Well, like TAR6 (the last mid-season TAR start), let's hope that TAR12 is
a blockbuster.

-------------------------------

CBS announced it has ordered another installment of The Amazing Race --
but the twelfth season of the four-time Emmy-Award winning reality
competition series won't be part of the initial 2007-2008 primetime
programming lineup that the network unveiled on Wednesday and is instead
scheduled for a midseason debut.

Fall 2007 will mark the first time since The Amazing Race's sixth season
that the reality series will not -- presumably due to the ongoing slow
ratings decline that began with the Fall 2005 broadcast of the reality
franchise's disastrous The Amazing Race: Family Edition -- be part of
CBS' initial fall television season schedule.

After The Amazing Race 5 delivered impressive ratings during its Summer
2004 broadcast, CBS decided to delay the premiere of the show's sixth
season -- which was originally scheduled to be part of the network's
initial fall schedule but air in a dismal Saturday night time period --
until the ratings failure of one of its new Fall 2004 shows created an
opening on CBS' higher-profile weeknight primetime schedule.

The Amazing Race 6 eventually premiered in November 2004 as a Tuesday
night replacement for the network's poorly watched baseball-themed
Clubhouse drama. Since then, The Amazing Race's next five installments
have followed the twice-a-year Spring/Fall programming schedule that most
popular broadcast reality competition franchises are broadcast on and
been ordered on a two editions at a time basis.

In addition to the show's declining ratings, a general lack of fall
schedule openings and a decision to pick up some riskier new shows that
the network is calling "daring concepts" also likely contributed to CBS'
decision to not place The Amazing Race's twelfth edition on its initial
fall lineup. CBS is only adding four and a half hours of new shows to
its initial fall schedule -- one of which will be Kid Nation, a new Lord
of the Flies-like reality series that will follow 40 kids between the
ages of 8 and 15 who have 40 days to turn Bonanza City, NM, an abandoned
ghost town, into a fully-functioning town. Kid Nation will air in the
network's Wednesdays at 8PM ET/PT time period.

According to Daily Variety, Kid Nation (which has already completed
filming) was originally scheduled to air this summer until CBS executives
-- reportedly having "made finding the next big reality hit a huge
priority" -- became excited about the show's breakout potential and
decided to make it part of its 2007-2008 schedule.

With Survivor: China -- the long-running CBS reality competition series'
fifteenth installment -- also scheduled to air this fall in the show's
regular Thursdays at 8PM ET/PT time slot this fall, CBS likely decided
there just wasn't enough room for a third reality series (especially a
new edition of another long-running reality franchise) on its initial
2007-2008 primetime slate.

"We approached our development this year with a specific goal in mind -
to be daring and different," CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler
said in the network's schedule announcement. "The fall and midseason
series we have selected offer creativity and variety with great potential
to excite and surprise television audiences everywhere."

In addition to The Amazing Race, The New Adventures Of Old Christine and
Swingtown -- a "provocative" new drama that will follow 1970's couples
"reveling in the sexual and social revolution that introduced open
marriages, women's liberation and challenged many conventional
wisdoms" -- will also debut later in the 2007-2008 season.

Despite averaging just under half a million more weekly viewers than The
Amazing Race's recently concluded All-Stars edition (10.52 million versus
10.03 million), CBS decided not to renew Jericho, a drama about a small
Kansas town attempting to survive a nuclear attack that destroyed most of
the United States' major cities, for a second season. Close to Home, a
drama that averaged 10.33 million viewers in a Friday night time period
and like The Amazing Race, is also produced by CSI uber-producer Jerry
Bruckheimer, was also not renewed for a third season. Last fall's The
Amazing Race 10 edition (the show's most recent non-All-Stars season)
averaged 11.49 million overall viewers during its 12-episode run.

The Amazing Race 10 ranks 41th in the 2006-2007 primetime broadcast
season's season-to-date average total viewer rankings. Jericho ranks
50th, Close to Home ranks 54th, and The Amazing Race: All-Stars ranks
56th. The Unit and How I Met Your Mother -- two other CBS shows that
were renewed and be part of the network's initial Fall 2007 schedule --
rank 46th and 57th respectively.

As is typical for midseason series, CBS has not announced when The
Amazing Race 12 will premiere, however The Amazing Race's twelfth season
will likely debut once Kid Nation or one of the network's three other new
one-hour fall series -- Viva Laughlin, an unconventional mystery drama
that incorporates Broadway musical-like singing performances; Cane, an
"epic drama" about a Cuban-American family that runs an "immensely
successful" rum and sugar business in South Florida; and Moonlight, a
romantic thriller about a vampire who works as a private investigator