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CBS Moves ‘Harper’s Island’ to Saturday

Apr 27, 2009  •  Post A Comment

“Harper’s Island” is on the move.
CBS has decided to drop the 3-week-old serialized drama from its current plum post-“CSI” timeslot, network insiders confirm. The series, which had been airing Thursdays at 10 p.m., will shift to Saturdays at 9 p.m., effective immediately.
Repeats of “Criminal Minds” and “CSI” will replace “Harper’s” on Thursday for the next two weeks. On Thursday, May 14, CBS will air the season finale of “CSI: NY” in the 10 p.m. Thursday slot.
CBS had put a ton of promotional energy into “Harper’s,” talking up the new-media strategy behind it and advertising it as a “limited series” with a definitive end date. The hope was that audiences might be more willing to commit knowing they’d get a resolution within a finite time period.
But after a decent start two weeks ago, “Harper’s” fell to a 2.0 rating in adults 18-49 last week, behind ABC’s “Private Practice” and NBC’s “Southland.”
NBC recently shifted first-year drama “Kings” to Saturday after it failed to find an audience on Sunday nights. The network then pulled the plug on the show after it tanked on Saturday.
There’s no guarantee CBS won’t do the same thing if “Harper’s” melts down on Saturdays. However, due to international licensing deals, it would make sense for CBS to air the remaining episodes of “Harper’s” sometime this year.
(Editor: Baumann)

17 Comments

  1. “Eleventh Hour” was in the Thursday 10pm slot and had 10.3M viewers against the series finale of E.R. (after being off for two weeks for basketball), 11.6M against the George Clooney return and 12M viewers the week prior and was in the 12-13M viewer range before that. “Eleventh Hour” is a solid 18-49 demo performer for CBS at 10pm and since it isn’t getting mentions in the “Harper’s Island” articles, I wanted to post a comment to remind people of the previous time slot occupant.

  2. The reason Harper’s Island is tanking is because the show stinks. I was really excited to watch it – the promotion of the show was great – but the end product was poor acting, a contrived story and no real tie to keep an audience.

  3. you’re right KristieAnne

  4. Thank you Greg for speaking Truth. Everyone can talk all sorts of ridiculous reasons why shows tank but chief among them: stinky product.
    Writing on television across the board (Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters, Ugly Betty even my beloved Lost and Battlestar Galactica) has just been terrible this year… stiff dialogue, stories that go nowhere, plots that make no sense or just dropped… what happened to the writers??

  5. Thank you Greg for speaking Truth. Everyone can talk all sorts of ridiculous reasons why shows tank but chief among them: stinky product.
    Writing on television across the board (Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters, Ugly Betty even my beloved Lost and Battlestar Galactica) has just been terrible this year… stiff dialogue, stories that go nowhere, plots that make no sense or just dropped… what happened to the writers??

  6. Thank you Greg for speaking Truth. Everyone can talk all sorts of ridiculous reasons why shows tank but chief among them: stinky product.
    Writing on television across the board (Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters, Ugly Betty even my beloved Lost and Battlestar Galactica) has just been terrible this year… stiff dialogue, stories that go nowhere, plots that make no sense or just dropped… what happened to the writers??

  7. Sorry everyone for the multiple posts.. my computer seems to be having a meltdown. 🙂

  8. Compare and contrast the promotional push given “Harper’s Island”, with that given “Moonlight” last year. Wifey — not in the biz, BTW — pointed out last Thursday night she was beginning to get hooked on the story. She pointed out to me the stack of shows CBS has thrown at the 9p Friday slot haven’t been preempted, while “Moonlight” was consistently moved.
    She will be less than thrilled when I break her the news…

  9. Personally I love harpers island. Sure the acting may be a bit soap operaish, but it is actually a lot of fun to watch. Especially if you invite a dozen friends over every week and bet money on who the killer is. I wish CBS would give it a chance.

  10. I love Harper’s Island. It makes for a great watch party show. The discussion adds to the intrigue. Maybe the watch groups need to watch from home the ratings will go up. I would like for CBS to make this program work, but Saturday night will surely kill it off. Please move back to Thursday Night and save the show.

  11. I love Harper’s Island and was more than disappointed to see that the show moved to saturday nights. I love trying to see who gets axed the next week. I really hope that they don’t yank it. They should at least finish it, since it only goes till July. My thursday’s are shot to hell. After a long week I really looked forward to watching it….

  12. Harper’s Island is a very well done, fun show that along with Fringe, Reaper, and Supernatural i look really forward to watching every week and i must say it is a sorry turn of events that CBS has decided to move it to Saturdays. I guess it will eventually be replaced by yet another terrible, cheap reality show that the mindless masses keep watching week after week no matter how terrible it is. Oh well there is no accounting for taste especially these days.

  13. I wass really bummed when they moved it from Thursday night, especially when you make popcorn have some friends over and sit down to watch it and find out they moved it to Saturdays, I hope they at least finish the series, for those of us who enjoy a good mystery At least make a DVD of the remaining espiodes if they kill off the show, nothing like starting to watch a show and they just stop in the middle of it. I will be really disappointed in CBS if they don’t finish the show especially after they advertise that it was a 13 week event, knowing there would be a end.

  14. i really like the show and hope to see the remaining episodes. i prefer thursday night, but i will either watch it or tape it, no matter what night it comes on. please don’t cancel the series right in the middle of the storyline.

  15. I, too, was just getting “hooked” on Harper’s Island. I’ll try to keep up on Saturday nights, but we are so often “out” socializing during the weekends, that this may prove a problem. We own restaurants and in this lousy economy, we’ve got to be out there promoting. I “love” Agatha Christie-type mysteries, even though this seems to be directed at a younger crowd.

  16. I actually love harper’s island, true enough alot of the acting is not 5 star but I was positive I knew who the killer was until that person was killed its so suspenseful and exciting trying to figure who you think the killer is. when it was running on thursdays I was in front of my tv five minutes before it was due to come on I didnt even know it was moved to saturdays until after the first saturday run- I thought cbs was just showing a csi rerun that week- so that cause me to have to watch the last two episodes on, on demand does cbs not realize that saturdays is party night for alot of young people I really hope there will be a second season

  17. hey i love the shw maybe if they put thes how on thrusdays again fans will watch cause tis saturdays thing isnt working well i am starting an petition to cbs for themt os top puttig shows on and yanking them so quickly

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