Friday night death slot

Common card · No. 223579

The Friday night death slot (also Friday evening death slot) is a perceived graveyard slot in American television. It implies that a television program in the United States scheduled on Friday nights (typically, between 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. ET) is likely to be canceled. The term possibly began as a reflection of certain programs' dominance of Friday night in the 1980s and 1990s, which resulted in decreased ratings for those scheduled at the same time. However, this narrative can be contradicted with examples of shows that had consistent audiences on Friday nights over consecutive years despite competition, such as Miami Vice from 1984 to 1989. By the 2000s, the term was used in reference to the belief that young, single Americans rarely watch television on Friday or Saturday nights, thereby removing from the household what is considered the most lucrative demographic for advertisers. With the collapse of the traditional network viewing model where viewers had to be in front of the TV to...

Read on Wikipedia