TV Ratings Haven't Recovered From Strike

By DAVID BAUDER,

Posted: 2008-05-11 12:54:58

NEW YORK (May 11) - Television heads into its biggest week with the hangover from a 100-day writers strike persisting.

Viewership is down, although it's hard to tell how much the strike is to blame. This week's "upfront" presentations by broadcasters outlining their fall schedules, which annually precedes a multibillion dollar ad buying binge, promises to be much different than before.

"The strike had a number of impacts," said Alan Wurtzel, NBC Universal research chief, "but as with everything it's never very clear or direct or black and white."

ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC had nearly 9 percent fewer viewers in April and May so far than during the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Yet viewership declines are sadly typical for the big networks. Take the same period a year earlier, and the drop was more than 5 percent over 2006. People didn't watch less TV while the strike was on, they just watched cable more, said Steve Sternberg, an analyst for Magna Global.

Shows with ongoing stories seemed to lose the most momentum from the strike; ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" on May 1 had its smallest audience since moving to Thursday night. Decisions by NBC to keep "Heroes" for next fall and Fox to delay "24" until next season may prove prescient, unless people forget about the characters altogether.

Comedies were hurt least by the strike. CBS was so buoyed by the performance of their Monday night comedies that the network is considering adding comedies on another night.

CBS' rack of procedural dramas had done relatively well, at least until a week ago: "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" had its second least-watched episode for a Thursday original, and "CSI: Miami" hit a series low for an original.

"There's no question that it could have been a lot worse," said David Poltrack, CBS' top researcher. CBS' strategy was to make as many new episodes of existing shows as possible until the season ends later this month so people got back in the habit of watching again.

The explosive growth of digital video recorders, now available in 25 million homes, means more people are setting their own schedules.

They could also be bored. Broadcast viewing was already off 7 percent during the last three months of 2007, before the strike's impact was felt. Several weeks of reruns during the midwinter, when TV viewership is at its highest, really hurt. But the networks were already hurting.

The strike also constricted the networks' process of developing new material.

Networks made fewer pilots of prospective new shows this year, in part because the strike meant less time to prepare them. In some cases, network executives are making decisions on shows based only on scripts or brief "presentations" of what the series might look like, instead of a full episode, said Brad Adgate, who monitors series development for Horizon Media.

That's not entirely unwelcome in the business, particularly when the economy is bad. Pilots can cost millions of dollars to produce, and the shows may never make it on the air. Even the shows that do make it on the air are much more likely to fail than succeed.

It doesn't take an MBA to identify this as an area to save money.

This could be a wave of the future - unless, of course, the series developed without pilots fail miserably. Then there would be pressure to go back to the old way.

Pinched development also gives a real advantage to ideas and creators with proven track records, said Jeffrey Stepakoff, author of "Billion Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved Dawson's Creek and Other Adventures in TV Writing."

Familiar names like Joss Whedon ("Dollhouse" on Fox), Brian Grazer ("Lie to Me" on Fox), Jerry Bruckheimer ("Eleventh Hour" on CBS) and David E. Kelley ("Life on Mars" on ABC) have projects with good chances of making it on the air next season.

Networks are also pursuing an unusually large number of adaptations of series that have succeeded overseas, Adgate said. "Life on Mars," with Kelley remaking a BBC series, hits both buttons.

"It's not smart to develop by throwing darts on a wall," said Stepakoff, who's written for several prime-time series over the past decade. "Similarly, it's not good to develop with just A-list writers. Some of the greatest television in history, even in the modern age, came from totally unexpected sources."

"Desperate Housewives," which Marc Cherry wrote totally on his own and shopped around, is the most prominent recent example.

Not surprising for television, some of the ideas have a whiff of familiarity. Cedric the Entertainer is developing a comedy for ABC about a suddenly rich family moving to Beverly Hills ("then one day he was shooting for some food, and up through the ground come a bubbling crude").

The strike likely accelerated changes in how the networks present their schedules to advertisers.

Fox is staying traditional, but the glitzy upfront presentations of the past are gone. It was only a few years ago that CBS brought the Who to Carnegie Hall to perform privately for advertisers. This year ABC and CBS both plan more sober, abbreviated sales pitches. NBC announced its schedule a month ago, and will invite guests to an NBC Universal pep rally.

The increasing tendency of networks to order early a new season of episodes of some favorite shows means much of the mystery has already been removed from such announcements. There are some shows on the bubble, however, like "Boston Legal," "'Til Death" and "The New Adventures of Old Christine."

When the announcements are over, it will be up to advertisers to speak with their wallets, to say what programs they find promising and want to place commercials on.

That will be the most important measure to date of the strike's impact.

EDITOR'S NOTE - David Bauder can be reached at dbauder"at"ap.org

05/11/08 12:47 EDT

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Mcentyrel1 09:19:42 AM May 12 2008

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The Tonight Show was much better when Jay Leno didn't have writers and now his monologs are not that funny.I recently saw a poll where it shows that the Simpsons was the all time funniest comedy show,then I knew this country was in trouble.The dumbing down of America.NBC,CBS,ABC shows stink. Thank the Lord for M.A.S.H reruns.

idahoboydave 02:19:18 AM May 12 2008

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Reality shows and Game shows. Yup. That's all that was on when the writer's strike kicked in. That's why people gave up on TV. Most people actually DON'T like that crap.
Me, I started downloading and watching episodes of shows I never got to watch before. I'm hooked on The 4400 right now, but I hear that one's getting axed too.
The shows that engage the minds of intelligent people are the ones that are all getting axed. Journeyman is going, for instance. :-(
I can't stand the current lineups of sitcoms; they all are crude and lame anymore.
What's left? Courtroom, hospital, and crime investigator shows. Yuck.
Enter the next "Knight Rider." The first couple minutes shows a guy sleeping with 2 women at once, and a lesbian who picked up some other chick the night before. Yeah, like I really want my kids getting indoctrinated with sexual deviancy.
I vote we nuke L.A.

hippiemom654 01:28:45 AM May 12 2008

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CSI: Miami needs to replace David Caruso with a good actor and it will pick up again. They have good story lines, but he ruins the show.

maxoutput 12:33:39 AM May 12 2008

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Baseball hasn't recovered from it's strike either. Millionaire's on strike doesn't get much sympathy. They have all gotten too big to know what people want. A show has to guarranty a gazillion viewers before it even starts. None of them are willing to take any risk to see what might work better. More like wallstreet accountants looking at assets. Reallity shows have a low overhead. Real shows cost money. Wallstreet goes for the cheapest show they can get. If they could get Chinese to play the roles they would. Just a sad case of Jew on Jew Violence.

groverdee66 11:57:13 PM May 11 2008

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I got used to watching other things on cable or (gasp) going to the gym. Don't see any real need to go back since we know where their loyalty to us lay.

sanfordsttl 08:49:33 PM May 11 2008

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The programming hasn't recovered either. I'd rather see reruns of the the regular series until new episodes are ready rather than the crap they're showing. I always used to have a choice of at least one LOP (least objectionable program). Now it is VCR, radio, or silence (I can multitask and read with sound on).

jesssier 04:42:15 PM May 11 2008

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Put something on worth watching.All that is on is game shows and reailty shows the ratings for these shows are low and they still keep them on. The USA , FX and TNT have the best original programming.

carmac5951 02:38:37 PM May 11 2008

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I have to agree that there is nothing worthwihile on TV I want to watch. There were a few ongoing shows I did watch. However, since the writer's strike ended I haven't watched a single one of them and I'm not sure I'll be back next year. I'll stick with watching my favorite sports teams and reading books. At least that's something I can enjoy that's not filled with smut and foul language. A note to the Hollywood writers - get a clue as to what the people want.

geepig 02:29:52 PM May 11 2008

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As long as How I Met Your Mother gets picked up, I'm good.

carneil 01:43:52 PM May 11 2008

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The ratings have NOT dropped due to the strike. It's because there's nothing to watch. How many times a day/night can one watch "Andy of Mayberry?" Give us something to watch and we will come back. The majority of shows are so outlandish that only lame brains would watch them. This blame is similar to the retailers who don't want to give service blaming their lack of sales on the economy. There are no clerks available to help customers. For TV there are no writers who know how to entertain. Get in touch with the pulse of your viewers!

helenherowe 01:11:42 PM May 11 2008

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TV is so bad why would you waste time watching it.

rruiz831 01:11:25 PM May 11 2008

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Wait until the other shoe drops. The greedy producers are about to force an actors strike, that will shut everything down again. Pretty soon reality wannabes will be asking for a piece of the pie and hopefully kill off that particular genre.

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