SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

In its summer finale, ABC Family's Baby Daddy delivered 2-year finale highs in Total Viewers (1.293 million), Viewers 12-34 (668,000/0.7 rating) and target Women 18-34 (394,000/1.2 rating) and Female 12-34 (567,000/1.2 rating) demographics - since 9/4/13 - sweeping its cable-TV time period in the core measures. Launch to date, Baby Daddy is ABC Family's #1 comedy of all time in Adults 18-34 (548,000/0.8 rating) and the #2 comedy in the network's history in Adults 18-49 (814,000/0.6 rating), Viewers 12-34 (723,000/0.8 rating), Women 18-34 (416,000/1.2 rating) and Females 12-34 (563,000/1.2 rating). For the season, Baby Daddy ranked as cable TV's #1 series on Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. across Adults 18-34, Viewers 12-34 and key female demos, and was the #1 original cable-TV series in the half hour in Adults 18-49. Baby Daddy built by substantial double digits in L+3 versus L+SD delivery for the season across all categories, including Total Viewers (+56% - 1.204 million vs. 773,000), Adults 18-34 (+70% - 478,000 vs. 281,000), Adults 18-49 (+63% - 719,000 vs. 442,000) and Viewers 12-34 (+69% - 626,000 vs. 370,000). The fifth season will premiere on ABC Family in the coming months, but no return date has been set yet.

Baby Daddy stars Jean-Luc Bilodeau, Derek Theler, Tahj Mowry, with Melissa Peterman and Chelsea Kane. The series is created and executive produced by Dan Berendsen (The Nine Lives of Chloe King, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch). Baby Daddy is a multi-camera comedy that shoots in front of a live studio audience in Los Angeles.

Short-lived drama 666 Park Avenue is heading to Chiller for some rerun play. Chiller is a 24-hour American cable and satellite television channel specializing in horror, thriller and suspense programming, owned by NBCUniversal Cable. Among the series they are air The X-Files, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, and short-lived series like The River, The Gates and Alcatraz. Beginning Monday, September 14 666 Park Avenue will air every Monday in primetime from 9pm-12am with three episodes every Monday night. The series lasted 13 hour-long episodes on ABC during the 2012-13 season. The show starred Rachael Taylor, Dave Annable, Vanessa Williams, Robert Buckley, Mercedes Masohn. Helena Mattsson and Terry O'Quinn and followed a couple who learns that the Manhattan apartment building that they just moved into, including its upscale tenants, might be possessed by a mysterious demonic force. Chiller will air the series over four weeks with three episodes every week. Encores will air at various times as well, so check your listings.

Today we will take a look at Chiller's Fall 2013 schedule. The NBCUniversal owned network will bring back the Jennifer Love Hewitt series Ghost Whisperer to the line-up and will be airing it weekdays at 8am and 5am and also in primetime on Monday nights from 8pm-1am starting with the very first episode on Monday, Sept. 2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was airing at 8am & 5am, will be relegated to Sunday nights from 3-6am (but remember it is coming back to FX this September as well). Elsewhere on the Chiller schedule, Outer Limits will air weekdays at 6am & 7am leading into Ghost Whisperer. From 9am-5pm, there will be different marathon stacks every weekday of series like Buffy, Dark Shadows, The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Ripley's Believe It Or Not and more. From 5pm-5am, we have many movies, some Fear Factor here and there and on Mondays its Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction from 5-8pm into the aforementioned Ghost Whisperer from 8pm-1am. On weekends we have a lot of movies and stunts. The River continues to air Sunday nights at 8pm. A marathon of The River will air on Sunday, September 29 from 5pm-1am, featuring all eight episodes of the short-lived series. There will also be a creature/monster stunt week called Monster Mash, and will air from Sept. 10-13 from 5pm-5am. That's about it for Chiller in September 2013, as the biggest news was the return of Ghost Whisperer. Stay with us for continued updates and if anything changes.

Comedy Central has officially announced the Community stunts that we talked about during our look at the Comedy Central Fall 2013 schedule. Comedy Central is enrolling in Greendale Community College this semester! The cable television premiere of Community kicks off with a special 10-episode block of fan-favorite episodes on September 15 from noon - 5:00 p.m. on Comedy Central, as we previously announced. Starting September 20, well-studied fans and clueless freshmen can start Community cramming when the series settles into the schedule with a four-episode block airing weekly every Friday from 9:00 pm - 11:00 pm, beginning with season one. During the Friday premieres, super fans can use the hashtag #Community for a chance to see their tweets on-air. Yes, we have announced all this. But to help prepare for the beginning of the term, Comedy Central will schedule programming blocks of content that have featured the stars of Community, along with college-themed movies and scholastic-themed episodes of its own original series, every Friday from 9:00 pm - 11:00 pm from August 9 through September 13.

The critically-acclaimed Community is a half-hour comedy series about a tight-knit study group at Greendale Community College. At the center of the group is Jeff Winger (Joel McHale, The Soup), a fast-talking lawyer whose degree has been revoked. With some help from his fellow classmates, Winger forms a study group who eventually learn more about themselves than their course work. Among the series stars who comprise the group are Chevy Chase, Gillian Jacobs, Yvette Nicole Brown, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Ken Jeong and Jim Rash. Community will return on NBC with its fifth season in midseason.

Join Gidget on July 4th as she celebrates Independence Day with life, liberty and the pursuit of boys. Antenna TV, which airs on 77 affiliates across the U.S. reaching 66% of TV households, will air a "Gidget Independence Day" marathon beginning at 11am ET on Thursday, July 4 and running through 3am ET on Friday, July 5. The marathon will feature all 32 episodes in a 16-hour marathon from the 1965-66 series' only season run starring Sally Field. Last year Antenna TV aired every episode as well and also the feature films Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963), but those movies will not be a part of the marathon this year. Not a big deal since Sally Field was not a star in those. Gidget regularly airs on Antenna TV every weekend from 2-3pm ET leading into Sally Field's other series, The Flying Nun from 3-4pm ET. Stay with us for continued updates on Antenna TV as we near the fall schedule announcement which will include new series like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie.

Chiller has acquired the basic cable rights to the short-lived drama The River from Disney ABC Domestic Television. The series aired on ABC last winter (2012) for eight episodes and starred Bruce Greenwood, Joe Anderson, Leslie Hope, Eloise Mumford and Paul Blackthorne. It was a horror series from Oren Peli. The series was announced as a eight-episode epic event and had a conclusion. There was an option to continue it beyond a first season but the ratings weren't that good for it to continue. Once ABC canceled it, there was talks of airing a second season on Netflix but it never happened. Anyway, Chiller will air all eight episodes starting Sunday, August 4 at 8:00pm. The drama will air every Sunday at 8:00pm, so now is your chance if you haven't watched any of it. And if you're a fan, you can watch it all over again for eight weeks.

In this series, Dr. Emmet Cole, beloved adventurer and television personality goes missing deep in the Amazon and his family and friends abandon hope and hold a memorial service to commemorate his amazing life, but six months later Emmet's location beacon mysteriously begins to relay a signal...and the search is back on in full force.

NBC kicked off the broadcast portion of the TCA Winter 2013 press tour yesterday. It started off with breakfast with the cast of the upcoming Celebrity Apprentice: All-Stars, which includes Trace Adkins, Stephen Baldwin, Gary Busey, Penn Jillette, Marilu Henner, Lil Jon, Omarosa and Lisa Rinna, premieres March 3. Then it was the all-important executive session with Robert Greenblatt (Chairman, NBC Entertainment) and Jennifer Salke (President, NBC Entertainment). Among the things we learned was that NBC has picked-up a new drama for summer called Camp. In the tradition of Meatballs and Dazed and Confused, Little Hawk Family Camp is a wicked slice of lake-side heaven. In the one-hour drama, parents decompress with gin while teenagers make gleeful mischief and fall in and out of love. Little Hawk Family Camp – where mother nature and human nature collide. Casting will be named at a later date. Production is scheduled to begin in Australia in March.
Among the other notes, NBC still is keeping Jay Leno for the foreseeable future (no surprise, I guess) and that Community, which returns in February for its fourth season, could still come back next season depending on ratings. The Office will have a one-hour series finale in May, but no exact date has been announced and likely will not feature a return of Steve Carell. Still no word on an exact date for the return of Up all Night, which is now going to be a multi-camera sitcom and now has lost its creator, Emily Spivey. Also, like canned before it aired comedy Next Caller, reality series Surprise with Jenny McCarthy has been canned before it even premieres. And finally, NBC still hasn't announced plans for Hannibal or comedy Save Me, but both could be saved for summer or just before that and NBC has already a few shows that are being scheduled for next fall including Michael J. Fox's new comedy and Dracula, while Crossbones could be late summer.

After that session, it was time for panels with cast and crew of NBC series. First up was Revolution, which returns on March 25. The series will only be 20 episodes now instead of 22 episodes since NBC doesn't have room to air 22. This means the series will air for 10 weeks when it returns. Then it was time for lunch with the cast of upcoming comedy 1600 Penn, which previewed on Dec. 17 but the ratings were not so presidential so far. New series Deception, which premieres tonight at 10, was the next series to have a panel. NBC announced it has cut its order from 13 to 11 as well,so they can fit every episode and have a seamless transition into Revolution when it returns. Then the next panel was for sophomore drama Grimm, which also is on a hiatus and won't return until March 8. It seems like all of NBC's series that do well are on hiatus this winter. However, the next panel was for a new NBC drama that premieres Jan. 31: Do No Harm. NBC has 12 episodes of this series to air on Thursdays at 10. Up next, there was a panel for The Biggest Loser, which returned last night with part one of its season premiere, along with the return of Jillian Michaels. And the final panel for the day was for NBC's Smash, which returns Feb. 5 at 10pm with guest stars like Jennifer Hudson, to take the place of Parenthood. Then finally, it was time for the reception to close the day's schedule.

Up today at the TCA Winter 2013 press tour will be cable networks for NBC Universal. Among the networks going are USA Network, Oxygen, Golf Channel, E!, CNBC and Syfy. Stay tuned for any updates, if anything is of note for us. And tomorrow we will have Fox up at the TCA Winter 2013 press tour, as they will be second among broadcast to go.

Sticking with the NBC Universal theme, we have some news on cable network Chiller. Chiller kicks off a new year of scary good programming with the debut of its first original special of 2013, Chiller 13: Most Horrifying Hookups. In addition, this winter the network will feature two new-to-Chiller debuts with R.L. Stine's The Nightmare Room and cult favorite Pushing Daisies, which marks the first re-air of this series since its original run on ABC in 2007-09. First up R.L. Stine's The Nightmare Room, this 2001-02 anthology series from Goosebumps author R.L. Stine proves that our childhood fears never quite leave us. Three episodes air back-to-back every Monday in January beginning tonight (Jan, 7) at 8pm. 13 episodes were produced for Kids' WB and featured stars like Amanda Bynes, Shia LaBeouf, Kaley Cuoco, Dan Byrd, Frankie Muniz and Danielle Fishel popping in.

As for Pushing Daisies, the critically acclaimed series premieres Tuesday, March 5 at 9:00pm. This dark comedy centers on a pie-maker (Lee Pace), with the power to bring dead people back to life. He solves mysteries with his alive-again childhood sweetheart (Anna Friel), a cynical private investigator (Chi McBride), and a lovesick waitress (Kristin Chenoweth). Pushing Daisies was nominated for 12 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning three. Chiller brings both seasons (22 total episodes) back for the first time since the series' original run with two back-to-back episodes airing Tuesdays at 9pm, starting March 5. And finally, the special Chiller 13: Most Horrifying Hookups, premieres Friday, February 8 at 8:00pm. Chiller's popular countdown franchise returns with this newest installment, just in time for Valentine's Day! CJ Thomason (Harper's Island), Colin Ferguson (Eureka), Magda Apanowicz (Caprica, Kyle XY) and Judah Friedlander (30 Rock) count down Hollywood's most fatal attractions of all time. Chiller 13 is produced by Emmy Award-winning company Associated Television International.

Our upfront preview week continues! ABC found some success this past season with four rookies--two comedies and two dramas in the fall and have seen solid performances in mid-season by Apartment 23 and Scandal. With Desperate Housewives ending and not on the schedule for the first time since 2004, ABC will have to go with one of their best pilots in the historic timeslot. Also, ABC should load up on multicamera sitcoms on Tuesdays to give Last Man Standing some support.
Here is the SitcomsOnline.com ABC 2012-13 preview:

New Series Already Picked-Up: Mistresses (drama, 10 episodes for fall, mid-season or next summer).
Already Renewed Returning Series: None.
Likely Returning Series: 20/20, The Bachelor, America's Funniest Home Videos, Once Upon a Time, Revenge, Scandal, GCB, Body of Proof, Dancing with the Stars, Castle, The Middle, Suburgatory, Last Man Standing, Modern Family, Happy Endings, Don't Trust the B---- In Apartment 23, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, What Would You Do?, Shark Tank and Wipeout.
Likely To Be Canceled, Ending or Already Canceled: Charlie's Angels, Desperate Housewives, Work It, Man Up!, Pan Am, The River, Cougar Town, You Deserve It and Missing.
Likely New Series Pick-Ups: 666 Park Avenue (drama for fall), Devious Maids (drama for fall), Nashville (drama for fall), Malibu Country (comedy for fall), Family Trap (comedy for fall), The Smart One (comedy for late fall), The Manzanis (comedy for late fall), Last Resort (drama for mid-season), Gilded Lilys (drama for mid-season), How To Live With Your Parents for the Rest of Your Life (comedy for mid-season) and American Judy (comedy for mid-season).

OUR FALL 2012 PREDICTION:

Mondays
8:00PM Dancing with the Stars
10:00PM Devious Maids (NEW!)

Tuesdays
8:00PM Last Man Standing
8:30PM Malibu Country (NEW!)
9:00PM Dancing with the Stars: The Results / The Smart One (NEW!)
10:00PM Castle

Wednesdays
8:00PM The Middle
8:30PM Suburgatory
9:00PM Modern Family
9:30PM The Family Trap (NEW!)
10:00PM Don't Trust the B---- In Apartment 23
10:30PM Happy Endings

Thursdays
8:00PM 666 Park Avenue (NEW!)
9:00PM Grey's Anatomy
10:00PM Scandal

Fridays
8:00PM Shark Tank
9:00PM Body of Proof
10:00PM 20/20

Saturdays
8:00PM College Football

Sundays
7:00PM America's Funniest Home Videos
8:00PM Once Upon a Time
9:00PM Nashville (NEW!)
10:00PM Revenge

Comments: ABC will try and build on their freshman hits this past season and try to find even more fresher shows. There are some promising pilots to look forward to, but I think comedy will be key. So let's look at each night. I'll start with Mondays. Dancing with the Stars is a no-brainer from 8-10pm as it is still the top show in total viewers right now. A possible all-star edition will likely boost numbers. ABC will easily fill the two-hour hole from Jan-Mar with The Bachelor, but perhaps at 10pm, a new drama like the talked about new pilot Devious Maids could take the time period? I think Castle is strong enough to air on another night, I think, like Tuesday nights where they need it a bit more. More on that below. ABC could also use Mistresses in mid-season in the 10pm hour.
On Tuesdays, Dancing with the Stars: The Results will likely remain at 9pm in the fall, but I have a plan to cut the results to 30 minutes by mid-October. Why? Because this will help the night in the long run, especially Jan-March when Dancing isn't on. Multi-camera comedies with familiar stars is the way to do that. Tim Allen's Last Man Standing will return to lead off the night followed by a new multi-camera comedy titled Malibu Country, starring Reba McEntire. Then Dancing will follow of course, but how about at 9:30pm starting in mid-October or so, they could premiere something like The Smart One which stars former Dancing star David Arquette, Portia de Rossi and Jean Smart. And once Dancing wraps, ABC could launch Kirstie Alley's The Manzanis at 9pm for a few months (13 episodes). A nice multi-camera sitcom block! At 10pm, ABC should use a self-starter veteran series that brings in the audience, and that is of course Castle. It also has repeatability, like the multi-camera sitcoms would. Best plan for Tuesdays, I think.  Private Practice will be held for mid-season, possibly for its final 13 episodes, but I think it should air on Thursdays to give Scandal a break.
For Wednesdays, it's of course single-camera comedies. But I am still pulling for 10pm comedies. They can air family comedies from 8-10pm, followed by the edgier and popular comedies from 10-11pm. The Middle will continue to lead off and Modern Family will anchor the night at 9pm, with freshman hit Suburgatory in between. Apartment 23 and Happy Endings could work in the 10pm hour as they both have had a good following and good buzz at 9:30pm. Both series are a match made in heaven. Cougar Town is likely headed to TBS, so I'm leaving it off of ABC, but would love for it to return on ABC. And finally, the bridge between the family comedies and edgier comedies will be a new comedy at 9:30pm starring Mandy Moore: The Family Trap. Yes, it is hard to move Revenge since it has done very well for a 10pm show, but I think it could explode on another night. And plus, ABC is strong in every half-hour on this night with comedies. The 10pm comedies are likely to pull a 2.3-2.6 18-49 rating anyway in the fall. I think they will have some new family single-camera comedies on the bench ready if needed for mid-season to give Suburgatory or Family Trap a break.
As for Thursdays, the 8pm slot has been troublesome for ABC in the past few seasons. Missing has done decent overall but low in the key demo. It deserves a chance, but I don't think it returns unless it is for summer 2013. I think ABC needs to air a new familiar series with classic ABC stars in this slot, and the choice should be new drama 666 Park Avenue. It has Terry O'Quinn, Dave Annable, Vanessa Williams, and Rachael Taylor, so ABC star power is here. I also think its their best drama pilot in a timeslot with no dramas right now. It might be good counter programming to CBS and NBC's comedies and Fox's reality. I don't think there is a doubt that Grey's Anatomy is at 9pm entering its ninth season and still a top drama, but Private Practice could return at 10pm, but for mid-season as Scandal, also from Shonda Rhimes, has done solid this spring. Gilded Lilys, also from Rhimes, is an option for mid-season as well.
As for Fridays, ABC will likely keep the same plan and go with unscripted, but I think some scripted is needed. I don't think you can remove Shark Tank so it has to air all season. They can order more episodes, about 24 or so, and air it from mid-October to May. ABC usually goes with encores the first few weeks of the season and I think that is a good idea. Plus the series shot 90 pitches and 60 will air this current season (four an episode, so that's 15 episodes). Primetime: What Would You Do? should be on the bench for mid-season, as ABC should try the third season of Body of Proof on a new night and time, which changed its game last season and has become a solid series. Great finale and deserves a shot here.  20/20 is at 10pm, of course. I don't think that should change.
On Saturdays ABC will have College Football in the fall and then movies and/or repeats for the rest of the season. ABC could also use some ABC News specials in mid-season. Finally, on Sundays,of course AFV is at 7, followed by the new #1 drama Once Upon a Time at 8pm. At 9pm Desperate Housewives is now over, so they need to find something different and something that could be a big hit. Nashville sounds like that could be it. Good cast, premise, and something different. Revenge would be perfect on this night whether it be 9pm or 10pm, but right now I see it in the 10pm slot and should help Nashville being a lead-out. GCB should be mid-season.
I REALLY think ABC needs to take a chance on Tuesdays. It will pay off, trust me. Not sure if the new pilots are better class than last season, but I think there are some big potential hits here. They have fresh new ideas of shows with shows like Nashville and Last Resort, as the latter could be big with males. Will be hard to schedule that in mid-season. As always, ABC was a tough schedule to predict. Time to solidify Tuesdays so they don't hibernate in the winter when Dancing is down south for the winter. I'm fairly confident this schedule will do that.
Discuss your thoughts on our prediction and feel free to make suggestions of your own.

Remember, next Tuesday (May 15) is the actual date when we will find out ABC's plans for the 2012-13 season. So, come on back next Tuesday and we will let you know the details and you can see how much we were right (or wrong!). Stay tuned tomorrow for a preview on CBS's upfront!


In conjunction with the Dark Shadows feature film starring Johnny Depp opening this weekend, Chiller will air a marathon of the 1991 Dark Shadows series on Saturday (May 12, 2012). All 12 episodes will air of the short-lived revival series in a 24-hour marathon beginning at 6am (so all episodes will repeat once). The series is a re-imagining of the original ABC 1966–1971 Dark Shadows television series and both versions were developed by Dan Curtis. Chiller has aired the series before, along with sister network Syfy. NBC aired the series in the original run. There is no word if the '60s series will be airing anywhere, but as of now, it doesn't look like it.
Dark Shadows 1991 tells a streamlined version of the original storyline – the arrival of governess Victoria Winters at Collinwood, vampire Barnabas Collins being released from his coffin, Dr. Hoffman's attempt to medically cure Barnabas' vampirism, and finally Victoria's time travel into the past to witness the still-human Barnabas' encounter with Angelique, and his transformation into an undead creature. Among the stars is a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt.