Pretty badly, it would seem. After premiering to a preposterously large audience in its series debut after
American Idol,
Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader has since floundered when not immediately preceded by the Biggest Show in the World. Of course, some drop-off in viewership when
Idol isn't your lead-in is understandable, but on Thursday
Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader clocked in with its worst ratings yet, with only a third of its premiere audience tuning in.
Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader is a cheap show to produce (or so I would think; I suppose they could be paying Jeff Foxworthy six figures an episode) and, therefore, the show is still retaining enough of an audience to make it profitable. However, the problem FOX has (if you can really call it a problem) is that they haven't yet been able to premiere a show after an
Idol, give it an audience, and see it retain its popularity elsewhere on the schedule. It's like a father taking the training wheels off his child's bike, only to watch as the child crashes into a hedge over and over again.
I don't think there's an answer here. FOX knows the detailed numbers, but I have a feeling that the
American Idol audience is a different audience than the typical TV watcher. Sure, they may keep the channel on after Idol ends, but maybe they're not watching network TV the rest of the week.
Idol is such a crazy phenomenon that it's got to be very difficult trying to know the kind of people who watch Idol, since there are so many millions of them.
Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader got re-upped for 13 more episodes recently, so it still has time to build its own audience. Will it make it to next year? The jury is still out.
-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
Source: Media Daily News