Will Fox’s Unique Marketing Strategy for Glee Pay Off?
Hey, you remember Glee, don't you? If you've been watching Fox anytime in the last few weeks, you've almost certainly had the message drilled into your head that the show is relaunching tonight at 9 p.m. Fox has been carpet bombing its airwaves with Glee promos fairly incessantly for the last few months and has even gone so far as to rerun the pilot which, as you'll recall, originally aired back in May two times in the last week. All of this was part of an intensive marketing campaign for the program, one that got its start when critics positively swooned over the show during last winter's TCA conference. So now only one question remains: Will you be watching it?
Well, there are some good signs that there is some healthy interest in the show. As Daniel Fienberg of HitFlix reports, the two recent re-airings of the pilot episode drew 4.1 million and 2.58 million viewers respectively. Those numbers are fairly promising, especially when you consider the pilot has been streaming online for free since the show's initial debut, way back in May. And Fox will also get a head start on training viewers to turn to its network rather than the competitors' at 9 p.m. on Wednesdays, because the other networks aren't launching the new season of their shows (ABC's Modern Family, NBC's Law & Order: SVU, and CBS's Criminal Minds) until September 23. As long as series creator Ryan Murphy resists the urge to have the cast break out into another tired version of "Don't Stop Believing," then we see good things in Glee's immediate future.
But then again, what do we know? We'll throw this one out to you, VultureWatchers: Are you geeked for Glee? Are you rehearsing your very own a capella version of Kanye West's "Gold Digger" as we type? Or are you pretty meh on the whole thing? Let your voice be heard, people, it's the American way!
A second look at FOX's 'Glee' [Fien Print/HitFix]
