‘Conviction’ moving to Sundays following ‘Quantico’ season 2 news
We’ve already made it clear that viewers were not watching ABC’s “Conviction” with the utmost of conviction, given that the network to not order any additional episodes beyond the original 13.
Now, what we’re hearing here is that the network may be looking to silence the Hayley Atwell series even further as we near the end of its run. While it’ll air out the remainder of its first season, starting on January 1 the Futon Critic reports that the show is moving over to Sunday nights at 10:00 p.m. Eastern — the slot originally occupied by “Quantico.” This is especially ironic given that ABC is moving “Quantico” to Monday nights starting on January 23, where it will air for the remainder of its own ratings-challenged season. Obviously, this is the show of the two that the network has a little bit more faith in, at least at the moment.
So why didn’t “Conviction” work? It’s a difficult question to answer, given that you had a notable star in Atwell, a fairly robust promotional campaign, and even a lot of faith from the network in giving it the “Dancing with the Stars” follow-up timeslot — heck, the series even starred the sister of ABC programming head Channing Dungey, so obviously she had a personal incentive to want it to succeed. However, it just didn’t connect almost from the get-go, and we wonder if a part of that is simply due to the abundance of legal / crime dramas already on the air. In particular, this show has over time faced competition from both “Scorpion” and “Timeless,” and maybe it needed a little more humor a la “Castle” to capture some of the “Dancing with the Stars” viewers who opted to leave the TV on after the fact.
More than anything, though, we classify this as a promotional failure more so than anything the show did. It’s not like it premiered and then plummeted; from the moment the first ratings came in, it was pretty clear that the show was in trouble.
Note that “Conviction” is not officially canceled as of yet; it’s simply a matter of things not looking great at the moment based on the ratings that are out there and the moves that we’re reporting on.