Ratings and Scheduling
The Jackie Thomas Show debuted on Tuesday, December 1, 1992 at 9:30 PM EST, the time slot directly following Roseanne; the Arnolds publicly acknowledged that they had used their clout to have the show scheduled in what was widely considered the best time slot on television (although they denied rumors that Roseanne had threatened to quit her own show, with Roseanne saying "I didn't have to go that far"). To make room, the timeslot's former occupant Coach moved to 9:30 PM on Wednesday, replacing the sitcom Laurie Hill, which was cancelled.
Tom Arnold said in an interview before the show's debut, "There's pressure to be in that time slot we're in. We've got to get some numbers (ratings) and maintain them. I think ABC believes in the show. And I think if it fails, if it's not meant to be, then we move on and I'll do another show for sure because, no matter what, doing the show has been good for me."
The Jackie Thomas Show debuted with the highest ratings of any network series premiere since Twin Peaks in April 1990, holding onto 90% of viewers from Roseanne. Its ratings were slightly better than Coach's season average in the time slot, and reflected the smallest viewer falloff from Roseanne of any show that had ever been in the time period. The two shows were the top-rated programs for the week.
For the Jackie Thomas premiere, the Arnolds and ABC experimented with a new technique called the hot switch, in which there was no commercial break between two adjoining shows. The preceding episode of Roseanne ended with the Connor family watching a TV set playing the fictional "Jackie Thomas Show," and viewers were then transitioned to the real Jackie Thomas Show. ABC commissioned a special minute-by-minute ratings report from ACNielsen to measure viewer dropoff and found that most viewers stayed with Jackie Thomas for the entire pilot episode.
In its second week, The Jackie Thomas Show fell to 18th in the ratings as it followed a Roseanne rerun, which placed 3rd. The following week, a new Roseanne regained the #1 spot and Jackie Thomas rebounded to #4.
"When a show gets that kind of time slot, it can be good news and bad news," ABC president Ted Harbert said at the end of December 1992. "The good news is that you have the best lead-in on television, and the bad news is that the network's expectations are higher because of that. But it has met our expectations so far."
ABC continued to utilize the hot switch for the programming block for the next three weeks before bowing to complaints from local stations and advertisers; once the commercial break between the two programs was implemented, dropoff between the two shows grew significantly.
Roseanne also featured a crossover episode in February 1993, in which the characters took a road trip to California and attended a taping of The Jackie Thomas Show. In the same month, the Roseanne cast competed against the cast of Jackie Thomas in a three-episode series of The New Family Feud, proceeds from which benefited the Arnolds' foundation for abused children.
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