1997: The Simpsons passes The Flintstones as the longest running prime-time animated series. Bryant Gumbel leaves the Today Show.
Notable TV premieres of the year: South Park (Comedy Central), King of the Hill (Fox), Just Shoot Me! (NBC), Buffy The Vampire Slayer (WB), Ally McBeal (Fox). Notable TV finales of the year: Married...With Children, Martin, Coach, and Rosanne.
Top 20 Prime Time Broadcast Programs, September 1996-May 1997:
| RANK | PROGRAM | NETWORK | HH RATING | HH SHARE |
| 1 | E.R. | NBC | 21.2 | 35 |
| 2 | Seinfeld | NBC | 20.5 | 32 |
| 3 | Suddenly Susan | NBC | 17 | 27 |
| 4 | Friends | NBC | 16.8 | 28 |
| 4 | Naked Truth | NBC | 16.8 | 27 |
| 6 | Fired Up | NBC | 16.5 | 26 |
| 7 | NFL Monday Night Football | ABC | 16.2 | 27 |
| 8 | Single Guy | NBC | 14.1 | 23 |
| 9 | Home Improvement | ABC | 14 | 22 |
| 10 | Touched By An Angel | CBS | 13.6 | 21 |
| 11 | 60 Minutes | CBS | 13.3 | 23 |
| 12 | 20/20 | ABC | 12.8 | 23 |
| 13 | NYPD Blue | ABC | 12.5 | 21 |
| 14 | CBS Sunday Movie | CBS | 12.1 | 19 |
| 15 | Primetime Live | ABC | 11.9 | 20 |
| 16 | Frasier | NBC | 11.8 | 18 |
| 17 | Spin City | ABC | 11.7 | 18 |
| 18 | NBC Sunday Night Movie | NBC | 11.5 | 18 |
| 18 | Drew Carey Show | ABC | 11.5 | 18 |
| 20 | X-Files | FOX | 11.4 | 17 |
NBC's Thursday Night "Must See TV" was at or near the peak of its drawing power. NBC had 7 of the top 8 shows, the most dominant year for a network we have yet seen in our "We Look Back" series. That dominance is usually attributed to NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff who, sadly, passed away in August, 1997. NBC has gone downhill since then to the point where ratings no longer matter to them.
It's hard to believe that just 11 years ago, 10 of the top 20 shows were sitcoms (Seinfeld, Suddenly Susan, Friends, Naked Truth, Fired Up, Single Guy, Home Improvement, Frasier, Spin City, Drew Cary Show), today there is one (Two and a Half Men).
I was surprised to see the NBC Sunday Night Movie in the list so recently. Major network broadcasting of an old movie in prime-time seems like an idea from a bygone era.
As mentioned above, the network v. network competition was lopsided, NBC having 9 of the top 20, ABC 7, CBS 3, and Fox only 1.
For a bit of perspective, the top rated show this season, Tuesday's American Idol, Season To Date HH rating is 16.1 and its share is 24. Don't forget that a HH ratings point today means a lot more households than it did in the past.
ER title card courtesy of Wikipedia.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2005 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
That was back when NBC was airing the big “event” movies – Gulliver’s Travels and Schindler’s List come to mind.
to be fair only 2 of those sitcoms were good. nbc could never find anything decent to fill the void between friends and seinfeld and seinfeld and er. but those shows always seemed to do well ratings wise simply based on their lead-in and lead-out.
the funny thing is now nbc has perhaps one of the best sitcom lineups in terms of quality of the shows, its just that the ratings arent really great.
haha!!!!! wat happened to NBC? they were so dominant!!!! no their lienup is pitifull. and FOX has nothing here except the x-files, and now they r becoming dominant. shows you what 10 years can really do to tv!!!
I miss the good old days of NBC. Must She TV, Must See TV, and Saturday Night Thrillogy with Pretender and Profiler. Man I shouldn’t have been watching that much TV in high school.
Those are the only two older sitcoms I own on DVD; Seinfeld and Friends. I can watch those shows over and over and they never get old. I am not sure I even remember Baked Truth and Fired up.
I miss those days. TV shows with real actors making us laugh and cry. Now, we're bombarded by dumb “reality” shows.
I miss those days. TV shows with real actors making us laugh and cry. Now, we're bombarded by dumb “reality” shows.