Hard on the heels of its victory in court over CBS and its announcement of the cast and host,, ABC today announced the schedule for its February reality series I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here!, according to Zap2it.com. As previously announced, the show will air on 15 consecutive nights --- but only the first 8 episodes will fall within the February sweeps period, indicating that ABC may have some doubts about how well this clone of Survivor, with its D-minus-list celebrities, will perform.
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Celebrity will debut with a one-hour show at 10 PM on February 19 (immediately following the two-hour conclusion to The Bachelorette) and then will bounce between time slots on the nightly ABC schedule, airing two-hour shows on Sundays at 7 and a two-hour finale on Wednesday, March 5, at 9. The show will air at 8 on Mondays and Thursdays, putting it head-to-head against Survivor 6 twice, at 9 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays (except for the premiere) and Fridays, and at 10 on Saturdays.
It's too soon to determine how audiences will react to Celebrity, but it looks like ABC is giving itself lots of excuses if the show fails: the celebrities weren't famous enough; the changing time slot confused viewers; etc....