• Wall Street Journal, Friday, May 12, 2006 11:15 AM

The Wall Street Journal's Joe Flint, who covers the television beat, had a nice "Small Screen" column yesterday headlined, "Are Fridays Back from the Dead?" For the most part, he answered, yes, they are. Broadcast networks, particularly CBS, have discovered audiences can be found on a night that, until recently, had been given up as a non-starter. Although Fridays had once been big in the world of prime time, not lately. That's changing. "Ratings leader CBS... has decided that it is sufficiently strong enough on other nights of the week to be able to pay attention to Fridays," writes Flint. "The network has actively been trying to boost its Friday numbers, and now tops its rivals in both overall viewers and adults age 18-49. Even among adults age 18-24, it trails Fox by only a small margin, which is remarkable considering the median age of CBS viewers is nearly 52. 'With a strong schedule you can afford to attack Friday,' says Kelly Kahl, CBS's head of scheduling. While the night isn't high priority for advertisers, Kahl says that 'if you're Home Depot or Macy's, that is a good night to talk to people.'" Flint points out that it's been the cable channels, such as USA and SciFi, that have lately led the way on Friday nights.

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