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Fox Maintains ‘American Idol’ Schedule, No Switch to Thursday

While CBS claimed not to be worried about the possibility of Fox moving American Idol from Tuesdays and Wednesdays to Wednesdays and Thursdays, executives must have breathed a sigh of relief when Fox decided to nix the change. In fact, Fox claims the switch was never a serious consideration, writes Mediapost, quoting Fox executive vp of strategic planning and research: “There were rumors out there - we don’t know why. We always play around with a lot of scenarios.” He added that Fox considers other nights for Idol every season, including Sundays and Mondays. But according to Media Life, Fox had been feeling out buyers for weeks about such a change.

 

Instead of a switch, Fox is taking the half-hour Wednesday “results” show to a full hour, and moving it from its 9 p.m. slot to 8 p.m. - likely to avoid running against ABC’s Lost, which is particularly strong this season. And House will keep its Tuesday, post-Idol slot rather than moving to Monday at 8 p.m. as Fox had announced last May.

Program analysts believe the rumors about the Idol switch may have been started by NBC. The struggling network - which owned Thursday nights for nearly two decades - is hoping to make a new splash on that night, some believe. It may be considering launching four new comedies between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. that night, but couldn’t commit until it knew whether Fox would change American Idol’s nights.