ABC may have lost “Monday Night Football” but it hasn’t lost its fall edge. With the promising drama “The Nine” pairing with “Lost” on Wednesday, Thursday expected to get a big boost from “Grey’s Anatomy” and hit “Dancing with the Stars” making its first fall appearance, ABC will lead among adults 18-49 during a very competitive fourth quarter. That’s the forecast in a new report issued by Carat USA, which predicts that ABC will average a 3.9 during fourth quarter, just ahead of CBS’s 3.8. NBC will be third at 3.6 and Fox fourth at 3.2, followed by the CW at 1.6. Carat also predicts that ABC will be the top network in 18-49s on lucrative Thursday night, where its schedule has gotten an aggressive makeover pitting “Grey’s” against CBS’s longtime stalwart “CSI.” Among the report’s other predictions: NBC will rebound after two off years, CBS will win every night but one (Wednesday) among households, and Fox will dominate once again when “American Idol” returns in first quarter. Shari Anne Brill, vice president and director of programming at Carat, talks to Media Life about ABC’s continued resurgence, the fall’s top new shows and biggest potential flops.

Your report predicts that ABC will finish No. 1 among adults 18-49 in fourth quarter, despite the loss of "Monday Night Football." What do you think will be the key to ABC achieving that performance?
 
Building on “Grey’s” on Thursdays, and they still have “Desperate Housewives” on Sunday night.

It will be a tight race in the fourth quarter, like it is in the first and second. Of course, once “American Idol” shows up, forget it. I also think ABC’s got a good midseason show, “The Traveler.” I wish it was on in the fall.
 

What are the three most promising new shows this fall, in terms of both quality and favorable timeslots?
 
ABC’s “The Nine,” hands down.

I think it pairs up very well as the lead-out to “Lost,” it will blend better than [former timeslot occupant] “Invasion” did. “Invasion” was probably a little too sci-fi-esque. “Lost” has the supernatural element but it’s not necessarily sci-fi with aliens, etc.

The parallel here is [the characters on “Lost”] have to survive in the face of being taken hostage, and in “The Nine” the people have gone through a similar trauma. It’s about nine who were hostages in a bank robbery and the aftermath of that. “Lost” works on so many different levels, but the main level is they’ve created multilayered complex characters that you want to care about, and that what hooks viewers.

“Shark.” James Woods is a phenomenal actor, it is procedural story telling, but there’s a backstory because he came from the defense attorney side and now he’s with the prosecution.

Plus, it’s on Thursdays at 10 right after “CSI,” you can’t get a much better timeslot than that. “ER” is getting on in years, it’s becoming a very mature show and was starting to be decimated by “Without a Trace.” Also, the new show at 10 p.m. on ABC will probably suffer the most.

The third I really like, although I think it will not have as broad of an appeal. I just like Aaron Sorkin, so I think “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” will be the top-rated new show in terms of bringing in affluent viewers.

It’s on Mondays at 10 and offers a good alternative to “CSI: Miami.” Again, ABC’s 10 p.m. entry “What About Brian,” which barely got around 6 million viewers last year, offers no competition in that slot. It’s a really interesting topic, and when Sorkin was writing for “West Wing,” it was a stellar show.

But will viewers want to watch a show about the making of a TV show? That’s the question, but the drama is compelling enough, and I think viewers will come. This, like “West Wing,” will be a thinking person’s show. It will get educated viewers and advertisers want to connect with those. Honorable mentions are “Ugly Betty”--I think it will work  as a lead-in to “Grey’s Anatomy” far better than the two shows it benched for midseason. This year’s crop overall, the bar of quality has been raised so much, so many shows have a lot to offer.
 

What are the three least promising?
 
Now that we’re talking about midseason, I didn’t really get the point of ABC’s comedy “Notes From the Underbelly.” A show about fertility—it didn’t work for “Inconceivable”—why would this work as a comedy?

Now it’s been moved to midseason, so I’m not alone in my thoughts. They knew they had to come up with a better Thursday 8 p.m. show to support “Grey’s Anatomy.”

It’s really tough, there isn’t a lot that’s really god-awful, there’s really good and less good. There are a couple of shows that are having issues behind the scenes—ABC’s “Brothers and Sisters,” they switched three actors, got rid of the showrunner, and maybe it will turn out good, but when you start to hear that these kind of repairs are going on, it gives you pause.

ABC’s “Six Degrees,” they brought in another showrunner too, someone to fix the show. When shows are having creative problems, there’s a little concern there.
 

Were there any programming moves that really made you scratch your head? How about any you found very smart?
 
I thought it was very smart of NBC to move “30 Rock” to 8 p.m., I think that will help the show. It’s also up against “Dancing with the Stars” results, but I think it could work. Saturday nights the networks have pretty much abandoned original programming, and you expect that, but when I see it happening on Friday nights, I just, you know, think that’s a problem.

Repeats really hurt the WB when they went to encores. And when I see repeats of “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” a show that’s always been a Band-Aid, it sort of signals that maybe there’s creative product that’s not ready yet, but it could hurt ABC on that night.
 

NBC seems to have the potential for either great gains or great losses, with all of its schedule switches and new programs. Which do you think it will be?
 
I think their development is so far superior to what I’ve seen in the last three to five years. “The Office” is a brilliant comedy, but it also appeals to special tastes. “30 Rock” is a broader comedy. This year the Peacock will be a phoenix, I really believe that this year.

“The Black Donnellys,” a midseason show, I think is terrific. “Heroes” is a really great show, and it will have some niche appeal, which leads to loyal viewers.

They really have a lot of shows that people are talking about, and not just the industry, viewers as well. And it’s a cyclical business--seven years ago CBS was a mess, but they built show by show, night by night.
 

You categorized NBC's "Heroes" as potentially one of the most successful new fall shows. How come?
 
I think there’s a lot of advanced buzz. It was promoted heavily at Comic-Con. “Smallville,” which is based on the legend of Superman, is one of WB’s, now CW’s top shows.

The characters are really interesting, you don’t know how they got their powers. Four different people from four different parts of the world, how they embrace the powers and what they mean to them in their own world. They all have very different lives. One character you can only get through subtitles, because he doesn’t speak English.

Now that there’s no longer football on Monday night, I think a lot of men will go there and “Studio 60” if they don’t want to go to CBS’s comedies, and I think it will be a tremendous cult hit.

How do you think "Sunday Night Football" and the addition of CBS's "Without a Trace" will affect Sunday nights?
 
I think viewers will go back and forth. You’ll probably see some switching to “Desperate Housewives” at halftime to check out the girls before they go back to the game. I think CBS will be better off than they would have been with their movie.

“Without a Trace” will probably finish second in its time period, I doubt “Brothers and Sisters” will do well, it will get sampled but it will probably finish third.