Here's the relevant text from "The Biz":

"The network presented three separate 2004-05 schedules to advertisers yesterday. Coverage of the Major League Baseball post-season, which now runs for nearly a month, has been an iceberg that Fox has had to navigate its fall launch around every season. Sometimes the result has looked like the Titanic.

So several shows will get a running start in June and stay on through December. Most of Fox's returning shows will start after the World Series, with 24 not launching until January and running straight through May without a break. There will be several January launches, including American Idol, as well. Got all that?

The "fall" shows launching in June are North Shore, a soapy ensemble drama set in Hawaii; Quintuplets, a comedy with Andy Richter as the dad of motley five-pack of teens; Method & Red, a fish-out-of-water sitcom with the hip-hop duo; and The Jury, a legal drama from Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana. Assuming those shows don't embarrass themselves off the air during the summer, here's what the Fox fall lineup will look like after baseball ends:

Here are the network's night-by-night plans:

MONDAY: North Shore will be the only drama alternative to squeaky clean 7th Heaven at 8 pm — an hour during which Melrose Place once thrived. If civilization lasts until November, reality horror show The Swan returns for another run at 9 pm. The fourth season of 24 takes over the time period in January with the hope that an uninterrupted weekly run can give the show some ratings momentum. Josh Schwartz, the creator of The O.C., will have a new soap, Athens, at 8 pm in January."

It makes sense...kinda. 24 would do well not to have those 2, 3, and sometimes 4 week breaks right in the middle of the season. So I get wanting to run 24 straight weeks. The problem? 24 weeks from January puts you in the middle of June for the finale. The above blurb said that 24 is to run "through May". By my math, if the show started on the first Monday of 2005 (Jan. 3), it would be up to Hour 22 on Memorial Day (May 30), and wouldn't conclude until June 13. It appears that it's Fox's goal to have 24 run over into June based on this schedule.

That's good news for those of us who have nothing else to watch from the middle of May until the Summer shows start up, but I'm gonna guess this will hurt Fox in the advertising dept. The show won't be anywhere close to finished when May sweeps concludes, so they won't be able to get top dollar, and with the finale falling outside of the sweeps ratings period, they won't get as much for the last few episodes as they might with a May conclusion. *shrug* That's their business, I guess.

Fester