The "Every Episode, Every Rating" series takes a look at the highs and lows of a program during its full run. Praise or criticism is in reference to the show's performance in the Nielsen ratings.
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| Photo Credit: FOX |
Following the cancellation of sitcoms like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Last Man on Earth, and Rel, it became clear that the Fox network was no longer interested in nurturing live-action fare on Sunday nights. The evening had previously been reserved exclusively for animated programming, and Fox clearly wanted to go back to that era. The 'Animation Domination' branding made its return in Fall 2019, and cartoon sitcom Bless the Harts received the plush 8:30 p.m. timeslot out the gate. Being the direct lead-out to The Simpsons during the football-boosted months meant that Harts would have the perfect opportunity to grow an audience and secure the maximum amount of attention that Fox could possibly provide it. The perfect timeslot may have been obtained, but Harts was unable to build much of a following.
Fall 2019: Though it was far from a breakout hit, Bless the Harts looked perfectly fine with a 0.68 rating on series premiere night. This number was only two-tenths below the return of The Simpsons (0.88), meaning that it retained a little over 75% of its lead-in. Most of that promise evaporated in week two when Harts posted a 1.21 Adults 18-49 rating behind a much larger Simpsons (2.14). This time around, it retained less than 60% of its lead-in and performed noticeably worse than the average Bob's Burgers episode (the series that aired in this slot a season prior). From there, the series seemed to a weaken a little more each week. The November 3rd installment only managed a 0.51 rating, and retention of its lead-in was barely above 60% on that night in particular. Retention of The Simpsons finally fell below the 50% mark on November 10th when the series only managed a 0.85 behind a 1.83 rating.
Things seemed to slightly improve for Harts during the back-half of November and early parts of December, with the series finally breaking the 1.0 ceiling again for its winter finale. Despite that, its performance was still mediocre at best and a waste of the 8:30 timeslot at worst. The season one finale aired behind a football-inflated Bob's Burgers at 10:30 p.m. and featured the same, sub-50% retention that Harts managed behind Simpsons. With the help of a ton of football inflation (6 of the 10 episodes were boosted by NFL) and an extremely short order, Harts was able to bow out with a 0.85 average in the Adults 18-49 demographic. Though this series clearly disappointed in the ratings, it was awarded a season two renewal nonetheless. In a sense, Fox's feverish desire to expand its animation catalogue helped them look past any shortcomings that Harts showcased in the ratings department.
Fall 2020: After an eight-month hiatus, Bless the Harts returned for season two in the same timeslot as before. But, from the jump, it was clear that this show had taken another step down in terms of ratings strength. The 0.78 it posted for episode one seems great at first glance, but it ultimately retained less than half of its Simpsons lead-in (1.69) on that football-inflated evening. One week later, the football help disappeared, and the series crash-landed to a new series low. The silver lining was that the 0.29 that Harts garnered on October 4th would be its lowest rating for quite a while. It was able to bounce back a bit in week 3 (0.34), and then jumped to a season high (0.82) thanks to football. The series mainly hovered between the 0.4-0.7 range, looking semi-decent on non-NFL nights and downright awful when it would lose over half of The Simpsons on football-assisted evenings.
Winter/Spring 2021: Fox finally seemed to realize that this was the best it was ever going to get with Harts and dumped the series in the 7:30 p.m. death slot. The shocker here was that it actually managed to do somewhat okay for a few weeks. Things weren't pretty for the first episode back (0.25), but the second one (0.34) actually beat out The Great North (0.32) that evening, even though the latter held the much better 8:30 pm timeslot. But, the string of 0.3s eventually went away, and the series fell all the way to a 0.18 by the end of March. The series low was set when the cartoon comedy had the terrible luck of airing on Easter Sunday. As a result, the sitcom posted a humiliatingly poor 0.11 rating. Harts was able to climb all the way back up to a 0.29 a few weeks later, but it mostly stayed in the 0.2s from then on. The series bowed out on June 20th with a miserable 0.13 rating and was never heard from again.
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| Photo Credit: FOX |
Post-Mortem: In season one, Bless the Harts was pampered and placed on a pedestal. It only had to air 10 episodes, and 6 were on nights when football inflated the evening. And yet, it still couldn't seem to grow much of an audience. In season two, it was tossed aside like an outcast during the spring months and almost became an underdog worth rooting for. The fact that it actually held its own a few times at 7:30 was legitimately impressive for a show that seemed like a complete dud at 8:30. But, those small glimmers of hope never really amounted to any real growth, and the show got crushed by the dreadful circumstances it had to deal with.
What do you think of this article? Were you a fan of Bless the Harts? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
