SCI FI Wire | The News Service of the SCI FI Channel
SCI FI Channel’s award-winning series Battlestar Galactica will move to a new timeslot starting Jan. 21, 2007: Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT, following the premiere of the new original series The Dresden Files at 9 p.m.
When I first heard this, I thought it was a bonehead move. Suits moving things around for no good reason, and dismantling a good thing. After all, Sci-Fi had me locked in for a minimum of 3 hours every Friday night (much to my wife’s dismay) with Stargates SG-1 and Atlantis, plus a BSG kicker. Then they cancelled SG-1 and now they’re moving BSG? What does that leave me with on Fridays?! Where’s my block programming?! Now I have to be content with Atlantis and maybe Doctor Who in prime-time Friday slots. Maybe they’ll throw a Heroes rerun in there. Actually, that’s not a bad line-up, but it’s nowhere near as hard of a hit as the original Sci-Fi Friday block.
But while I still feel that pain, I’ve taken some time to think about it and it’s not that boneheaded. On any given weeknight, Sci-Fi faces serious competition from the big 4 networks. Sunday night programming across the board, however, is notoriously slim. BSG has an audience now, and it’s fanatical enough to follow the show to the new slot, so they shouldn’t lose too many viewers. At the same time, they should pick up viewers who are casting about looking for something worth watching on a Sunday night. So viewership should increase — which is really what the network game is all about.
The biggest problem I have is that when The 4400 and The Dead Zone return to USA Network, they’ll be airing on Sunday nights too (if they hold their spots). That’s a conflict I can’t reconcile. I can’t tape two shows at once with only one reliable VCR. So of course you see what NBC Universal (Sci-Fi’s parent) is forcing me to do, don’t you? That’s right: bittorrent to the rescue!
[tags]Battlestar Galactica, BSG, Sci-Fi, TV, bittorrent, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Doctor Who, The 4400, Dead Zone[/tags]
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