The CW is apparently killing its Sunday programming for good next fall, leaving its affiliates to fend for themselves. It’s really a win-win, given the circumstances — the current lineup of Jericho reruns (running a canceled CBS show in prime time is never a good sign) and random movies (Cutthroat Island, anyone?) was doing no one any favors. But what does it mean that a network — albeit the littlest major — is giving up on entire nights? Saturdays are already moot. Friday is no picnic either, for The CW, or for any other major network not running Ghost Whisperer. Could we soon see Fridays turned over to syndication, too, becoming yet another place to find endless reruns of Friends and Seinfeld? And how about NBC striking the whole 10 p.m. hour from prime time and handing it over to Jay Leno? (Not to mention knocking CBS’ programming in the promos.)
In short: Is this one more sign of the prime-time apocalypse? With some cable shows charting network-worthy numbers and the Nielsen Top 30 inching ever closer to cable levels, are we witnessing the end of TV as we’ve known it?
And do we even care, PopWatchers? Or are we happy to get our programming wherever and whenever since it’s all just showing up on our DVR at our convenience anyway?
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All the networks, CBS, ABC, FOX and The CW, should gang up and make NBC pay for their HUGE HUGE mistake. As I mentioned in another thread, The CW should have a 10 pm ET timeslot.
CBS should move CSI at 10 pm ET on Thursdays. That way it would absolutely destroy Leno, and it wouldn’t have to face-off (and lose) against Grey’s Anatomy.
FOX also doesn’t have a 10 pm ET Timeslot. So it will be up to ABC and CBS to take advantage of this opportunity.
NBC has to learn they can’t put all their chips on one guy. It’s not fair to the host, it’s not fair to the fans, and it’s not fair to the viewers at home.
http://tvdonewright.com/2009/05/05/tv-tonight-tuesday-may-5th-2009/
Well, the entire management staff at The CW have the collective intelligence of a dead mongoose, so there’s nothing specifically shocking about this turn of events. WItness the dissolution of the sitcom and the uncerimonious dumping of 9-year-old Girlfriends to save a buck. They’re a bunch of losers. Let the network crumble. There’s no need to watch unless you’re a Caucasian girl in your teens.
Hey, you know that “Britain’s Got Talent” show in the UK? The one that EW is giving more coverage than most US network shows? It’s on Saturday nights. And gets huge ratings. So is the Idol-equivalent X-Factor. So was the British ratings leader, Doctor Who.
The point is if you put on TV people want to see, they’ll watch it. It wasn’t so long ago that Dallas ruled the ratings on Fridays and All In The Family, MASH, Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Burnett were all top 10 shows on Saturday.
Giving up on several weeknights is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Put on crap movies or reruns, or near-death shows like Kings or Crusoe. Hey, it’s no surprise no one watches.
Move new episodes of Idol or CSI to Friday, Saturday or Sunday nights and I’ll bet the ratings wouldn’t drop one bit. They might even go up because of less competition.
I wouldn’t worry that this is some kind of game changer with respect to network TV. I mean lets face it this is The CW we are talking about, is anyone watching that network to begin with. Now if ABC or CBS did this that might mean something.
Adam, as far as the other networks trying to kill Jay Leno, I imagine that will probably happen with little or no effort on their parts. And I honestly think that NBC doesn’t care. I think their logic is that they would probably come in 3rd with any scripted show they threw in those spots, so why not save a ton of money, and come in 3rd with Leno.
NBC is foolish. They are making the assumption that people LOVE Leno. Not all of us do. While he wins his late night time slot, is that really good enough for prime time? I hope they see the error of their ways.
Primetime is going the way of cable…Infomercials…rotating movies…it’s a cost cutting move…TV has become too expensive (or the actors salaries have become more expensive)…and is anybody watching TV anyway? I’m not, I’m on the computer or in school…or doing something else…only two shows interest me DWTS and AI…60 minutes sometimes, Dateline sometimes…but almost everything I watch nowadays is online…
It seems to me the major networks want to program all there best shows against each other keeping my dvr busy during some hours and dead on others. Shows like burn notice, saving grace, the tudors, the closer, dexter and united states of tara are excellent shows and show that even small shows can have a great impact on tv. while i realize these are cable shows, i just thank the tv gods that i have these options. without them i would be reduced to watching seinfield and freiends fo the millionth time.
I get a kick of NBC saying there’s “too much murder at 10 pm ET”, so they put Jay Leno. The irony is…Leno’s show will murder NBC.
ZING!
(Thank you, I’ll be here all week)
http://tvdonewright.com/2009/05/05/killing-tv-top-pirated-shows-from-april-27-may-3/
What I would love to see is for the “big three” networks to go into their vaults and run episodes of their classic series on Saturday nights, especially now that such outlets as TV Land have started producing reality programming.
Lets face it the writters are not near as good and its shows and when they do hit on a good show they run it
for a season and its gone if you want Leno in prime put him on Law and Order
or CSI OR WAIT A MINUTE if they can give Bob notalent Sagget a series they
can make Leno the new host of AMV
tOM HAS OUT grown the job And leave
Saggot to do combovers for how I met
your mother.And while your at it lets
get some more realalty shows what are you people doing I feel for the people
that cant afford any other type of T.V. all the network bigshots SUCK
Watching the networks battle for the same time slot on the same night is like watching fish in a net battling over the last piece of chum. Why don’t they embrace the reality of on-demand viewing? Because they (or rather, advertisers) don’t know how to monetize it yet.
A long time ago, cable networks wanted to look like traditional networks. At this rate, NBC will look more like Bravo than the other way around. And since NBC canceled Life and can’t make their minds up about Chuck, I don’t care anymore. They can keep their Howie, Apprentice, talk show cr*p for the zombies who still will watch. Oh, this was about CW, wasn’t it? I don’t watch 90210 or Gossip Girl–but good luck to them.
American Idol stays on past its time each season, putting a huge dent in the competition. I think two hours over a two-day span is a bit much and the networks wonder why their numbers are not working. This show is part of the reason. I didn’t like how they moved House to Mondays at 8:00/7:00 to make room for AI on their old Tuesday time slot, which I thought was the worst change ever for the show when , in all, it’s hard keeping up with slot changes. That’s how ratings get lost.
And The CW didn’t much try to promote their shows. They were too busy putting money in Gossip Girl and 90210 to think about anyone else. No excuse there.
Every time the networks add another reality or game show to their line-up, they lose another hour of my viewing. And every time they cancel great scripted tv (i.e. Pushing Daisies) in favor of cheap “unscripted” tv (i.e. crap), I want to throw my remote at said networks. Why is anyone surprised at the superior content on cable anymore? They’re the only ones willing to put any money into taking a chance, and therefore the only ones coming out w/ shows like Mad Men, Weeds, The Tudors, etc.
The networks may be saving money in the short term w/ their terrible “reality” tv, but as for the long term, all they’re doing is losing valued viewership that they won’t get back.
Holy freak out – the end of TV as we know it? You’re witnessing a struggling network in tough climates figure out cost saving mechanisms, not the apocalypse. Calm down! TV is now MORE plentiful than ever before because of the cable networks -there are more options than ever before, and they have pretty high standards for what they create (whether they’re good or not is a different debate) AND they’re available – thanks to the internet and DVR technology – whenever you want to see them. I think TV’s doing just fine.
Play it all at 3am for what I care. I don’t remember the last time I watched live TV (but I watch a good twenty hours of TiVo a week).
Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are for BBC America. which brings quality original programming where the networks no longer do.
I hope they manage to keep some good programming on network tv. Shocking, but there are still people who do not have cable. And what happens when the majority of us can no longer afford cable. Guess it’s back to the books.
I love Ghost Whisperer, i think networks should take a lead from CBS and focus on QUALITY TELEVISION as opposed to having a big bang and media hype for a show that falls flat of expectations, like that Kevin Costner movie, IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME, hehehe, but it’s true