April 02, 2008 - Networks Missing the Value of Reliability

If you're watching broadcast network TV these days, you've been inundated with the various ways they're letting you know their scripted programs are about to come back. NBC plays the theme from Welcome Back, Kotter. CBS has gone from "All Gnu" to letting you know, like ABC, that you have only a week or two until your favorites will be back!

What all these silly promos are too dense to recognize is that they're boasting about something that TV audiences have a right to expect as a given. "Look at us!," the networks are saying. "We've got fresh programs! Aren't we terrific? Aren't you excited?"

Well, no. Not necessarily. It's like a restaurant putting a sign in its window boasting, "Fresh food!" You know, that's sort what we expect. And just as with a restaurant, customers have an expectation that what they're being served not only will be fresh, but will be palatable, even tasty. Otherwise, why come back?

The networks and studio heads blew it by forcing the writers' strike, and if the actors go out in June -- which they shouldn't -- it'll be another suicidal move for Hollywood. One of many, sad to say.

This afternoon, NBC is announcing its new "52-week" schedule, an expansion upon Fox's disastrous effort a few years ago to announce, at the May upfronts, programming plans for fall, winter and spring all at once. My theory is, nobody cares about anything past the fall. And if the networks aren't careful, viewers will stop caring about the fall, too.

TV viewers are creatures of habit. "Appointment programming" only works if you can count on a show being there when it's supposed to be. And while there's a certain acceptance of second-season scheduling -- Fox fans know to expect both American Idol and 24 in January (although this year, because of the strike, 24 vanished) -- the anticipation of a fall season is a half-century-long tradition that shouldn't be minimized.

It may not be the same as when hard-core TV fans, myself included, would wait eagerly for the Fall Preview issue of TV Guide to arrive in the mail, so you could choose which new shows to sample and how to plan your viewing nights. But even casual TV fans know to expect a publicity blitz, and lots of new shows, in September. Take that enthusiasm away, with a "52-week" approach, and you'll never get it back.

TV critic Robert Bianco, in yesterday's USA Today, warned, "Anyone who would destroy that tradition for the sake of cost-cutting efficiency should be in a business other than show." If viewers can't rely on the networks to be there, the networks should understand that prospect is a two-way street.