Fox: ‘Arrested’ return not likely

Fox Entertainment president Peter Ligouri verbalized Tuesday what most observers had concluded some time ago: “Arrested Development” is all but finished on the network.

Speaking to reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Ligouri conceded that it’s “highly unlikely” the Emmy-winning but low-rated series will see another season on Fox. The final four episodes of this season will air in a two-hour block Feb. 10.

‘Idol’ to help launch comedies

Fox will use “American Idol” to help launch two new comedy series in March, but neither show will get the benefit of having the hit unscripted show as a permanent lead-in.

“Free Ride” and “The Loop” will each debut after a Wednesday edition of “Idol” before moving to their permanent homes: Sunday for “Free Ride,” a partly improvised show about a recent college graduate, and Thursday for “The Loop,” which follows a young airline executive whose fast-paced job contrasts with the laid-back lifestyle of his roommates.

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The network is also moving “Malcolm in the Middle” to 7 p.m. Sundays, starting later this month and doubling up on “The Bernie Mac Show” on Fridays.

Original episodes of “Bernie Mac” will air back-to-back at 8 p.m. EST Fridays starting this week. “Malcolm” will settle into its new home on Sunday, Jan. 29 (Fox is airing the NFC Championship game in primetime this week).

“Free Ride” stars Josh Dean as a guy who moves back in with his parents after college, only to find that his old room is now a gym and his parents (Allan Harvey and Loretta Fox) are now in therapy. There’s one bright spot in an old high-school classmate (ex-Power Ranger Erin Cahill); unfortunately for him, she just got engaged.

After debuting behind a semifinal episode of “Idol” on March 1, “Free Ride” will move to 9:30 Sundays on March 12. “American Dad” will get some time off but is scheduled to return in late April.

Former “Grounded for Life” regular Bret Harrison stars in “The Loop” as the youngest executive at a Chicago-based airline. His job involves answering to the demands of a mercurial CEO (Philip Baker Hall) and avoiding the advances of a predatory colleague (Mimi Rogers). At home, meanwhile, his brother (Eric Christian Olsen) and roommates (Amanda Loncar and Sarah Mason) haven’t quite made it into adulthood yet.

“The Loop” will premiere Wednesday, March 15, after the first finalist is booted on the “Idol” results show. It settles into its regular timeslot between “That “70s Show” and “The O.C.” on March 16.

Left out of the mix is “Stacked.” Fox is saying only that the Pamela Anderson vehicle “will return later in the season.”

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WB GOES TO THE DOGS WITH DEGENERES

Ellen DeGeneres has a pretty good gig going as a daytime host, but she’s also looking to get back into primetime, at least in some fashion.

DeGeneres and her brother, writer/former “Daily Show” correspondent Vance DeGeneres, are teaming to create a show for The WB. The show will be a family comedy with a bit of a twist: Some of it will be from the perspective of the family’s pets. Ellen DeGeneres will provide the voice of the family dog.

“Joining forces with my brother has long been a dream of ours,” Ellen DeGeneres says. “Of course, that dream used to involve world domination. But a show on The WB works too.”

The brother and sister have worked together some in the past; Vance wrote material for the Grammy Awards in 1997, which Ellen hosted, and he also wrote an episode of her mid-1990s ABC show. They’ve never collaborated from the start of a series, however.

Ellen DeGeneres has won Daytime Emmys the past two years for outstanding talk-show host. She also won a Primetime Emmy in 1997 for writing the “Ellen” episode in which her character came out of the closet.

In addition to “The Daily Show,” Vance DeGeneres has worked as a writer on “Eerie, Indiana” and “Diagnosis Murder” and a producer of the unscripted shows “The 5th Wheel” and “Pat Croce Moving In.”

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“24′ BLASTS WAY TO SERIES RECORDS

Day five of “24” has not started well for Jack Bauer, but that’s good news for Fox.

The season premiere of “24” grabbed some of the best ratings in the show’s history Sunday, taking advantage of a huge lead-in from an NFL playoff game to hit all-time highs among viewers and adults 18-49.

The two-hour premiere, which started at 8:13 p.m. EST (following the end of the Carolina Panthers-Chicago Bears playoff game), averaged 16.2 million viewers, a bump of more than a million viewers over last year’s premiere on the same weekend. (Numbers are based on fast national ratings from Nielsen; final numbers will be out later in the week.)

The first hour of the premiere, which opened with the presumed-dead Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) being forced out of hiding by an assassination, drew 17 million sets of eyes and a 7.3 rating among adults 18-49, the network’s target demographic. Both are the best in the show’s history.

Hour two slipped a little, to 15.5 million viewers and a 6.7 adults 18-49 rating, but still held on to better than 90 percent of its lead-in audience. The show also cut into the lead usually enjoyed by “Desperate Housewives.” The ABC show still won the hour with 22.5 million viewers and a 9.5 18-49 rating, but those figures are below its season averages.

The second half of “24’s” four-hour premiere airs Monday night, and the show settles into its regular 9 p.m. Monday spot next week.

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AP-NY-01-17-06 1658EST