The way people consume television has dramatically changed in just the past couple of years. There's a lot of delayed viewing, which the advertisers don't necessarily pay for in the same way as live viewing. So the networks have turned to more and more "event programming," and one way to try to get the audience to watch the actual broadcast is if it's live.
While the ratings were not great, I wonder if Fox thinks they are good enough. They programmed against a huge football game, and so close to Christmas means that people are distracted with shopping and parties, so I think they would have expected lower ratings. They got a 20%+ bump over their usual Sunday ratings. |
