Friday
TIME-SLOT SHOWDOWN Two fetching, female-fronted prospects, one big surprise. Although Alicia Silverstone's NBC romantic drama, ''Miss Match,'' got most of the preseason ink, it was CBS religious drama ''Joan of Arcadia'' that ultimately grabbed more 8 p.m. viewers (No. 33 to No. 92). ''This is one where you relish being the underdog,'' says Kahl. '''Joan' was a show we didn't want to be 'Touched by an Angel,' yet we knew we could get some of that audience.'' Another take on the ''Miss Match'' mismatch? ''Eight o'clock was just too early for the show,'' says Zucker, who moved ''Match'' to 9 p.m., where it faces another chick magnet, ABC's ''Hope & Faith'' (No. 51). ''Kelly Ripa is a huge personality,'' notes Bader of ''Hope'''s success, ''and it doesn't hurt that she has a show where she gets to talk about it every morning.''
BLEAK PERFORMERS While NBC mourned the demise of ''Boomtown'' (No. 79) and CBS struggled with ''The Handler'' (No. 57), Fox suffered a tragedy trifecta. No. 99 ''Boston Public'' has lost half of its pupils from last fall. No. 113 ''Luis'' was gone in a New York minute (''When a [sitcom] isn't a family comedy or isn't positioned as one,'' says Beckman, ''it doesn't seem to resonate with our audience''). And ''Luis'' lead-in ''Wanda at Large'' was MIA at No. 108 before getting canceled. Lesson learned recently from ''Roseanne'': Sometimes the biggest mouths draw the smallest crowds.
