‘Modern Family’ season 4 goes back-to-back to help out ‘Nashville’ premiere

As ABC has saw across the board over the past two weeks, this has not been a particularly easy year for new fall shows.  “Partners,” “Last Resort,” “Made in Jersey,” “The Mob Doctor,” “Animal Practice,” “Ben and Kate,” and even to an extent “Vegas” are all examples of new series that have managed to make very little of an impact on the TV landscape over the course of the past few weeks. As a matter of fact, only “Vegas” and maybe “Last Resort” (depending on if it holds steady) seems to have a chance out of these shows of getting a pickup for anything longer than 13 episodes.

With all of this in mind, the folks over at the House of Mouse have made the decision to give their critically-acclaimed new series “Nashville” as much help as humanly possible. For the show’s premiere date October 10, they have made the decision to air two back-to-back episodes of their hit “Modern Family” at 9:00 p.m., mostly so that there will at least be a good many eyeballs watching the opening minutes of the new Connie Britton drama. The show has used the famous family as a launching pad for many new series before, including the likes of “Happy Endings,” “Cougar Town” (which has sense shifted over to TBS), and even the woeful “The Neighbors” for an episode prior to its shift to 8:30. Sometimes, watching one episode is all you need to get hooked on a show; just look at the success of “Once Upon a Time” last year, which managed to debut strong with a 4.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic last year, and still manages to hold on to most of that figure to this day.

The one reason loser here? “Suburgatory,” whose deubt has been pushed back at 8:30 for yet another week so that a new show can have a little bit more time in the spotlight.

Do you think that the “Modern Family” lead-in will really help a show like “Nashville” with such a different audience? Sound off below!