favorable Thursday night slot and eventually renew it for a 5th season (along with the return of Harmon).
• The CW:
  • The 2018 reboot of Charmed was shunted to Fridays for its second season, but was still able to procure a third season early renewal that also would see the network move the reboot back to its original Sunday slot for the 2020-21 midseason, where it stayed until being canceled in spring 2022.
  • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend survived its move from Mondays to Fridays in its second season, ultimately finishing with a four-season run. That said, it was an Acclaimed Flop and was among the lowest-rated shows to run that long.
  • The 2017 reboot of Dynasty moved from Wednesdays to Fridays midway through its first season, where it remained for the rest of its run. It also became spring/summer filler for seasons four and five, even as the network kept ordering 22-episode seasons, an increasing rarity for any of its programs in this era. Like Charmed, its cancellation was announced in spring 2022.
  • Nikita held this slot from its second season onward. However, it did well enough to last through four seasons before ending.
  • Supernatural managed to survive the death slot not once, but twice at 9:00 pm. This was during Seasons 6 and 7. For Season 8 onward, the show's airing slot alternated between Wednesdays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays before settling on Mondays, where it will air its Grand Finale. Considering the show's liberal use of Back from the Dead, this seems appropriate.
• Degrassi. In seasons 10 and 12 in the U.S., it came on Fridays at 10 PM and did reasonably well.
• Falcon Crest, which, as stated above, was part of CBS' Friday lineup from 1981-90 (after The Dukes of Hazzard ended in 1985, other shows preceded it and Dallas on Fridays, such as The Twilight Zone (1985) and Scarecrow and Mrs. King).
• Friday Night Lights, which from the beginning had fans saying that given the title, airing on Fridays seemed completely natural for it rather than its original Wednesday slot. Starting in the second season it did run on Fridays, which was met with widespread approval (plus a wonderful Narm-y tagline: "''Friday Night Lights'', finally on Fridays! This Friday on NBC.") Despite low ratings for its entire run, the show ran five seasons.
  • The move to Fridays created a unique problem for NBC. Given that the subject matter was High School football, the episodes had to be timed so that they would not conflict with the actual football season. Meanwhile, DirecTV aired the episodes early, during football season, causing a Short Run in Peru within the same market.
• Ghost Whisperer aired on Fridays for its entire successful five-season run all on CBS.
• Grimm on NBC, which started in the Death Slot but moved to Mondays for its second season, then back to Fridays, again. It still did moderately well for an NBC show, even with the timeslot, and was renewed for its sixth and final 13-episode season in 2016-17.
• Hawaii Five-0 was moved to Friday for its fourth season after previously airing on Mondays. The ratings were actually an improvement from its previous season, and the show has remained part of CBS' Friday night schedule, until its tenth and final season in April 2020.
• Season 2 of the Tim Allen sitcom Last Man Standing was moved to Fridays from the original Tuesday slot, but the ratings improved from the tail end of Season 1 and stayed stable. ABC ordered five more episodes for Season 2 (bringing the total to 18) and renewed it for another season. The show managed to last for four more seasons on ABC, seeing peak ratings during the fourth and fifth seasons, before the network cancelled it. The next year Fox picked it up due to its strong ratings and scheduled it to continue in its 8 pm Friday time-slot. Having a lead that appeals to families (an audience ABC has thrived with on Fridays) helped.
  • While LMS did well after switching to Friday nights, every show that was placed in the slot after it wound up getting cancelled. The streak was finally broken when Dr. Ken lasted the entire 2015-16 season and was renewed for a second season.
• The Australian series The Late Show (1992) (think Saturday Night Live with no budget) - it was put on at 9.00 on a Saturday, where most of its intended audience would have gone out. However, it became very popular with parents who had to stay home to look after their children, and so lasted two seasons.
• Carlton Cuse averted the Friday night curse with Nash Bridges. It was a hit on Friday nights and lasted for five seasons.
• NUMB3RS managed to last six whole seasons on Friday nights before CBS ended it.
• The Sci-Fi Channel (before it changed to Syfy) averted this for many years, via Friday night blocks of strong original programming that provided some of the network's best ratings all week. Targeting a niche market known more for cultlike devotion than active social lives—i.e., nerds—may have helped the network develop an audience willing to put its favorite shows ahead of other potential Friday night activities.
  • Stargate SG-1 held the Friday at 8 PM slot for most of its run, and the Friday night shows (SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica (2003)) came to be known as the Power Block. In fact, when both Atlantis and Galactica were moved from their Friday timeslots, fans complained that they wouldn't get as many viewers.
  • The block went through a slump when the network separated SG-1 and Galactica, canceled the former, moved the latter to Sundays, gave Doctor Who away to BBC America, and built as much fan animosity as when they canceled Farscape. Sci-Fi Friday has since recovered with the highly-rated Eureka and Un-Cancellation of Merlin.
  • WWE Friday Night Smackdown was a very successful aversion, to such a point where episodes had bumpers bragging about how viewed their show is, and an advertising campaign talking about how they're "changing Friday nights". After failing to hit the same numbers on MyNetworkTV, it averted this once more when it moved to Syfy and became one of its most popular shows. The series later aired on Tuesdays on USA Network between 2016 and 2019, after which it would move to a Friday night timeslot on Fox in October of the latter year.
• In one of the biggest aversions of this trope (and therefore a pretty biting case of irony), The X-Files (the "little" show that debuted in the 9 PM timeslot after The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.) went on to enjoy massive success. During the three seasons it aired on Friday night, the pre-X-Files timeslot became an elephants' graveyard of failed speculative fiction shows, such as Brisco County, VR.5, Strange Luck, M.A.N.T.I.S., and Sliders, only the last of which made it to a second season, baffling FOX execs and no doubt informing their future decisions on Friday night sci-fi shows.
• From December 2014 to September 2016, as well as from January 2019 to February 2020, [adult swim]'s live-action comedies aired on Friday, including new episodes. Prior to that, they resided on Thursdays. This is also a unique example as it is not necessarily tied to the shows themselves, but rather, how ratings for [as]' normal programming may be higher when they are airing a consecutive run of four days, rather than being broken up by Thursday.
  • The trope might be one of the reasons it took such a long time to finally start airing the Adult Swim block on Fridays (it initially only aired on two nights a week when it launched in 2001, gradually expanding to six nights a week over the next three years^note Adult Swim started airing on Sundays with reruns of the Sunday broadcast on Thursdays, replacing Thursdays with Saturdays in February 2002, losing them to get Monday through Thursday in January 2003, then getting Saturdays back in April 2004 but then taking another three to finally expand to Fridays). Adult Swim maintained a special video section on their website, appropriately called Friday Night Fix, with full episodes available on Fridays during what would be block airtime (11pm-1am). Eventually in 2007 they realised they won't lose any audience, because nerds and stoners are doing the same thing on Fridays as they're doing on any other day (and giving them free time where they're not watching Adult Swim results in more time to complain on message boards), so Cartoon Network gave up their last night, making Adult Swim an all-week night block.
• On the heels of criticism of the "rural purge" and hearings on the quality of television, CBS obliged and put one new, family-friendly and rural-themed series on its lineup for 1972, The Waltons. It scheduled the show on Thursdays against the popular programs The Mod Squad and The Flip Wilson Show, with one of its actresses speculating that CBS had done so specifically to ensure a quick cancellation by claiming viewers weren't interested in it. Instead, the exact opposite happened: it achieved critical acclaim, prompting CBS to give it more publicity. The Waltons would run for nine seasons, and be among the top-rated programs on television throughout its run.
• Our Miss Brooks was an early aversion, a hit show airing on Fridays at 9:30 pm. It helped that it was The '50s, and also that Our Miss Brooks had been a hit on CBS Radio's Sunday Night lineup for at least four years prior to the show also airing on television.
• The Flintstones aired on Fridays during its first three seasons to great success, moving to Thursdays for the fourth and the first half of the fifth season. It moved back to Fridays for the rest of the run, but its eventual cancellation had more to do with The Great Gazoo than with the time slot.
• Live PD aired on Friday nights on A&E to great success when it premiered in October 2016. Until it was cancelled and subsequently pulled from rotation in mid-2020 due to being distanced from the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, it frequently ranked as the top-rated show on cable on Friday nights, except during special sporting events.
• In an attempt to break out of the bad ratings cycle listed above Fox paid big money for the rights to air WWE SmackDown, which airs on Friday every single week of the year. It does pretty good ratings; Fox convincing WWE to treat SmackDown as their featured show rather than WWE Raw's sidekick certainly helps^note So does the fact that it's only 2 hours long, rather than the slog that is a 3 hour (plus overrun) episode of Raw. Fox has also put quite a bit of live sports on Fridays (and kicking SmackDown over to FS1), as sporting events are the one thing people will stay home for and watch live, and usually pull in better advertising rates than lowbrow comedies or trashy reality shows.

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