Moving to 7:00 p.m.

It was just announced (this info courtesy of zap2it.com) that starting February 8, King of the Hill will be moving back a half-hour, to 7:00 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) on Sundays. This is because Fox is going to re-launch "Oliver Beene" on Sundays, and they appear to think that the best place for that is sandwiched between KotH and The Simpsons. I actually see the logic of this (come to think of it, when FUTURAMA was on, it would have made more sense to have the established KotH leading into the struggling FUTURAMA, rather than the other way round), but it's still dispiriting to see KotH moved to the only timeslot that's more thankless than the one it's in now.

Since KotH has already been renewed for a ninth season, the main worry right now is not that it might be cancelled but that it might be pre-empted even more than usual and wind up with a backlog of unaired episodes... but since football season will be over by the time the move is made, we'll just have to hope and pray (and perhaps write to Fox asking) that it has a more congenial time slot when November 2004 rolls around.

[email] (Arlen Texas) wrote in message news:...

Um, I thought Fox was usually of the persuasion that if a show is given a decent slot and fails that it probably is not the slot's fault. When KOTH or Futurama were in the timeslot between the Simpsons and X-files they would have a great Neilson rating almost all the time. I even remember when KOTH used to have a high rating than the Simpsons or when Futurama would land in the top 10 every now and again.

Oliver Beene is so formulaic that it is not a fun show to watch. I thought that "Arrested Development" was this season's wacky family show. Ok, so I admit I have trouble getting either Bernie Mac, Malcolm in the Middle, or almost any of the shows that have premired on Sunday night in the primo slot. Ok, I admit that Oliver Beene, as bad as it is, was better than the Grubbs or whatever show it was that Mike Scully produced.

Honestly, I dont care when KOTH airs as long as it is on in its entirity... Oh crap I just realized something... NASCAR!!! With all those penalty laps and unforseen race things there is a good chance that some later race starts will creep into the KOTH timeslot in the spring! Well, I guess I need to start looking for KOTH on Kaaza or wherever since I am not going to be seeing it myself much this spring either. :-( I guess most of the fox race broadcasts are in the East (races in FL, TN, GA, NC, SC), so maybe this will not be an issue. Maybe.

Ok enough rambling.

Stephen

Stephen wrote:

It helped that The Simpsons was up against 3rd Rock From The Sun while KOTH was up against something called Boston Common (and since both ABC and CBS had hour-long shows from 8 to 9, the 3rd Rock viewers only had KOTH and BC to choose from).

I thought of that as well, but short of a rain delay on a track that has lights, there hasn't been an afternoon race (well, except the Coca-Cola 600, but that always pre-empts pretty much everything on Sunday night anyway) that has reached 7:00 Eastern yet. Also, the last Sunday race on Fox in 2004 is at the end of June (and as it's in the San Francisco area in June, the chance of a rain delay is pretty much zero), and some dates do not have Sunday races: February 29, April 11 (Easter Sunday), May 9, May 16, and May 23. I think the closest Fox will come to 7:00 will be on May 2, when they have the Auto Club 500 ("Auto Club" is short for Automobile Club of Southern California, southern California's AAA chapter), as it's 500 miles and, because it's in the Pacific time zone, probably starts at 2:30 Eastern.

-- Don

I am wondering now that NASCAR is trying to get popularity across the country if they might shift the start of races to the 3pm+ EST area so that people across the country can have a chance to watch the races without getting out of bed early. There is really no reason why a race in Bristol or Atlanta has to start within an hour of noon local time, is there?

Stephen

Ugh. This is probably the death-knell for the show, just like Futurama. I've noticed that they often leave out KOTH when announcing the Sunday lineup, just like they did with Futurama.

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