• by Wayne Friedman , January 13, 2009

UNIVERSAL CITY, CA -- Fox wants to do more limited TV advertising inventory efforts, like the one it did with this season's new show, "Fringe."

"Playing with the inventory load is something we are going to do more [for programs]," says Kevin Reilly, president of Fox Entertainment, after an opening session for Fox's part of the Television Critics Association Winter tour.

Called "Remote Free TV," "Fringe" ran this season with half the amount of national prime-time inventory versus more typical prime-time shows. It had just five minutes of national commercial inventory in the hour-long drama, giving show producers more room for story content.

During last May's upfront announcement, Fox announced that "Fringe" and upcoming drama "Dollhouse" will have limited national advertising. "Dollhouse" debuts this month on Friday at 9 p.m.

Reilly says the "Fringe" endeavor was a success: "Viewers caught on fast, and advertisers say the recall level of [commercials] is up."

But Reilly added that the supply of advertisers looking to pay for this type of efforts has been limited. "Not all advertisers can pay that kind of premium." Reilly told MediaPost. "That's the conundrum of advertisers. They don't want clutter [but they don't want to pay higher prices]."

Still, the achievement is enough for Fox to consider doing the same in other shows, and perhaps with different advertising formulas. Reilly did not offer additional details.

While "Fringe" scored well from a ratings perspective this fall, Reilly admitted that overall, Fox had a weak fall season--in part because "House" moved to Tuesday at 8 p.m, where ratings fell versus the year before.

"The fall was a little lackluster across the board," said Reilly. "We made an aggressive move with "House." We have been asking it to do a lot of heavy lifting." ("House" was the lead-in for "Fringe.") That said, Fox's top-rated dramas have been grabbing an additional 15% in viewership from the DVR playback viewing.

Analysts questioned why Fox would make a drastic change; it has been the No. 1 network for the last few years among 18-49 viewers. Reilly countered that networks that are on top--and don't make any changes--eventually get caught when ratings start to slide.

Fox is hoping to make its Sunday animation block stronger because it remains a valuable viewer destination for comedy--especially among younger viewers.

"It's very tough if you lose a [programming] block; you lose viewer attention," said Reilly. He notes that Fox is "doubling our commitment." Fox will start up a six-episode animated show this spring called "Sit Down, Shut Up," a program about teachers and staff at a high school in a Florida fishing town. Sometime later, "The Cleveland Show," a "Family Guy" spinoff, will hit Fox's airwaves.

Previously, Reilly ran NBC Entertainment and was famously ousted in favor of Ben Silverman. He smilingly and honestly answered questions about NBC, giving the network credit for signing up Jay Leno in a troubled marketplace. "NBC is like the crazy ex-wife I can't get away from."