Now that ABC's newest crime drama, RJ Decker, has officially arrived on the airwaves, the network is apparently still working to find the best place to put it for maximum ratings. When the Scott Speedman headlining show first arrived, it caused a bit of a shift on the schedule, even pushing one of ABC's longest-running and most popular shows, The Rookie, to another night.
In the coming weeks, the network will make another shift. Eventually, at least for the rest of RJ Decker's rookie season, it will air an hour earlier than it has. This will also allow ABC to fill the hole in a popular time slot that will be left when High Potential's latest season comes to an end.
According to Deadline, RJ Decker is slated to get moved from its Tuesday 10 p.m. slot behind the aforementioned High Potential up to that lucrative 9 p.m. slot once the Kaitlin Olson drama wraps its second season on April 7.
This is the second straight year that the network will be shifting things around once High Potential wrapped its season. Last year, it was The Rookie who moved up an hour when it had the slot that Speedman's show currently occupies. The Nathan Fillion cop show has now seen several adjustments to when it airs, first moving up by one hour last spring. It then relocated to Mondays earlier this year to make room for RJ Decker when it premiered earlier this month.
When Speedman's series does move up an hour on April 14, the network will go all out in order to try and get as many eyes on it as possible. The new series will have its seventh episode air that evening, but leading up to its new time slot, the network has decided to also air the series's first three episodes.
All of this is geared towards execs deciding whether RJ Decker will get a second season or be a one-hit-wonder. So far, no decision has been made, though that's hardly shocking considering its fourth episode only aired earlier this week.
That's not to say there aren't smoke signals conveying optimism. After a solid launch with 3.69 million Live+Same day viewers that made it ABC’s most-watched 10 p.m. drama debut in over five years, RJ Decker has especially found success airing one day after its live showing on Hulu’s Daily Top 5. The show, which depicts Speedman as an ex-con photographer pursuing a career as a PI in South Florida, has been plenty popular, but the network wants to see if it has staying power. We'll see if it moving up an hour on the schedule helps the show's ratings and leads to a season 2 order.