CBC is giving its hockey soap MVP a step up to Tuesdays, swapping the steamy series with jPod (pictured), which is moving to Fridays beginning this week.

The move comes as both one-hours struggled to maintain audiences in the key 25-54 demographic. Produced in Vancouver, jPod started off with 293,000 in the Tuesday 9 pm time slot, but by the third week had dropped to 100,000. The story is much the same for MVP, about the office antics of hockey pros and their wives and girlfriends, which garnered 208,000 viewers in the demo with its debut, but was down to 51,000 last week.

‘That’s a substantial drop,’ says media buyer Florence Ng, of Zenith Optimedia, although she notes it’s not unusual for networks to move new shows. ‘MVP needs more help than the other shows, so maybe they want to give it a chance somewhere else to see if the numbers pick up.’

The move to Tuesday will pin MVP up against perennial favorites American Idol on CTV and House on Global, though the latter has been mired in re-runs for much of the last two months. jPod will be left fighting for eyeballs at 9pm on Fridays. Both series premiered to generally positive reviews.

CBC has had better luck with the sitcom Sophie, which was recently sold to ABC Family, and The Border, which is said to be headed to CBS or ABC. Reality series The Week the Women Went fetched nearly 900,000 viewers last week.

From Playback Daily