The Reality Of The Situation

Now that the film-centric "reality" competition On The Lot, has settled into its regularly 2 days a week schedule, how's it doing in the ratings?

Rick Kissell of Variety:

FOX.'s unscripted Hollywood competish "On the Lot" bowed in its regular timeslot Monday night to a fifth-place finish among the broadcasters.

After failing to ignite much interest with a pair of preview episodes last week -- including one following the final "American Idol " performance show of the season -- the search for the next great film director settled for fewer than 3 million viewers.

Of course, Memorial Day isn't a great night to kick off a series, and Fox can hope that its audience grows from here. But the net could be forced to yell "Cut!" if numbers remain at this level -- which are low even by summer standards.

Based on preliminary same-day Nielsen nationals for Monday, "On the Lot" averaged a 1.3 rating/4 share in adults 18-49 and 2.9 million viewers overall from 8 to 10 p.m., peaking with about 3.1 million from 8:30 to 9.

Those numbers left the net behind repeats on CBS as well as first run programming on ABC, NBC and Univision; Fox also may have trailed a cabler or two in the 9 o'clock hour.

Show's regular airing pattern is an hour on Monday, followed by a "box office" results show Tuesday...

I actually caught bits and pieces of Monday's show--just to see if things had gotten any better...They did not. Having Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg on the marquee means nothing here. The show just rips off the Idol formula that's all. Quite honestly, I there's much more drama on a "making of" doc on any DVD, than there is here... If the show hasn't caught on by now--I doubt it ever will. If a first run network program gets beat by a cable channel--Summer or not--that's bad.