What May Cause Making History to be a Hit?
A comedy with serious competition
What does Making History have to go up against on Sunday nights? Once Upon a Time and NCIS: Los Angeles are the two scripted shows it will be facing from broadcast. Both of these shows are dramas, while Making History is a comedy. This means that these shows likely won't be stealing much of a potential audience from the show. They have their own audiences.
The Last Man on Earth is one of the more successful recent FOX comedies
FOX has had issues with comedy for a while. with only three comedies making it to a second season in the last few years. Not including this season, the last FOX comedy to get a second season is The Last Man on Earth, which comes from the same creators as Making History.
What May Cause Making History to be a Miss for FOX?
It's a tricky time to be a FOX comedy
From fall 2013 to now, only three comedies on FOX have made it to a second season: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Last Man on Earth, and The Mick. The rest didn't simply just not make the cut, they failed. It was not pretty. There seems to be little interest for FOX's comedies now, with even the veterans falling to low numbers, when not boosted by football.
High-concept for a comedy
It's not at the level of The Last Man on Earth, but Making History is a high-concept comedy, and those generally don't do well. In recent years The Last Man on Earth and The Good Place have been able to survive, but their ratings aren't great, and they are among the few.
Little Big Shots
While Making History won't face any sitcoms, it will face the unscripted series Little Big Shots, which did quite well on NBC last season, and is fairly comedic. If it keeps up its strong ratings, that could damage the unknown Making History, with even people who watch The Simpsons switching over to NBC because it isn't necessary for them to have seen the first half-hour of Little Big Shots to enjoy the second.
What to Expect for Making History?
I think that the biggest factor here is definitely the difficulties of FOX comedies at this time. It is difficult to predict for this show though, and maybe things could go completely differently.
What factors do you think will have the most effect in making Making History a hit or a miss? Leave your thoughts in the comments!