Dr. Louisa Ha
Chloe Jefferson
October 19, 2014
Re: TV Program Analysis Report
Series Title: Black’ish
Genre: Comedy
Network: ABC
Showtime: September 24, 2014
Lead-in Program: Modern Family
Lead-out Program: Nashville
Background
There has not been an African-American sitcom on network television in the last 15 years since Family Matters,
Sister Sister or Hanging with Mr. Cooper. With competing networks like CW introducing minority based sitcoms
as Jane The Virgin and soon to premiere Fox’s Fresh off The Boat, ABC’s Black’ish is part of the networks attempt
to diversify its programming and to stay in competition with its competitors. The show also serves as the leadout for its current 9:00 primetime sitcom Modern Family which is also a family comedy.
Created by writer Kenya Barris, the show is about an African-American upper class family whose success has
caused them to assimilate while still trying to establish a cultural sense of identity that encompasses their past,
present and future. Barris has had similar success with two other African-American sitcoms The Game and Are
We There Yet? (TV series). The show also has an impressive lineup of executive producers including: Larry
Wilmore (The Bernie Mac Show and The Daily Show), Helen Sugland (Akeelah and The Bee), Tom Russo, Brian
Dobbins, Peter Principato, Paul Young, James Griffith (who directed the show’s pilot) and the shows stars
Anthony Anderson and Academy Award nominee Laurence Fishburne. (Huffington Post 2014)
Black’ish target audience is minority adults aged 18 to 49.
Scheduling and Strategies
Wednesday primetime 8p.m. to 10p.m. is a schedule of block programming (similar programs scheduled the
entire night) full of family comedies for the ABC network. Within this block of comedy programming ABC chose
to “tent-pole” its lineup by selecting The Middle as its lead-off to start its block of comedy due to its strong
ratings and high success. Following The Middle is The Goldbergs which is in its second year of airing with ABC
and has not completely proven itself to have a steady following or audience yet. Following The Goldbergs is
Modern Family which is widely successful and whose ratings are comparable to the lead-off show The Middle.
Sandwiched between Modern Family and the networks 10p.m. drama Nashville, is where Black’ish airs at 9:30.
This is known as hammocking or placing a new show in between established shows. Tent poling or scheduling
its new show (Black’ish) and less performing sitcom (The Goldbergs) between its more successful shows ensures
an overall higher rating and helps to keep audiences engaged through its back to back comedy lineup.
ABC choosing to focus its Wednesday lineup on comedy is a brilliant and common scheduling strategy known as
counterprogramming. Its competing networks are airing dramas like Red Band Society, reality programming
such as Big Brother and Hell’s Kitchen and crime dramas: Criminal Minds and Law and Order. This gives ABC an
opportunity to stand out to viewers by offering the only comedy programs airing on Wednesday nights.
However, ABC decided to take a risk and up the ante by scheduling Nashville, a drama, as Black’ish’s lead-out.
During the 10p.m hour ABC’s competitors are also airing dramas, this is known as blunting. CBS is premiering its
new drama Stalker and NBC is airing Chicago PD which is only in its second season versus ABC’s Nashville which
is in its third season and has already established a following and good solid ratings. This should prove to be an
overall successful format for ABC’s Wednesday primetime programming. (TV Guide 2014)
Transitional Strategies
Adding to the attractiveness of its two hour comedy block, ABC provided a seamless transition from the lead-in
Modern Family to Black’ish by providing a teaser opening to grasp audience’s attention and to keep them
captive before the title sequence or commercials. The show’s ending also included an epilogue or conclusion to
sum up the pilot’s episode that further iterated to viewers the tone or feel for the show. This served a double
purpose, it left audiences looking forward to next week’s episode and also provided a transition by holding
audiences captive during commercials for the show’s lead-out program Nashville. ABC’s transitional strategies
acted as a “highlighter” or placed flashing neon bulbs around the premiere of Black’ish to ensure viewers would
stay tuned and watch, hopefully becoming a fan of the show and continuing to watch for weeks to follow.
To pay the bills there were a total of 3 commercial breaks during Black’ish season premiere totaling a little over
8 minutes of commercial throughout the shows entire broadcast. The first commercial break took place after
the teaser opening and title sequence around 8 minutes into the show. The commercial break consisted of
advertisements geared towards a family. HP computers, Kohl’s, Discover Card, Splenda, Good Morning America
and a trailer for ABC’s Thursday program Scandal who may share a similar fan base took the first commercial
break and lasted 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
The second commercial break was 3 minutes and 12 seconds and was geared towards both men and women.
Advertisers included: Beyond the lights movie, pampers, cosmetics, Ford, Kroger, home improvement company,
a car dealership and a trailer for ABC’s show How to Get Away With Murder who also has a similar fan base as
Black’ish.
The final commercial break took place 24 minutes into the program and lasted 2 minutes and 28 seconds. The
last commercial break seemed to be dominated by trailers for ABC programming including: The CMA Awards,
ABC’s Friday night lineup and Black’ish lead-out Nashville. There were also ads for cosmetics, Walmart and
Verizon cell phones.
Black’ish ending consisted of a closing epilogue along with closing credits. Similar to Modern’s family ending,
there were no after show commercials as ABC created another seamlessness transition into the Lead-out show
Nashville.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Black’ish is already being compared to the widely successful African-American family comedy The Cosby Show.
There are eerie similarities between the two shows that cannot be ignored. Mom is a doctor, dad is an
advertising executive, both successful, live in an affluent neighborhood, have four children and patriarchal
grandfather is the guiding influence of some of the father’s actions and decisions regarding his family. However
the show does have its own identity from The Cosby Show as it seems to focus on cultural similarities and
differences between ethnicities in America. The show identifies the difficulties of assimilating an AfricanAmerican culture into mainstream America and makes fun of the situation. The father’s opening monologue
sets the tone for the pilot: “In the ‘urban’ world, Justin Timberlake and Robin Thicke are R&B gods, Kim
Kardashian’s the symbol for big butts and Asian guys are just un-holdable on the dance floor. Come on! Big
butts, R&B and dancin’? Those were the black man’s go-tos!” The show takes place in a very upscale and
affluent Los Angeles suburb. The father is played by Anthony Anderson, who as you can see from his remarks is
struggling to hold onto his roots of inner city living, which made him into the man he is. Rainbow his bi-racial
wife (played by Tracee Ellis Ross of Girlfriends) and his children couldn’t be happier living in their world of
suburban white America. Son Andre wants a bar mitzvah, changes his name to Andy and would rather play field
hockey then basketball. Laurence Fisbourne is hilarious as the paternal grandfather who is constantly criticizing
his son and family’s “white-acting” tendencies.
As a pilot Black’ish is the perfect prototype. It has the current viewer preference trend as shown by its same
family comedy genre lead-in Modern Family ratings. It has a strong resemblance to The Cosby Show which
lasted a total of 8 seasons! Finally, the fact that its tent poled within a two hour comedy block of programming
that is the only network showing this type of programming on Wednesday night is more than enough reason to
validate the networks decision to order the show as a series for the season.
The series also has the key elements for program appeal. There is conflict between the father and the rest of his
family. There is high-traffic scenes with many characters in an episode which equates to durability. The shows
characters are likeable. There is consistency with the other successful shows within its lineup, however the
series still stands apart on its own providing consistency. There is good energy, professional execution and the
fact that there has not been a broadcast network produced African-American sitcom in years, shows that the
timing is right. More importantly the show has a targeted demographic audience which defines audiences for
advertisers and potentially increases profit revenue for the network. (Vulture.com)
Provided that the show is so similar to The Cosby Show, audiences could view the sitcom as being predictable.
Viewers may not be able to recognize its fresh approach and differences from the past successful show and
could lose viewers. Also, some critics have advised that Black’ish may be too race focused which could steer
away other demos from viewing. According to the Tomatometer on the popular critic website Rotten Tomato,
Black’ish scored an 85% among appeal with critics, but only 51% of the audience liked the show based on the
websites own audience poll.
Part of the issue, is that some may take not only the title of the series but also its poking fun of black stereotypes
insensitive and offensive. (RottenTomatoes.com)
Ratings and Shares Performance
In regards to the season premiere, the new show was very successful. Black’ish received a 3.3 rating in the
demographic audience of adults 18-49 and 10 share. It also reached a total audience of 10.79 million. Both
accomplishments are first in the show’s 9:30 time period.
Coincidently Modern Family, the lead-in for the show had an audience total of 10.93 with a rating of 3.7and
share of 11. This kind of retention for a premiere show is very impressive. ABC has been looking for a show that
could hold up to Modern Family for some time. Last year Super Fun Night debuted after Modern Family with a
3.2 rating, share of 5 and an audience of 8.23 million right before sinking. (tv.com 2014)
Nashville on the other hand landed 1.5 among audiences 18-49 and pulled in 5.6 million viewers which is an
increase compared to the season’s finale of 1.3 rating and 5.02 million viewers (bizjournals 2014).
During the night of Black’ish season premiere the show competed with Law and Order SVU (9-10p.m) who
received a 2.1 rating, a share of 6 and 10.10 million viewers and the season finale of Big Brother (9:30-11p.m.)
which earned a 2.6 rating, 8 share and 7 million viewers. Between the two competitors Black’ish won hands
down over both Big Brother and Law and Order SVU in all three categories. (zap2it 2014)
As of last week October 16, 2014 ratings have naturally dropped since the season premieres. Currently
Black’ish has a rating of 2.5, a share of 7 and 6.93 million viewers. This is a 16 and 14 percent drop since the
premiere. Its lead-in Modern Family’s rating last week was 3.4, a 10 share and had a total of 9.71 million
viewers. Nashville the lead-out rating was 1.3, share was 4 and only had 5.02 million viewers which is down 9%
and 13%. Although Black’ish totals have seemed to drop since the premiere, it is still a strong contender to pair
with Modern Family and is significantly higher overall then Nashville, in its third season. (zap2it 2014)
Competing networks have changed their Wednesday night programming lineups since Black’ish season
premiere. Black’ish is now competing with CBS’ Criminal Minds, who last week brought in a rating of 2.4, share
of 7 and had 10.89 million viewers, NBC’s Law and Order (SVU) with a 1.7 rating, 5 share and 7.16 million
viewers, Fox’s Red Band Society snagged a 1.0 rating, 3 share and 3.17 million viewers and the CW’s Flash who
brought home a 0.5 rating, 2 share and 1.67 million viewers.
It is clear that Black’ish has significantly beaten Fox and the CW in rating, share and total viewers and is strong
competition with CBS and NBC in rating and share but lost to the competitors overall viewers total.(zap2it 2014)
Remarks
While ABC managed to maximize audiences by targeting specific groups to meet advertiser’s needs with the
airing of Black’ish it failed to produce L.O.P in some viewer’s opinions by producing least objectionable
programming. Following the premiere of Black’ish controversial Donald Trump took to social media outlet
Twitter to voice his opinion of the show.
“How is ABC Television allowed to have a show entitled ‘Blackish'?” Trump tweeted. “Can you imagine the furor
of a show, “Whiteish”? Racism at highest level?” Trump posted on Wednesday evening. In the past ABC has also
gone after ABC employees Rosie O’Donnel and Modern Family executive producer Danny Zuker. Zuker also
Tweeted following Trumps comment after the premiere stating “Totally agree.” “WAY worse than being a
birther/railroading innocent black kids in Central Park mugging,” Zuker added. (The Wrap 2014)
Promotion Support
Leading up to the premiere of Black’ish, ABC released a wildfire of promotion on internet, TV Guide channel, TV
station promos and even at community events. Pop up promotions could be easily found on the web while
browsing through different sites from industry pages like: Television Week to social media sites including
Facebook and even on YouTube. There were also a steady flow of advertisements on cable African-American
networks like BET, TV-ONE and CENTRIC. Urban radio stations were not excluded from the Black’ish promotion
wildfire either. Even the ABC website itself was plastered with ads for the shows premiere. I can even recall
attending an annual Stone Cold Family Reunion event (a barbeque and music festival geared towards the
African-American community) during the summer in Cleveland and spotting advertisements for Black’ish there
as well. The ABC Network itself was plastered with trailers for the shows premiere too. During the last
commercial break of each of the shows before its air, there was a trailer for the premiere.
In most of the promotion that I experience for the premiere, there was always a strong intentional resemblance
to The Cosby Show. One trailer voice over even stated Black’ish was the new millennium Cosby’s. There is one
print ad for Black’ish that seems as if it was tailored to resemble the season 5 opener of the Cosby Show. Both
casts are dressed in similar colorful clothing. Overall, I believe the network did an excellent job in promoting the
premiere of this show. You would have had to live under a rock not to know where and when the show was
premiering. Its advertising was so persistent that you almost were sick of seeing the promotions!
Evaluation
Due to ABC’s methodical scheduling of block comedy shows and counterprogramming, its strong ratings, great
timing as a new African-American family comedy and comparison to other past successful shows of the same
genre, I would say that Black’ish is at least a Swimmer. ABC’S programming schedule seems to be working and
Black’ish is running neck and neck if not beating its competitor networks same time slot shows. Only time and
writers will tell for sure if Black’ish is ordered for a second season.
References
Adalian, J. (2014, September 25). ‘Premiere-Week Ratings: Black-ish Beautiful, The Goldberg’s Successfully Lands
on Wednesday’. Retrieved October 19, 2014, from http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/fall-tvratingsabc-blackish-goldbergs.html
Bibel, S. (2014, October 16). Wednesday Final Ratings: ‘The Mysteries of Laura’, ‘Modern Family’, & ‘Red Band
Society’ Adjusted Up: Retrieved October 21, 2014, from
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/10/16/wednesday-final-ratings-the-mysteries-of-lauramodern-family-red-band-society-adjusted-up/315681/
Boyer, E.J.m (2014, September 25). ‘How did the premiere of ABC's 'Nashville' fare in the ratings’? Retrieved
October 24, 2014, from http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/blog/2014/09/how-did-the-premiere-ofabcs-nashville-fare-in-the.html
Kissel, R. (2014, September 25). ‘ABC’s ‘Black-ish’ Strong-ish in Premiere; CBS Reality Vets Win Night in Demos’.
Retrieved October 19, 2014, from http://variety.com/2014/data/news/abcs-black-ish-impressive-ish-inpremiere-cbs-reality-vets-win-night-in-demos-1201313297/
Kondolodgy, A. (2014, September 25). TV Ratings Wednesday: ‘Survivor’ Returns up, ‘The Mysteries of Laura’ and
‘Red Band Society’ Fall + Black’ish Has Strong Start. Retrieved October 21, 2014, from
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/09/25/tv-ratings-wednesday-survivor-returns-up-themysteries-of-laura-red-band-society-fall-black-ish-has-decent-debut/306993/
Mitovich, M. (2014, July 1). ‘Fall TV 2014: Your Handy Calendar of 99 Seasons and Season Premieres’. Retrieved
October 20, 2014, from http://tvline.com/2014/07/21/fall-tv-premiere-dates-2014-schedule-calendarprintable/
O’Connell, R. (2014, October 1). ‘Donald Trump Says ABC is Racists’ l The Wrap. Retrieved October 20, 2014,
from http://www.thewrap.com/donald-trump-calls-abc-black-ish-racist/
Rotten Tomatoes (2014). ‘Black-ish: Season 1’. Retrieved October 21, 2014, from
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/black-ish/s01/
TV Guide (2014) – 2014 Fall Preview. Retrieved October 19, 3014, from http://www.tvguide.com/special/fallpreview/fall-schedule.aspx
Williams, B. (2014, August 29, 2014/ September 05, 2014). 'Black-ish' Creator Kenya Barris Defines New Show
and Responds to Critics’. Retrieved October 21, 2014, from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/29/black-ish-kenya-barris-critics-_n_5737966.html