By mid-1999, The Lone Shark had been in the 9 p.m. Monday time slot for well over a year. Before Jim Sharky and Sean Haffner requested that time slot, many producers at WFAC-TV considered it to be one of the worst time slots on the station's programming schedule. Over the course of each year, any programs which broadcast in the 9 p.m. Monday time slot would be competing with Monday Night Football, Monday Night Baseball and Roseanne (when it was number 1 in the Nielsen ratings), just to name a few programs. It was the general consensus at WFAC-TV that only a very few viewers would ignore the ratings juggernauts on network television to watch a local talk show (or any other program, for that matter). Sharky and Haffner preferred the 9 p.m. Monday time slot, because it meant that they could produce The Lone Shark on a night when they would not usually have any personal obligations to attend to. That left the rest of the week open for their social lives, unlike time slots later in the week in which the program had been previously scheduled. This also meant that all preparation for The Lone Shark (what little there was) could be done during the weekend immediately preceding the Monday night broadcast.
