Network Television’s Wounds Are Largely Self-Inflicted

It’s true that today’s advertiser-prized young-adult television audience (18-34) is the first generation raised on videos and computers. They insist on watching what they want – and when.

It’s also true that cable-satellite TV frequently draws more prime time viewers than the networks.

In the 1950s, network television’s biggest hits grabbed more than 70% of their time period’s total television audience. Today’s biggest network series hits reach only 20-something percent.

But it’s false to claim that spoiled viewers, newer TV technologies, and mediocre offerings are solely responsible for network television’s incredible shrinking audience.

Network television, the channels broadcast nationwide via television stations affiliated to the big networks, has become one of its own worst enemies. By broadcasting fewer new episodes, more reruns, preempting hits, and maintaining a “Cancel Quickly” mentality, the broadcast networks are contributing to their own decline.

Twenty-two are not enough: Long ago, when the Big Three (ABC, CBS, and NBC) ruled the television world, the networks commonly offered 36 new episodes per season of each prime time series. In the 1960s, the number shrank to 32. Through most of the 1970s and 1980s, 26 new episodes were the networks’ standard.

Today, we typically have 20-22 fresh episodes each season. The networks have diminished the number of episodes, yet their season remains the same (September through May). This practice self-erodes the network audience.

Don’t Play it Again, Sam: Fewer episodes each season doesn’t result in a larger number of series; it translates to more reruns. At one time, viewers could count on new episodes of their favorite shows every week between Season Premiere in September and Memorial Day Weekend. Right now, you’re as likely to see reruns in October, as in July.

Beyond Season Premiere Week, viewers can count on new episodes only during the three yearly sweeps periods when networks put their best foot forward to set future advertising rates.

Desperate Housewives has been preempted: If your favorite network series isn’t in reruns, there’s a good chance that it’s been preempted for an awards show, an Oprah over-hyped, Oprah-produced television movie, or a reunion episode of some forty-year-old series that only your grandparents remember.

This preempting policy alienates network viewers, especially younger viewers. A classic example occurred in February/March when ABC preempted its biggest hit, Desperate Housewives, for the last three Sundays of winter. Making matters worse, the Housewives returned on the first Sunday of spring with a rerun.

I Dismember Mama: Old-timers nostalgically recall the so-called Golden Age of Network Television in the 1950s. They speak rapturously of Playhouse 90, Studio One, and Hallmark Hall of Fame. They recall the comic genius of Lucille Ball, Sid Cesar, and Milton Berle.

They blame mediocrity for the decline in network television’s audience. In truth, for every quality offering such as I Remember Mama, I Love Lucy, or Westinghouse Playhouse, there were a dozen mediocre series, such as My Mother, the Car, Racquet Squad, or, The Girl With Something Extra. Mediocrity has always been the rule, not the exception, in network television.

But the broadcast networks haven’t cornered the market on mediocrity. Excepting landmark series such as The Sopranos, Sex & The City, and Monk, I’ve frequently heard or read cable and satellite offerings described as little more than “network mediocrity with gratuitous sex and four letter words.” Mediocrity is not why network television is in decline.

Cancel it, Dano! On the other hand, the networks’ “cancel quickly” philosophy is. Some times, the best shows take time to find and build an audience In their salad years, The Big Three commonly allowed a series a full season to find its audience. In some cases, even a second year was granted to promising series.

The classy The Dick Van Dyke Show and Cheers are two landmark series that didn’t find their audiences until the second seasons.
Today, a series premiering in September is likely to be gone by Halloween, if it doesn’t deliver Nielsen numbers.

Of course, cable and satellite television, as well as DVD players, DVRs, and other innovations, have taken bites out of the broadcast networks’ pie. But network television had best stop its suicidal practices, or the only place we’ll be seeing it is on The History Channel.