Prime Puts Modern Family Into Storage

Prime at last has seen sense and is dropping its re-runs of Modern Family opposite Three’s. 

This week both channels went head-to-head at 7pm with repeats of the Emmy-winner: season five aired on Three and season eight on Prime.

But from Tuesday, Prime will repeat Storage Wars instead.

Modern Family used to be a signature show for Three until it relinquished the rights in 2013.

It lost the show when it restructured what had been an output deal with 20 Century Fox TV and Prime picked up the rights from season five.

But as part of its new strategy to boost viewership for the 5.30 slot, to improve the lead-in to the 6.00 news hour, Three won back the rights.

It’s been screening season nine 7.30 Thursdays and is using season five to fill in for The Project over Christmas/New Year.

When The Project returns next month, the re-runs will switch to 5.30 weeknights and start from season one.

Prime’s decision to go head-to-head with Modern Family was scheduling at its looniest.

It disadvantaged viewers the most and was never going to benefit Prime in the ratings because Three is more dominant.

When I asked Prime at the time if it would proceed with the clash, a spokesperson said: “We still have previous seasons in licence so we are playing these 7pm weeknights through the holiday period.”

When asked today if ratings or objections by Three or Fox had influenced the rescheduling, she said: “I don’t believe it was anything other than programming making the decision to swap it out for Storage Wars instead.  There certainly weren’t any external influences.”