NBC Slips from Must-See to Please-Watch TV

Hoping to boost the audience levels for two of its Thursday sitcoms, Scrubs and 30 Rock, NBC has swapped their positions in the Thursday lineup. The newly shuffled prime-time lineup, which took into effect last week just as the May sweeps began, now looks like this: My Name Is Earl, Scrubs, The Office, 30 Rock, ER.

It's just the latest in a long line of NBC's Thursday night flip-flops, swaps, disappearing acts and acts of quiet desperation.

The sad truth of the matter is, NBC used to own Thursdays for decades, ever since The Cosby Show hit like a tsunami in 1984, no matter how good or bad the sitcoms it televised. Routinely, NBC would sprinkle sub-standard comedies between its reliable hits, expecting viewers to sit still for almost anything. And, for the most part, they did.

The irony is that, now that NBC has a wall-to-wall lineup of excellent, inventive, delghtful comedies, Must-See TV has turned into Please-Watch TV. With Cosby, Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld and others, NBC ruled Thursdays, and was a dominant number one in the time slot. Now NBC, with its most solid lineup in years, is number four... and slipping.

Last week, when NBC shifted its Thursday lineup, Earl was fourth in its time slot, behind not only Survivor on CBS and Ugly Betty on ABC, but drawing two million fewer viewers than Fox's Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Scrubs, transplanted to 8:30 ET, did even worse. It was within only about a half million viewers of being lapped by Al Diablo con los Guapos, on Univision.

At 9 ET, the fact that NBC's The Office actually gains viewers from its lead-in, against Top 10 powerhouses CSI and Grey's Anatomy, is impressive, but 5th Grader trounced it, too. And 30 Rock, the best comedy on TV right now? According to A.C. Nielsen, last week's audience was only 300,000 viewers ahead of Univision's Pasion. Ay caramba!

NBC could claim, I guess, that after so many fourth-place showings in the time slot, ER deserves credit for finishing third. But that's only because Fox doesn't broadcast nationally at 10 ET, and stops competing.

The real shame is that NBC's Thursday lineup should be supported, but the truth is that there are more watchable broadcast-TV shows on this night than on any other. The networks are playing chicken on Thursdays, jockeying for weekend movie advertising, and NBC, right now, is running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

And after so many years of taking its Thursday audience for granted, there's no sense crying fowl.