If only one show on Saturday night on any of the networks ("Walker, Texas Ranger") has been in the top 30 in the ratings in the last 20 years, that sounds like the reason we don't see much original drama on Saturday night today.
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Were The Networks Wrong To "Abandon" Saturday Nights??
- Thread starter Joseph_Gallant
- Start date
On this Saturday Night, (July 13th), NBC is trotting out a family-fare, made for TV, new movie "Saige Paints the Sky".
Three anomalies in one two-hour block: "Family Fare", "Made for TV Movie", and "New (on Saturday night)".
Three anomalies in one two-hour block: "Family Fare", "Made for TV Movie", and "New (on Saturday night)".
Saturday night now is a dumping ground for any network, though filling it with sports is becoming more of a theme--ABC with college football, Fox with baseball.
Friday night has evolved into a pre-dumping ground: throwing a fading show into a time slot and seeing if it can survive on that night. In recent years, Law & Order, CSI:New York and Medium are examples of this trend.
Friday night has evolved into a pre-dumping ground: throwing a fading show into a time slot and seeing if it can survive on that night. In recent years, Law & Order, CSI:New York and Medium are examples of this trend.
Even in the 90's before I got cable, my viewing habits changed to weekend nights being my time for odd favorites that didn't come on during the rest of the week. I'd watch Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine on WJKT then UPN 16 in Jackson, TN or KAIT ABC 8 in Jonesboro, AR, and Monty Python and classic TV shows that came on WKNO PBS 10 in Memphis at the time. Later in the 2000's it would change to The Red Green Show on WLJT PBS 11 in Lexington/Jackson, TN, and Out of Sight Retro Nights and Corner Gas on WGN. Now it's become one of the few times I can actually watch Me TV on late weekend nights. If there's nothing else I want to see (even with cable) there's always DVDs or Netflix.
Occasional college football (depending on the game) has become about the only thing I watch on the networks on Saturday nights.
Occasional college football (depending on the game) has become about the only thing I watch on the networks on Saturday nights.
Wright County Guy said:
If NBC really wanted this to be successful they wouldn't be burning it off on a Saturday night in the middle of the Summer.
BD Sullivan said:
I had thought that when ABC started carrying college football on Saturday nights that they should try to go to year round sports, but it looks like Fox beat them to it.
But I agree with earlier posts that the networks shouldn't turn Saturday night over to the local stations. THe same goes for it that it does for Saturday mornings or daytime, or even weekend afternoons with no sports. Too many stations would take the easy and chaep way out and load the time with infomercials.
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Fact: Chuck Norris can make an original scripted show successful even on Saturday.PTBoardOp94 said:
Three dramas that were popular with women: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman; Early Edition; The District
Ever think that the viewership on Saturdays has gone down because of the crap the Nets program? I would bet viewership would go back up if Saturday night programing once again raised to the quality of All In The Family, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart & Carol Burnett. Even the Not Ready For Prime Time Players on SNL. People went out back then too. There were plenty of other options to do on Saturday night, but people stayed home to watch those shows. It wasn't like the outside world shut down.
Networks will not take a quality program and put it on the least-watched night of the week. It's a lovely thought to think the networks would try to boost ratings on Saturdays, but it's not a financially viable plan. If they had so much great programming on all the other nights that Saturday was the only place they could put some great show, I suppose that would be possible. But that's not the way it is.
A year or so ago I thought Fox was trying to find a way to boost ratings on the night with sports programming. Ultimately, that has proven to be a losing proposition as the ratings have been far lower than what they had on the night. Rather than reverse course and bring back the winning combo of Cops and AMW, they've gone all-in on sports and now have two new national sports networks to feed. Maybe the sports programming gets better ad sales for lower numbers.. I don't know. It just seems like this experiment has failed.
A year or so ago I thought Fox was trying to find a way to boost ratings on the night with sports programming. Ultimately, that has proven to be a losing proposition as the ratings have been far lower than what they had on the night. Rather than reverse course and bring back the winning combo of Cops and AMW, they've gone all-in on sports and now have two new national sports networks to feed. Maybe the sports programming gets better ad sales for lower numbers.. I don't know. It just seems like this experiment has failed.
therealjm12 said:
Once again, the HUT (households using television) levels went down before the quality did. The quality was in response.
What time, exactly, did the HUT numbers go down? Is it possible that the nets were just putting on subpar shows (even if we might think of them as hits today) and the resulting decline in HUT was mistaken as a trend of its own instead of a result of subpar shows? Perhaps the nets were giving people a reason to stay home on Saturday for so long that no one realized that when they stopped, unlike on other nights of the week, people could in fact go out and do other things, and then when the quality of Saturday programming inevitably corrected itself, this was mistaken for a societal shift because it couldn't possibly be that the networks weren't giving them a reason to watch their oh-so-quality programming.michael hagerty said:
Alternatively, is it possible this is connected to the increasing emphasis on the demos? I notice the most recent hit Saturday shows don't seem like they would be hits today on any night. Is it possible 18-49-year-olds always went out disproportionately on Saturday nights, and when networks started canceling any show that didn't deliver them, everyone else gave up on TV Saturday as well, which as before was mistaken as a trend in its own right rather than an effect?
Both of these are kind of flimsy, I admit, but it might be worth considering.
Morgan Wick said:
I'll try to find those statistics, Morgan...might take a day or two.
I'm amazed at the difficulty (not just you, several people on the board) in accepting that the average 33-year old (dead center of the 18-49 demographic) of today lives a very different lifestyle than the average 33 year old of 40 years ago.
I suspect a number of people on this board are the average 33-year-old of 40 years ago... I wouldn't have a problem with it if it weren't for a) everyone else having a problem with it despite being told the same things over and over (because people can't just be not reading the thread, right?) and b) the implication that people today live much different lives than at any other time and place in the television era. I did bring up some reasons why that might be the case, but not all of it fits together, though we do seem to be working more total hours...
I think time-shifting and other entertainment options on Saturday nights play a big role in the HUT declines.
michael hagerty said:
and also has access to 500 channels, Redbox, and streaming services if they are home on Saturday evenings
Ever notice that most PBS stations schedule Lawrence Welk reruns from 50 years ago when research says young people are likely to be out? I guess they don't want to bore their younger "viewers like you" ;D
And (although it's probably more applicable to the 50+ viewers), we shouldn't overlook the existence of a substance that didn't exist in 1973, that might make TV viewing seem like a waste of a perfectly good Saturday night.
Viagra.
Viagra.
therealjm12 said:
And there were only 3 networks and cable was in its very infancy aimed at rural areas to bring in watchable distant local broadcast stations.
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