Fall TV Showdowns: The Blacklist vs. Survivor vs. Riverdale vs. Empire

One of the more intriguing Fall TV Showdowns at the moment appears to be Wednesday nights at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, and there’s really one simple reason for it: Almost everything on the schedule is changing in a rather big way. When you look at the lineup, The Blacklist, Survivor, Empire, and Riverdale are all airing against each other for the first time. Only Survivor and the ABC comedy lineup were airing in this timeslot last season, which means that we’re gearing up for a new and rather unique battle.

So who is helped the most by some of these moves, and who is poised to suffer as a result of it? This feels like something meriting a little more investigation, but by and large the interesting thing about this is that most of these shows may be different enough that none of them are hurt too badly.

Survivor – This is probably the one show that will be hurt the least, mostly because it has the most stable, consistent audience out of anyone. Survivor did find itself experiencing a ratings drop during Game Changers, so hopefully returning to the new-players premise helps to ensure that there are people active and engaged to see it again. Returning players are fun, but we’re feeling a little bit of overkill at this point.

The Blacklist – The one show that may be hurt the most in terms of some of its viewers being Survivor fans. However, whatever it loses from that competition it may gain after moving from Thursday nights at 10:00 to a more accessible timeslot. It should fare every bit as well as Blindspot did in this timeslot last season.

Empire – Expect to see the ratings bleeding continue in the new timeslot. It may end up losing to Survivor for the season, just because this show has proven itself to be more of a flash in the pan in terms of being a mainstream hit. It’s still a show with very good moments, but it has to accept now that it’s more in the range of the majority of the other programming on TV. It needs to retain the viewers it has rather than being concerned about the next big-name guest star or a way to get old viewers back.

Riverdale – This timeslot could be trouble, but it has nothing to do with the competition and more to do with it airing without a lead-in after having Supernatural this past year. The CW is taking a huge gamble putting it in the old timeslot as Arrow, and it’s probably not going to match the ratings averages of that show. Still, they still want it to be able to successfully launch Dynasty.

Which one of these shows are you planning to watch on Wednesday nights this fall? Share some thoughts in the comments!

(Photo: NBC.)