In an attempt to give NBC’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
a run for its money on Tuesdays at 10 p.m., ABC said Wednesday that it will air only original programming in that slot for the rest of the year.
To do that, ABC is putting veteran NYPD Blue
on hiatus after November sweeps and airing Line of Fire
in its place.
Line ofFire
, written and produced by Rod Lurie, will air in the slot through January, then NYPD Blue
will return in originals for February sweeps.
"We’ve seen six great episodes of Line of Fire
," ABC Entertainment president Susan Lyne said.
"This strategy will allow us to utilize our strong Monday NightFootball
promo base to premiere Line of Fire
and will also allow Blue
’s loyal fans to enjoy uninterrupted original episodes when the show returns," she added.
"They are putting Line of Fire
on at a time when NBC and CBS are going to run a lot of repeats and NYPD Blue
falls apart in repeats," said Steve Sternberg, director of audience analysis at Interpublic Group of Cos.’ MAGNA Global USA.
"If Line of Fire
becomes a hit on Tuesdays, they can move it to Mondays, and they’ve been looking for a series to work on Mondays for a long time," he added. "The original idea was that The Practice
was not going to last that long, so they were holding Line of Fire
for Sundays, but now that The Practice
is showing new life, it makes a lot of sense to do this."
