NBC = CW?

Wasn’t the CWs plan to farm out Saturday nite a big failure?

@shara: (1) They farmed out Sunday night. Saturday they simply do not (and did not) program. (2) It was a failure, but probably one more of execution and promotion. There was nothing inherent in giving the night to an outsider producer (which actually made at least one really good show) that could not work; and The CW’s own programming had not been setting Sunday on fire either.

Ahh. Gotcha.

Let me preface this by mentioning, again, that I am a midwesterner. Which means that our primetime runs during the far more reasonable 7pm to 10pm. Whereas on the coasts, your primetime doesn’t end until 11pm – add local news and start watching Leno/Letterman, and it’s already midnight. That stereotypical grumpy big city dweller just needs a good night’s sleep!
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So, if I were restructuring broadcast TV:
1) Let’s be frank: the 10pm hour is a wasteland. Total viewership drops like a rock from the 9pm hour to the 10pm hour, and there are practically no hits that air during that hour (I’ll let you argue over which is the cause and which is the effect). The few hits that still run during that 10pm hour are so old, dating from the NBC dominance era (ER, SVU), that they prove my point: TV at 10pm is dead.
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Another potential injury to 10pm: I get the (anecdotal) feeling that DVR viewership kicks in tremendously at this point: Your average viewer watches their preferred 9pm show live and then catches up on a missed show on the DVR at that point. Although, again, whether this is a cause or an effect of the lack of strong programming at 10pm is the question.
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2) Fri/Sat: Let’s also be frank: the weekends are a complete wasteland. The broadcast networks struggle to get, combined, the same number of viewers per hour as, say, The Mentalist, gets on its own. Airing anything other than cheap and dirty reality fare isn’t cost-effective.
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3) The CW. First off, I am fuzzy on the legal justification for the network even existing (at least, with partial Columbia ownership): the only reason the FCC allowed UPN to be Columbia owned (FCC rules state a business interest can only own one broadcast television network to encourage competition) was the strong “urban” programming on the network (you didn’t think Homeboys in Outer Space aired without an ulterior motive, did you?). Now that The CW has reduced said urban content to an hour on Fridays, I question just why the FCC continues to give them a pass.
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Second, The CW has never made a profit, and none of their new shows are a hit.
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4) TV can happily support a number of good shows on simultaneously. See Tuesday at 8pm or 9pm.
It can’t find enough decent shows around the schedule.
See the cancellation rates every year.
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So here’s my plan:
Kill the CW. MTV, it’s time to put up or shut up on being the network of youth: Schedule one hour of scripted/real budget reality show TV Mon. through Thur. Use CW budgets; plan on having all the shows end after season 4 (or whenever their actors actually look old enough to drink legally, whichever comes first). Start the first year off by stealing Gossip Girl, 90210, Top Model, and Supernatural from the now defunct CW.
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ABC/CBS/NBC: Kill the 10pm hour. Either return it to the affiliates in whole or move Leno/Letterman/Nightline to a 10:30 start time.
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Fri/Sat: Use these nights for repeats or low budget reality fare only.
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Combine all these steps at once and you both reduce the number of hours the networks need to find programming for and limit them to hours where they actually stand to make a profit. (Intelligent programmers will then direct their viewers to cable networks that will take up the programming slack at 10pm.)
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Or in other words, turn into Fox+FX. Honestly, I don’t work for Fox – they just seem to have stumbled into the future on their own.

There is something about the phrase “Howie Do It” that sends shivers up my spine, in fact, I think I died a little just typing it now.

TVs are getting bigger, content – and my patience – is getting smaller.
I want my money back!