Nick@Nite Renews Original Series 'Hi-Jinks' For Second Season; ABC Schedules Two Sitcoms for Monday Nights This Mid-Season

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Nick@Nite Renews Original Series 'Hi-Jinks' For Second Season; ABC Schedules Two Sitcoms for Monday Nights This Mid-Season

Nick@Nite has greenlit a second season of the hit hidden-camera series, Hi-Jinks. The next thirteen episodes of the series - in which parents play good-natured pranks on kids - will continue to be hosted by Leila Sbitani and will go into production immediately to air in 2006. The second season of Hi-Jinks will be produced by Stone & Company Entertainment.
In its first six weeks, it averaged a 0.5 among Nick@Nite's target audience of adults 18-49, up +25% from last year. The series delivered 532,000 A18-49 viewers, lifting +36% over last year, and it averaged over 2.2 million total viewers, up +36% versus year ago. The series has been watched by over 37 million people, including premiere and repeat telecasts. To read their full press release, click here.

Meanwhile, ABC has announced that their post-Monday Night Football schedule will be slightly different than what was planned back in May. Originally, it was The Bachelor at 8 p.m., then new sitcom Emily's Reasons Why Not at 9 p.m. and second season sitcom Jake in Progress at 9:30 p.m., followed by an all-new drama from mastermind J.J. Abrams titled What About Brian. Now instead, Wife Swap will remain at 8 p.m., the two sitcoms are unchanged, and The Bachelor will now be 10 p.m. instead. There is no word yet when the drama What About Brian will be scheduled. They did announce though that the new Monday line-up will begin Monday, January 9.
So why is Wife Swap sticking at 8 p.m.? Wife Swap has greatly improved the time period for ABC, boosting the its delivery by 2.8 million viewers (7.6 million vs. 4.8 million) and by 81% in Adults 18-49 (2.8/8 vs. 1.6/5). Wife Swap is ABC’s highest-rated program to be teamed with Monday Night Football in 4 years – since 2001.

I had a chance to watch the pilot of the 9 p.m. sitcom Emily's Reasons Why Not starring Heather Graham this past summer and it is pretty good. I'm not that big of a fan of one camera sitcoms, but this is good and will likely do well.