What will puzzle-loving crime viewers watch on Mondays this fall, when three of the five major broadcast nets will premiere crime dramas at 10 p.m.? How will they choose between Fox’s female-friendly comedies on Tuesday at 9 p.m., and ABC’s new sitcoms, “The Goldbergs” and “Trophy Wife?” And how can NBC’s new Thursday comedy lineup stand out compared CBS’s new two-hour comedy block that’s bookended by TV’s top comedy, “The Big Bang Theory,” and strong vet “Two and a Half Men?”

Just marketing the myriad new fall launches is a feat in itself for broadcast network marketers, but when shows are scheduled to go up against similar series targeted at similar audiences, the challenge is multiplied. That the broadcast nets even have to worry about timeslot competition demonstrates one of the problems that broadcast has that cable mostly doesn’t: Broadcast networks still have to schedule shows every night of the week against one another, while cable networks can launch one show at a time and spend all of their promotional capital against that show. That said, that landscape is changing as more and more cable nets dive into brand-building via original production.

The way broadcast nets are scheduled forces viewers to make a decision – which show gets watched, gets DVRed, or gets ignored? In the battle for a timeslot’s audiences, it’s up to the marketing teams at each network not only to make sure their show stands apart from their timeslot competitors, but also to ensnare their intended audiences before another show does it first.

MONDAY: THRILLERS AT 10 P.M.

This fall, Mondays at 10 p.m. give crime-show lovers a few choices across broadcast nets, with ABC’s crime procedural, “Castle,” getting new competition in NBC’s “The Blacklist” and CBS’ “Hostages.” This isn’t new for “Castle,” however. Previous competitors in the slot include CBS’ “CSI: Miami” and “Hawaii: Five-O.”

For “The Blacklist,” James Spader plays Raymond “Red” Reddington, a former government agent who has become one of FBI’s most wanted. Though the storyline starts with him surrendering to the FBI and working with a profiler to catch a dangerous terrorist, the series continues as Reddington helps the FBI catch a new criminal each week, each one a name on his own blacklist.

While “Castle” remains the only true procedural in the bunch and “The Blacklist” has put much of its focus on Spader, all three series are aimed at audiences interested in mystery, drama and suspense.

“Hostages,” starring Toni Collette and Dylan McDermott, is about a family taken hostage, twisting the standard family drama into a suspenseful thriller. Marketing teams at CBS chose to stand out by marketing “Hostages” as a “15-episode thriller,” according to Garen van de Beek, EVP and creative director of CBS Marketing Group.

Using its summer hit, “Under the Dome,” to promote the show that would take over its timeslot come fall, CBS avoided procedural comparisons in favor of highlighting the series’ twisty plotlines. CBS’ summer promos even did something that new shows rarely do, showing scenes that actually come later in the series’ run.

“We’ve never done that before, but there’s a huge moment that is going to come towards the end of the first season, and we wanted to use that,” said van de Beek. “And we really want people to know that this is not a one-note show – the story goes on, and there’s huge twists that are going to occur. So I thought, let’s show the twists, let’s get people going and see how did it get to A to B.”

Knowing that things get interesting in the overarching story, CBS took a risk to ensure that “Hostages” wouldn’t be promoted like another procedural, using character posters and teasers to promote the series almost like a film.

“Number one, we want them to know that it is a thriller,” said van de Beek. “And people that love CBS shows like ‘Person of Interest’ and ‘CSI’ will also love this show, so we are purposely are selling it as a thriller, but the twist to it is that is that it is a 15-episode thriller. We’re definitely promoting it like a movie, but one with 15 installments.”

TUESDAY: COMEDY BLOCKS

ABC is launching a brand-new comedy block on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. that will go head to head with Fox’s successful hour of “New Girl” and “The Mindy Project.” In order to set its block of “The Goldbergs” and “Trophy Wife” apart, ABC is choosing not to brand it as a block at all.

According to Darren Schillace, SVP of marketing at ABC: “We’re not going overly cutesy with a ‘terrific Tuesday.’ We’re not going after a moniker for the night. We really want the comedy and humor to stand out in the front.”

Instead, ABC’s strategy is to let each of its new TV shows stand on its own. Fox, which opens the night with male-skewing sitcoms “Dads” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” is branding its comedies at 9 p.m. as one block. ABC, however, chose to market each individual half-hour series as its own unique show, especially ‘80s comedy “The Goldbergs.” Giving it a unique ‘80s look with ‘80s family themes, ABC has made sure that people are familiar with the show’s retro feel.

“If someone says I want to see that ‘80s comedy, [even] if they haven’t retained the name yet, I’ve still done my job,” said Schillace. “Each show has such a great look, and with the ‘80s for ‘The Goldbergs,’ it just pops, and to lose it in a marketing headline, we felt wouldn’t do it justice.”

THURSDAY: BATTLE OF THE HALF-HOUR

CBS’ Thursday night block, including “The Millers” and “The Crazy Ones,” will go up against NBC’s almost all-new block of its half-hours, “Welcome to the Family,” “Sean Saves the World” and “The Michael J. Fox Show.”

“Welcome to the Family” follows dads Mike O’Malley and Ricardo Chavira (“Desperate Housewives”) as they navigate their new family dynamic after O’Malley’s daughter and Chavira’s son announce they’re about to have a baby. Sean Hayes, NBC’s promotion machine this summer, heads up “Sean Saves the World,” a sitcom about a divorced dad trying to raise a teenage daughter. The return to TV of Michael J. Fox is the focus of “The Michael J. Fox Show,” another family sitcom about a dad heading back to work after a hiatus.

CBS took an opposite approach to ABC’s Tuesday night block, in that the network took the “O” in “comedy” and transformed it into its iconic eye for a campaign that makes comedy synonymous with CBS, encompassing all CBS comedies, on Thursday as well as Monday’s “We Are Men” and “Mom.”

“We didn’t talk specific shows in the first few weeks,” said van de Beek. “It was really about highlighting upbeat comedies that are on CBS.”

And that’s not difficult, considering that CBS currently has TV’s highest-rated scripted show, “The Big Bang Theory,” leading in to its two new comedies on Thursday – “The Millers,” starring Will Arnett, and “The Crazy Ones,” which features Robin Williams’ return to TV. Promoting the night as “Big Thursday,” CBS sandwiched those two newcomers between the net’s vets, “Big Bang” and “Two and a Half Men.” “Big Bang” launches its new season on Thursday, Sept. 26, with an hour-long premiere, which the network expects will provide it with a huge promotional platform to launch the rest of its Thursday night line-up.

CBS’ van de Beek also spoke to the difficulty in creating these early-season campaigns, because the marketing needs to highlight each individual program while branding the entire block.

“Making each comedy feel like a unique animal was a creative challenge,” said van de Beek.

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