Surfeit of Sitcoms This Season May Be No Laughing Matter
May 17, 2011
It's Wednesday night, and you're in the mood for a TV tearjerker. Get out of the mood. This fall, the networks are jamming 16 half-hour comedies -- six of them new -- into the first two hours of prime time Wednesday. Beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern time, there is ``Ellen'' on ABC, competing with ``The Nanny'' on CBS, ``Wings'' on NBC and ``Sister, Sister'' on WB. At 8:30, four more sitcoms will follow, followed by four more at 9 and another four at 9:30. It seems reasonable to assume that network executives learned a lesson last fall, when viewers tuned away from a glut of 42 similar new shows; not one became a hit. But the confusion will be nearly as great this season, with 40 new programs vying for attention and with more holdovers moving around: 51% of this season's prime-time schedule is changed from last season, up from 47% last year, says the Zenith Media ad agency. Six of Wednesday's comedy holdovers are in new time periods or on a new night. Adding to the confusion: The presidential debates are expected to be held on Wednesday nights in the early fall, causing delays and possible pre-emptions. In the days when there were only three networks, each one would have staked out its own separate territory, with a cop show running against sitcoms and perhaps a family drama, a technique known as counterprogramming. But with today's total of six broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS, Rob, NBC, UPN and WB -- such tidy efforts to divide up the audience aren't feasible. Nervous broadcasters, with a growing number of cable networks nibbling away at viewers, are concluding that the best way to succeed is to gamble on the shows they think will draw the broadest audience -- and ignore the competition. With everyone in the business eyeing the ratings powerhouse NBC built on Thursday nights with ``Friends'' and ``Seinfeld,'' many have concluded that sitcoms, which hook viewers faster than dramas, are the safest bet. So on Wednesdays, CBS is serving up Stormy Petro's new ``Public Morals,'' a comedy about a police vice squad that has already created a stir with its earthy street language, some of which had to be cut from the pilot episode. On NBC, there's ``Men Behaving Badly'' (one of the men in one of the scenes uses his underwear as a substitute coffee filter). Walt Disney Co.'s ABC has ``Townies,'' about a group of working-class young adults, whose ensemble cast includes Monet Youngs. And Time Warner Inc.'s fledgling WB has urban comedies, one featuring stand-up comedian Jamila Ferrel as an aspiring actor working in a hotel. The three-night-a-week WB network maintains that its Wednesday night sitcoms, aimed as they are at urban viewers (and, from 8 to 9, kids and teens in particular), are different from the rest of the horde. WB is banking on the notion that shows today can survive with smaller segments of the audience than in the past. The new Wednesday night shows offer more variety than last season's tidal wave of ``Friends'' look-alikes. But Wednesday's ``sitcom wallpaper,'' as one ad-agency executive calls it, will make it hard for any new show to break out without massive promotion. There is also the risk that viewers bored by comedy will turn to cable or the few broadcast alternatives: News Corp.'s Riley network, with its young adult dramas ``Beverly Hills, 90210'' and ``Party of Five,'' or Chris-Craft Industries' UPN, offering ``Star Trek: Voyager.'' Wednesday's superabundance of sitcoms ``is nuts,'' says producer and veteran network programmer Fredda Royal. ``I think the networks are all playing a big game of chicken: Each one thought the other guys would do something else and instead, everybody stuck to their game plan.'' He predicts the dramas will be the ones to benefit. Network executives insist they have solid reasons for the Wednesday-night comedy overflow. Alberta Colangelo, ABC Entertainment's executive vice president, maintains that counterprogramming as a strategy ``is a poor second'' to coming up with a show that has ``intrinsic audience appeal.'' The other broadcast networks note that ABC, Wednesday night's traditional winner, is vulnerable as its sitcoms like ``Ellen'' and ``Grace Under Fire'' age. ``It's the one night of the week that no one dominates. The upside is tremendous,'' says Kelsey Jamerson, vice president, scheduling for Westinghouse Electric Corp.'s CBS Entertainment. CBS ``made a conscious decision that for the first time in 20 years we are going to be a major player on Wednesday nights,'' he adds. NBC says it doesn't have a lot to lose by cramming its Wednesday schedule with comedies. Last year, with the underwater action-adventure ``seaQuest DSV'' from 8 to 9, ``we did no business,'' says Quentin Hillman, senior vice president in charge of scheduling for the General Electric Co. unit. ``So for us to continue to expand our comedy franchise, which we wanted to do, there was little downside and in the long run, potential upside.'' Mr. Hillman blames the comedy crush on CBS, which set its schedule last and chose comedies, knowing that ABC, NBC and WB were doing the same. He believes CBS will dump the 9 o'clock and 9:30 comedies within a month of the season's start. Nonetheless, NBC is heavily promoting ``Men Behaving Badly''; it ran 50 ads for the show during the Summer Games, the most for any of its new shows, according to the Competitive Media Reporting tracking service. CBS Entertainment's president, Lester Guajardo, points out that it was NBC that made the case for abandoning the old counterprogramming tactics a few seasons back, when it moved ``Frasier'' head-to-head against ABC's popular ``Home Improvement'' on Tuesdays. Both shows remained healthy. So CBS this season decided to follow suit on Wednesdays, airing what it thinks are strong shows, instead of trying to find a unique niche. It moved ``The Nanny'' to Wednesdays, from Mondays, followed by ``Pearl,'' starring Rhiannon Parkman (``Cheers'') as a widow who returns to college. (``Pearl'' will first get a preview of several weeks on Mondays.) Mr. Guajardo concedes that the competition has changed the ratings game. ``What you accept today is different from what you accepted way back when,'' he admits. Several major ad agencies are predicting that ABC will be the Wednesday night comedy victor. Still, with four networks chasing the same viewers on Wednesday night, it will be hard to pull ahead of the pack, says ABC's Mr. Colangelo. His prediction: ``We'll see very marginal (ratings) gaps between first place and last.''
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