Regular readers know it has been a great summer for the cable networks and a pretty awful one for the broadcast networks. Multichannel News has a story on how things were in June, July and August and it was great if you were USA, but hide under the covers bad if you were ABC:
By comparison, the four major broadcast networks averaged an all-time low 23 share during the 2009 summer season — well below the 28 share NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox drew in 2008. That year, the broadcast networks' share was paced by NBC's 16 day Olympics coverage, which reached 211 million people, more than any other event in U.S. TV history, according to NBC Universal.
Cable's performance is even more impressive when you take into account that viewers averaged a summer record of 32.2 hours per person per week of television viewing from June to August, according to Turner.
“Less than a quarter of the viewing in households during the summer is broadcast now — it's the biggest loss on record for the broadcast networks, and that includes other Olympics years,” said Turner Broadcasting System chief research officer Jack Wakshlag.
Along with the Olympics factor, Wakshlag also pointed to the recent digital transition for the significant migration of viewers from broadcast to cable. “In June, all the stations lost their analog feed, and as a result, people had to figure out how to watch broadcast TV,” he said. “As a result, you have further erosion of broadcast viewers to cable, which will continue to play itself out through next June.”
We can always count on Turner’s Wakshlag for the best cable vs. broadcast smack talk!
Of course, his comment about figuring out how to watch broadcast is ridiculous. If he was saying that people moved to cable after the switch, that would be one thing, but he makes it sound like people just can’t find broadcast stations on their cable boxes.
When a network offers original, compelling programming, the viewers will watch? SHOCKING!
With ever more TV viewing options, broadcast networks are going to have to change their programming model. To get the quality that viewers are now demanding (aka actually “watching”), perhaps the 22-24 episode season for-as-many-seasons-as-can-be-squeezed-out model should be reevaluated? The 13 episode model the cable nets use is not only less expensive, but it seems to allow for greater quality per episode. I’d much prefer 13 fantastic episodes of Mad Men or Burn Notice than 24 mediocre episodes of Grey’s Anatomy or Heroes. Just a thought…
You make a compelling argument CK; but many people were angered whenever their shows were cut short during the writer’s strike. Admittedly, this had to do more with the writers having to rush ideas into fewer episodes. I think it’d be interesting to see how people reacted to such shorter seasons.
There is a difference between the writer’s strike forcing a season that was supposed to have 22 episodes to be shortened to 13 because that causes storylines to be rewritten.
I think CK means that if the writers knew from the get go that a season would be 13 episodes we would get less filler and more quality episodes with tighter plots.
Personally i would rather 2 different 2 episode shows per year than one 24 episode show if it means less filler, better quality and more variety. The networks could fit more shows into the schedule and hopefully more good shows would be given a chance to survive.
Not too long ago the argument everyone seemed to be making on this site was that seasons are too short and there’s no reason not to make 30+ episodes a season. Now seasons are too long.
I don’t think the length of a season has anything to do with quality or ratings. First of all, recall that while USA was doing great for cable their ratings still would not be considered hits on broadcast (at least not during the regular season). The advantage that cable does have (other than scale for cable being less than for broadcast) is that they don’t have to fill as many hours will new episodes of shows. If you want broadcast to focus on quality only, you would have to ask them to drop several nights a week of programming. But, no, what you guys want is more shows. The more shows you have, the less quality you are going to get.
I think the quality would be much better with 13 episodes as opposed to 22 or 24 episodes. But I think Bob Biancha of USA Today said that the costs for the networks would be much higher if they did that. Plus the nets have a lot more hours to fill, so if they have trouble now finding quality shows now – just think if they had to find 3 or 4 shows to just fill one time slot. Having said that I think overtime it might turn into that anyway. Look at Lost for example – they shortened their seasons
The shift of dramatic, scripted programming to cable networks has never been more evident than this summer. If NBC’s Leno experiment is successful, the pace of this change will accelerate and little will be left of the hour-long drama on broadcast networks except for established success stories (i.e., the CSI bunch).
As an aside, I think cable has missed an opportunity to fill the gaping programming void in the month-long period from mid-August to mid-September. Most of the summer runs of cable shows (Burn Notice, Royal Pains, In Plain Sight, L&O:CI…) wrap at roughly the same time, leaving several WEAK weeks of programming.
Yes, chrisjozo correctly understood my thoughts;
per season, fewer yet better quality episodes.
I’m, sorry, but most informed opinion does not buy the writer’s strike excuse. Did it make a bad situation worse? No doubt. But we live in a different world now where the Big Three can’t dictate a set annua schedule. Basic cable has its own rhythmn, the nets are as likely to launch promising new shows in the summer as in the fall, and vice-versa, premium cable can actually take a monster hit like Sopranoes and screw with the scheduling and not lose viewers. On a day to day and week to week basis, you have Inet downloading of entire blocks of shows, DVR viewing, DVD’s of full seasons ( for those who have more money than sense.) In fact, the whole cable marathon and massive threepeat and fourpeat strategy cable uses cannot be done on the nets as now conceived. These are all oft-mentioned points and maybe merit a whole book and not a paragraph, but there you go. Add in the exorbitant costs for network shows, the constant one-upmanship on production values and scheduling conflicts, the heavy dependence on ” Special Events” like the Olympics and Superbowl ( still huge ) and the Emmies, Grammies, Miss Universe, World Series, Christman schmaltz ( not so much) … I think 2009-2010 will be the worst year for the old ABC-CBS-ABC triad ever. Possibly for the Four Networks altogether, ever.
jay, while I completely agree with “I think 2009-2010 will be the worst year for the old ABC-CBS-ABC triad ever. Possibly for the Four Networks altogether, ever.” it’s like predicting the sun will rise tomorrow.
Since the mid 80′s pretty much *every* year has been the “worst year ever” for the broadcast networks as a whole.
Guilty as charged. You know how it is – predict the obvious, and you’re reputation as a prophet is bound not to suffer.
Earlier i meant 2 different 12 episode shows but you get the point.
No one is saying that broadcast networks need to have cable’s ratings only that they need to have more of cable’s succinct plot structures. I sincerely hope that NBC’s split season of Heroes and Chuck works out because I think Heroes could benefit from shorter seasons. I know some people will miss having two Volumes but I would rather have one good volume a year of Heroes than two ok volumes.
Chrisjozo, to achieve that, broadcast networks would have to spend even more money in development, and throw even more crap at the wall and hope something works. In terms of broadcast, shorter seasons would result in less quality, not more, most likely. Unless broadcast networks drop the number of hours they need to fill each week, shorter seasons will not make sense.
Bring back “The Brady Bunch” with all the same actors. Robert Reed R.I.P. Gone but never forgotten.
The real problem for the networks will begin next year when internet ready television sets start to take off. Right now, most people have a basic cable package of 100 channels. Take out the religious, cd and homesales channels and people really have about 20 channels besides the networks to choose from. Besides news and talk, only 4 or 5 channels are likely to be offering original programming on a given night. So the odds are still good that a majority of these viewers will opt for an original network program.
What are the networks going to do when they have thousands of channels competing with them and hundreds offering original programming?
Prediction of year of network implosion — 2014.