THE SPIN-OFF AS TELEVISION PROGRAM FORM AND STRATEGY

The spin-off program, defined as “a new program derived from an existing one, usually through the appropriation of characters,” has been used frequently as a primetime network television scheduling strategy since the 1960s. Implicit in the scheduling of spin-off programs is the belief that they have a greater chance of success than non-spin-offs because the audience is already familiar with the characters and/or the situational aspects of the program. The purpose of this paper is to test this implied proposition through statistical analysis. © 1990, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.