What May Cause The Mayor to be a Hit?
While ABC's drama promotion is spread out among four shows, the network only has one new comedy, so it should get a solid amount of promotional attention. Also, ABC found success in fall comedy last year, with both Speechless and American Housewife succeeding. The Mayor's timeslot also could help it. Like its lead-in Black-ish, The Mayor focuses on African-American characters, and while it is not a family comedy like Black-ish, the main character's family is still part of the show. When it comes to competition, Bull likely has a completely different audience, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine is fairly low-rated now, which just leaves the question, how much overlap will This Is Us really have with The Mayor?
YouTube and social media also show potential for The Mayor. The official trailer for The Mayor has even more views than that of The Good Doctor (4.381 million views at the time this article was written), and a strong 95% of people who reacted to the trailer liked it. On Facebook, The Mayor has 86K likes, more than all of ABC's dramas except The Good Doctor. On Twitter, The Mayor only beats two out of four of the network's dramas, but its 2,201 followers puts it much closer to The Good Doctor's level there than that of Kevin or Ten Days.
What May Cause The Mayor to be a Miss for ABC?
If you were to boil down ABC's comedies of recent years to a simple description, you would find a strong correlation showing that the ones who didn't center around families didn't succeed. The semi-on-brand-ness of Imaginary Mary didn't work, which doesn't bode well for The Mayor, which is even less on-brand.
Also, one needs to wonder if This Is Us will have an impact on The Mayor. Considering how Black-ish seemed to have been affected by Empire, it's possible. The issue for The Mayor is that while Black-ish got some time before it had to face Empire, and throughout that it had the strong lead-in of Modern Family, The Mayor will begin to face This Is Us right at the start, and its lead-in will be Black-ish, which gets solid ratings, but is moving nights. Does The Mayor have the support necessary to face This Is Us?
What to Expect from ABC's Fall Comedy
Honestly, the odds don't seem to be in The Mayor's favor. But the biggest question could end up being, will This Is Us have a significant impact on The Mayor's ratings? And I'm leaning towards no as the answer to that question. However, The Mayor might really have to prove itself in order to stick around for the full year, as ABC has the revival of Roseanne and new comedies Alex Inc. and Splitting Up Together to fit in mid-season. This is a tricky one, but for some reason I have a good feeling about it.
What do you expect from The Mayor? And what factors do you think will contribute most to making it a hit or a miss? Leave your thoughts in the comments!