But that's exactly where Fox stands with the new season set to start in less than a month. Fox is the odds-on favorite to win its third broadcast season, in the eyes of media buyers.

Wherever it stands in January, Fox can expect that the midseason return of “American Idol" will push it back into No. 1 if it isn't there already.

Further, this fall, unlike previous falls, Fox is premiering a strong lineup of shows, virtually ensuring a solid performance leading into January. Its strategy will be to deploy hits, such as  "House," the Hugh Laurie medical drama, to serve as both lead-ins for its rookie series and as platforms to promote its new lineup.

Fox will also be going out early, debuting some of its new shows next week--ahead of the other networks, which will roll out the week of Sept. 18--to compensate for the MLB playoffs, which air in October, breaking up its fall.

 “Our strategy is to premiere our shows early so they get traction before baseball and to use baseball to give those shows a second push,” says Preston Beckman, executive vice president of strategic program planning and research at Fox. "We'll then come back in January with our two big guns, ‘American Idol’ and ’24,’ and then again make any adjustments to take advantage of those two shows.”

Too, this fall Fox can expect to gain more from the playoffs as a promotional platform. One of the benefits of shows like "House" is that they attract an older audience, and that has broadened the network from a young-skewing network into one that’s more solidly focused on the 18-49 demographic favored by advertisers.

Major League Baseball was a headache for Fox for years because it disrupted its fall, and its value as a promotional platform was lessened by the fact that the older baseball audience wasn't as likely to be swayed by promotions for shows created for much younger viewers. But that is becoming less of a problem as the median age of Fox’s audience eases toward 40 years old.
 
On Mondays, Fox is slotting in new serialized drama “Vanished” after modest hit “Prison Break.” The two dramas face fairly light competition with reality shows on ABC, comedies on CBS, and a game show and new drama on NBC.

For the first few weeks, “House” on Tuesdays will lead into “Standoff,” a new drama about FBI negotiators. The shows will flip time slots after baseball. “Standoff” will then compete with older-skewing shows on ABC and CBS and a new drama on NBC.

The returning “Bones” on Wednesdays will lead into “Justice,” a legal drama from “CSI’s” Jerry Bruckheimer. “Justice” faces tough competition in ABC’s “Lost,” last season’s No. 8 program.

Thursdays will be Fox’s biggest problem. The fading “O.C.” at 9 p.m. will compete with top-rated hits on ABC, “Grey’s Anatomy,” and CBS, “CSI.”

At 8 p.m., Fox has a new comedy, “’Til Death,” with Brad Garrett from CBS’s “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Many media researchers say it’s this season’s strongest new comedy. But it will lead into the widely panned “Happy Hour.”

Both comedies will compete with NBC’s returning hits “My Name is Earl” and “The Office.”

“We think we can do our business and they can do theirs,” says Beckman. “What they have is single-camera comedies and what we have is broad, multi-camera, kind of old school comedies like the ones that worked on NBC in the 1990s.”

Fox will have returning reality shows on Friday, while its weekend lineups are among network TV’s most stable, with “Cops” anchoring Saturdays and “Simpsons” and “Family Guy” on Sundays.

Last season, Fox ranked No. 1 among 18-49s with a 4.1 rating, flat to the prior season, but enough to win.

Steve Sternberg, executive vice president of audience analysis at Magna Global, says Fox may be the only network this season to post increased ratings.

“They have a few new shows, ‘Standoff,’ ‘Justice,’ ‘Vanished.’ If one of these does well, they will be in fantastic shape,” he says. “If they all flop, Fox will still be in good shape. ‘American Idol’ covers up a lot of their problems, and there’s no reason to think that show will decline this year.”