NBC Effectively Kills Friday Night Lights

There’s no surprise that for television, Friday night is effectively known as the graveyard. People have better things to do — like go out and have fun — than stay inside and watch television all evening. Networks have been known to put television shows that they plan on retiring (giving them one last gasp of air before eventual cancellation) on Friday nights so they can consecrate prime time slots from Monday to Thursday on series that rank high on the Neilsen ratings, and thus, bring in more advertisers.

Now, I’ve been clamoring for NBC to save the excellent serial Friday Night Lights for quite some time now, and it seems as though they listened, to a certain extent: the show has been extended for another season. Sadly, NBC seems to have taken the name of the show a bit too literally and has left it to rot in the dreaded Friday 10pm slot.

Despite all the critical acclaim, Friday Night Lights never really found its place in the ratings but grew a very large and vocal fanbase. The decision to renew the show for a second season was supposed to give FNL the chance to get some legs and climb the ratings, while not hindering NBC’s plans for extending its programming. Sadly, by putting the show in a non-lucrative time slot, what NBC has done has effectively destroyed any chance that FNL had to gain viewers and climb in the ratings. More and more people will now be forced to download (or TiVo) the show — including its loyal viewers — because of other commitments on Friday nights, and by the end of the season, NBC will have no choice but to cancel the show.

Instead, NBC could have committed more money to marketing this excellently-written show that appeals to a much larger target audience than simply football fans or high school students, and bumped it to a later slot (9pm?) on Wednesday. The extra episode of Deal or No Deal is a novelty, while FNL could have anchored the night, surrounded by two new shows (Bionic Woman and Life) that were already gaining buzz and would mean additional viewers for the renewed season of the football serial.

As a true fan, I’ll be watching FNL every week, but I’m sad that NBC doesn’t realize the caliber of programming they are throwing away by moving the show to Friday.