Since 1987, Fuji TV has owned Monday night, specifically the 9 to 10 p.m. time slot, when it broadcasts fluffy romantic drama series starring the season's hottest actress and often a prominent member of a boy band.
This phenomenon has its own name — getsu-ku "Monday nine" — which has always haunted the network. Ratings for TV shows have dropped across the board over the past 20 years, but Fuji is still expected to command that hour, and it hasn't for a long time.
This autumn's offering was announced last summer and, according to the web magazine Litera, the industry buzz was that the series, "Minshu no Teki" ("Enemy of the People"), slated to start Oct. 16, would be a real Fuji TV type of drama, meaning preposterous plot-wise and starring someone major. However, it would be about politics, so critics assumed nobody would watch it.