What were some of the worst network decisions ever made? I'm guessing this list will include a lot show cancellations.

ABC made a big mistake making all these alterations (getting rid of all the supporting cast and moving the show to a different time slot) to Mork & Mindy before the 1979-80 season. The results were irrepairable.

I forget which network The Outer Limits was on (the 60s version) but they shouldn't have changed the show's time slot.

Another network decision that was really bad was NBC giving another year to Chico and the Man, even after Freddie Prinze committed suicide. I pretend that season doesn't exist, that it's a different series.

CBS cancelling Gilligan's Island instead of Gunsmoke which went on to last anthoer 8 years.

NBC canning Inside Schwartz in the middle of it's first season of course they were the same "geniuses"(sarcasism) that let "Friends" on for a full decade :mad: (Sorry I hate Friends).

This probably doesn't sound like a biggie but ABC moving Boy Meets World from 8:30 to 9:30 during it's 4th Season :mad:

Hmmm ABC cancelling Lois and Clark, and not giving the fans any type of closure for the series, word has it ABC deliberately moved L&C to a different day to kill it, so they would have Sundays free for the The Wonderful World of Disney :cuss:

I'll probably think of more later ;)

CBS giving Family Matters another life after it already died, maybe not the worst, but pretty bad.

Originally posted by barwars
Im just glad it wasn't cancelled at that one point (was it Season 4? Im not sure)

I read that somewhere, I'm not sure if that is just an online rumor or what. I think ABC was trying to kill it by moving it to 9:30 though, and an episode from Season 4, where Topanga is babysitting and Cory comes over is another parody, the boy talked about this Curly headed kid on tv and the Friday night lineup, and that they moved that show to 9:30, and says "they're trying to kill it, they're trying to kill it" after that ABC moved BMW back to 8:30 :lol:

Originally posted by barwars
HAha.
I remember that!!
Networks sure are run by idiots.

Although, fans of Cheers and Family Ties everywhere will always admire Brandon Tartikoff for his brilliant idea "I like it, its staying"

I miss Brandon, he was a true network genius, he would def. be shocked by how networks treat shows nowadays ohno:

CBS-canncelling "WKRP in Cinncinati" after just 3 seasons

ABC- letting "Welcome Back Kotter" go on after John Travolta & Gabe Kaplan left.

Nick at Nite-deciding to show 80s and 90s shows, and deciding to rerun "The Cosby show" 6 times every night, or however many times they show it

Originally posted by treky
CBS-canncelling "WKRP in Cinncinati" after just 3 seasons

ABC- letting "Welcome Back Kotter" go on after John Travolta & Gabe Kaplan left.

Nick at Nite-deciding to show 80s and 90s shows, and deciding to rerun "The Cosby show" 6 times every night, or however many times they show it

I don't see anything wrong with them airing 80's and 90's shows, TVLAND is for classics, N@N should be for 80's and 90's IMO :)

I agree, but now it's Roseanne, and soon Fresh Prince :rolleyes:

Don't forget NBC and "The Heidi Game":

The Heidi Game
Oakland Raiders 43, New York Jets 32
Nov. 17, 1968


By Phil Barber
NFL Publishing

(Nov. 24, 1999) — You want an indication of the bizarre nature of the football war waged by the Oakland Raiders and New York Jets on the afternoon of Nov. 17, 1968? Though the game was filled with marquee-worthy stars — Joe Namath, Daryle Lamonica, Fred Biletnikoff and Don Maynard among them — the two most notable acts were turned in by guys named Preston Ridlehuber and Dick Cline.

Ridlehuber would be permanently out of football little more than a year later. Cline never set foot on an NFL field.

The event now known as the Heidi Game featured a most remarkable ending. But what earned it a spot in sporting lore — and 10th place among the Most Memorable NFL Games of the Century — is the fact that most of the nation was not allowed to see that conclusion. After the Jets' Jim Turner kicked a field goal to give his team a 32-29 lead with 1:05 to play, NBC went to a commercial. When the network returned, it was not to a taut battle of American Football League heavyweights. It was to "Heidi," that pig-tailed Alpine goat-herder, as played by Jennifer Edwards in a made-for-TV premiere movie.

Time out for a little contextual set-up: The Jets and Raiders were the class of the AFL. Each was 7-2 coming into this showdown at the Oakland Coliseum. More than that, their games had blossomed into hatefests, full of late hits and bloody noses. This one was not a disappointment.

The Heidi Game featured five lead changes and a dizzying show of aerial acrobatics. Namath passed for 381 yards and a touchdown, Lamonica for 311 yards and four touchdowns. Maynard caught 10 passes for 228 yards. The game also included 19 penalties for 238 yards.

It was the penalties, in part, that caused the game to overflow its three-hour time slot. It was due to end at 7 p.m. Eastern time. When it didn't, NBC switched to Heidi in the Eastern and Central zones. The man who threw the switch was Cline, NBC's supervisor of broadcast operation control (BOC).

"I knew something big had happened," says Cline, who still directs sporting events for NBC and CBS, "because we didn't get any phone calls at all. And we couldn't call out."

What happened was a torrent of angry calls from East Coast couch potatoes, who asked, in colorful terms, why a spunky little girl had replaced their football game. They flooded the switchboard at Manhattan's Rockefeller Plaza and crashed the phone exchange.

As it happened, they missed a fairly exciting 65 seconds. Lamonica threw a 43-yard touchdown pass to halfback Charlie Smith with 42 seconds to play, giving Oakland a 36-32 lead. The ensuing kickoff spurted free and Ridlehuber, the Raiders' reserve fullback, picked it up and ran into the end zone. The Raiders had scored 14 points in a shorter time than it took Heidi to yodel.

NBC president Julian Goodman issued a formal apology the next day. But no heads rolled, least of all Cline's.

"I was saved by the set of conditions [distributed to network executives each week]," he says. "I had it in print. In fact, the vice president of my division told me that if I had taken it on my own and stayed with the game, I would have been fired."

The problem was one of policy, not individual decision-making. NBC had sold the Heidi advertising to Timex, and was obligated to show the movie from 7 to 9 P.M. The game's surreal finish altered that practice. Evermore, TV networks would stay with football games until their conclusion. The program to follow would then "slide," rather than being joined in progress.

At NBC, one other lasting change followed in the wake of the Jets-Raiders game. The network installed a new phone in the BOC room, wired to a separate exchange. Of course, it became known as the Heidi Phone.

The WB-moving Sabrina, the Teenage Witch to Thursday nights, in competition with Friends. Moving the show to Thursdays was the final nail in the coffin for the show

WKRP ran for four seasons, 1978 to 1982.

My choices...

NBC:
- Moving Flamingo Road from Monday night to Tuesday night, against the big hit Hart to Hart
- Creating Must See TV. I hate most of the shows that ever came from that lineup

CBS:
- Cancelling Gilligan's Island because William Paley's wife wanted Gunsmoke to stay on the air

ABC:
- Moving Ryan's Hope a half-hour earlier so that Loving could take its spot
- Expanding General Hospital and One Life to Live to 45 minutes from 1977 to 1978.

WB deciding they couldn't afford Sarah Michelle Gellar's salary, so Buffy was picked up by the inferior UPN... a station which never gave it the same treatment as WB did. You could tell the difference when Dawson's Creek ended one week before Buffy did... the WB gave it a 2 hour sendoff, complete with tributes, interviews with the cast during the commercial breaks, "best of" moments during breaks, and an all-round great sendoff. And then UPN gave Buffy a 1-hr finale, NO tributes, no cast interviews, no nothing. And when the final episode ended, no final sendoffs, WB gives their shows.

Originally posted by BuffySlayer79
WB deciding they couldn't afford Sarah Michelle Gellar's salary, so Buffy was picked up by the inferior UPN... a station which never gave it the same treatment as WB did. You could tell the difference when Dawson's Creek ended one week before Buffy did... the WB gave it a 2 hour sendoff, complete with tributes, interviews with the cast during the commercial breaks, "best of" moments during breaks, and an all-round great sendoff. And then UPN gave Buffy a 1-hr finale, NO tributes, no cast interviews, no nothing. And when the final episode ended, no final sendoffs, WB gives their shows.

WB/UPN treated Roswell even worse. Which is a shame because the show could've run a lot longer than 3 seasons if WB/UPN both didn't treat the show like crap

ABC - getting rid of TGIF, i know these shows were having problems but they could of started revamping with new shows THAT season BMW and Sabrina left..
also, "Family Matters" and "Step By Step" to CBS -

ABC-moving "The Partridge Family" to saturdays, against "All in the Family"

I think FOX has set a new record.

"Family Guy," for starters.

;)

im going to be different and say 1 cbs making kim lemasters head of prime time programing in the late 80s his list of bad shows he put on would take all night and part of tommorow to list anybody remember live in and hard time on planet earth we have him to thank for thoes also putting jeff zucker in charge of nbc entertainment johnny carson had a joke when nbc hit a rough patch and i think it fits nbc now more then it did even then the jok was nbc has a new fall slogan the slogan is nbc what will we stink of next that really should be ther slogan this year

A few months ago was an article in USA Today about ten things that changed television. I think that summed up this thread's subject matter perfectly. Among them were the likes of All in the Family, Married ... with Children, NYPD Blue, and Three's Company. Oh, and for the record the article listed I Love Lucy as one of the ten, and while I can think of many shows I like better, I Love Lucy was the one good thing in the list. It is NOT known for breaking any longstanding taboos. (Then again, it debuted in 1951.)

Oh, and (dis)honorable mention goes to "The No Longer Nashville Network," aka Spike TV. :mad: WHAT WERE THE TNN FOLKS THINKING??? :eek:

Originally posted by barwars
Liking the show or not is a whole other subject, but anyone who thinks AITF did something bad for television is seriously whacked out.

Same with TC! TC hardly did anything for television, in the first place, so I don't see how anyone could say it did anything bad. It's not as if after TC premeired and became a hit, there was show after show after show that was modeled after TC and had TC-like characters. Now Friends....that's another story...

ABC turned down Norman Lear's, All In The Family. CBS gambled and then scored, big time.

although I'm really not a fan of the series... I think NBC is kicking themselves over JAG. They aired it in the first season and cancelled it at the end of the tv season because ratings weren't up to par... and then CBS bought out the show and it became a CBS institution and has been on about 10 seasons now.

CBS for not giving The Jeffersons a proper send off.

FOX for all the reality crap they air.

TV Land: For having just plain crappy schedules!:cuss:

Originally posted by Mr. Monitor
FOX for all the reality crap they air.

unfortunately, that's ALL the channels now :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Originally posted by BuffySlayer79
unfortunately, that's ALL the channels now :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

:lol:

Sad, but true...

not a "decision" per se, but just reflecting the state of television as a whole.

Networks today do not have the patience to give a show 3 or 4 seasons to find it's own audience... many of the most popular sitcoms of all time didn't become hits until a few seasons after it's peak. Now channels like NBC and CBS cancel shows within weeks if it doesn't score Friends or Raymond-esque ratings. Like an article in Rolling Stone said, a lot of people stayed away from Arrested Development in droves after hearing that it was the best new sitcom in years... why? because they figured Fox wouldn't give it time to find it's audience.

Shows that would never make it today considering the way the networks are without patience.

Cheers (therefore no Frasier either)
Seinfeld
M*A*S*H
Friends (well, it scored decent ratings at first... but the season 1 ratings were low on Thursday nights compared to what Seinfeld was getting, and look at how NBC axed programs like Inside Schwartz, Coupling and The Weber Show for that very thing)
The Facts Of Life
Family Ties
Happy Days (was top 20 it's first half-season, then fell to the 40's or 50's the second season.... today it would've been axed and not given the chance to reach that season 3 when the show exploded)
Everybody Loves Raymond (hate the show, but it was teetering on cancellation until about the third season and then it found it's audience)


plenty of others, but those are shows that I think if premiering today, wouldn't make it to a second season considering the lack of patience the networks have if a show doesn't have instant blockbuster appeal.

Originally posted by Angela Micelli
Hmmm ABC cancelling Lois and Clark, and not giving the fans any type of closure for the series, word has it ABC deliberately moved L&C to a different day to kill it, so they would have Sundays free for the The Wonderful World of Disney :cuss:


That sucks!! :mad:

Originally posted by JT
Same with TC! TC hardly did anything for television, in the first place, so I don't see how anyone could say it did anything bad. It's not as if after TC premeired and became a hit, there was show after show after show that was modeled after TC and had TC-like characters. Now Friends....that's another story...

yes TC did, and as did other series like AITF, they helped get the audience use to not-so-perfect families on tv. These shows didnt have to be an instant hit to change tv.

JT-

How was expanding GH and OLTL to 45 mins a bad idea?


My Choices-

ABC- Airing Milloneer just about every night of the week and not using it to launch other shows. it nearly killed abc and they still haven't fully recovered from that.

Canceling Port Charles just as it was gearing up for what was to be its best story arch to date. and after it had acheieved much success in Emmy-nominations.

Canceling "My So-Called Life" after only 1 season. Claire Danes became a star and the network alienatied an entire generation, or well at least A LOT of people.

Adding Steve Urkele to "Family Matters" the focus of the show soon shifted almost exclusively to him and the family seemed less important and less signfigant.

Continuing "Growin Pains" after Chrissy was born and Mike became a "good citizen" it was never the same.

Letting Maddie and David get it on, Moonlighting was never the same after that... and Cybill her career well... i'll just leave that alone.

BRIAN SCOTT FONZ and JILL FARREN-PHELPS. need i say more?

Letting NYPD BLUE run for 3 season too many.

Not Letting "Once and Again" stay in the NYPD blue time-slot even when it was the highest rated new drama on tv. they were so close to making \the show a hit. Also moving the show around every friggan 2 weeks.

NBC-

I'd say airing "Saved By The Bell: The College Years" in primetime when it would have been a huge saturday morning hit.

Canceling "Another World" for crappola like "Passions" and "Sunset Beach".

Letting "Homicied: Life On The Street" get canceled only too add 2 more "Law and Orders" to the schedule.

TWO WORDS: VERONICA'S CLOSET.

The invasion of the "I am in my late-20's-Early 30's, live in the city and am single" shows that took over the network in the 1990's.

Moving "Newsradio" around the schedule so no one could ever find it.

CBS-

Letting Delta Burke leave "Designing Women" and then letting Jean Smart Leave. Adding Julia Duffy.. .YUCK.

Letting Alfred Molinas "Ladies Man" go to TV HEAVEN and letting him go on too better things.

Canceling "Cybill" when it was tied w/ "The Nanny" for the #2 sitcom on CBS that year and was still overall a top 50 hit.

Canceling "Dr. Quinn Medicen Women" for seemingly no reason.

Canceling "Murder, She Wrote" when ratings were still high.


FOX-

WHO WANTS TO MARRY A MULTI-MILLONEER.

Moving "Boston Public" to Friday nights w/ no support.


WB-

Canceling "Felicity" that show still had a few years in it.

Canceling "Popstars" when the Reality TV boom was really just beginging, also canceling "Popular" ratings were good and the show was critically acclaimed.

The Steve Harvey Show.

Canceling "Gross Pointe"

Not giving "Savannah" a third season.

UPN-

Every show they'ev ever aired except Clueless and Moesha. Oh but the biggest mistake "Homeboys From Outer Space".

Originally posted by gOoSe
yes TC did, and as did other series like AITF, they helped get the audience use to not-so-perfect families on tv. These shows didnt have to be an instant hit to change tv.

maybe in hindsight it may have, but at the time Three's Company was not really considered anything special. In fact the reviews were largley TERRIBLE. it was considred "Giggle TV" it was to tv in the 70's what Jerry Springer is today.

ABC moving Who's the Boss to Saturdays in it's last season in an effort to "kill it" :mad:

CBS not cancelling Dallas after its 7th Season, after that the show was just unwatchable :(

Originally posted by factsoflife
NBC-

I'd say airing "Saved By The Bell: The College Years" in primetime when it would have been a huge saturday morning hit.



And airing it opposite Full House. When you have two shows who share the same audience, and one has been in that time slot awhile and on the air longer, you don't put your new show against it.

Fox not caring about Futurama. They put it at 6pm Central on Sundays...which more than likely got preempted by football or baseball. So they didn't get aired half the time. Fox didn't care, which is why they never moved it to a decent time slot. They had the Simpsons, they had that crap fest King of the Hill...

When NBC aired Brotherly Love on Sunday nights at 7 pm so that it was pre-empted by Football almost every week.

Originally posted by factsoflife
UPN-

Every show they'ev ever aired except Clueless and Moesha.

I personally thought Roswell and Buffy were two of the best shows period of their time

Originally posted by dawsongirl
Fox not caring about Futurama. They put it at 6pm Central on Sundays...which more than likely got preempted by football or baseball. So they didn't get aired half the time. Fox didn't care, which is why they never moved it to a decent time slot. They had the Simpsons, they had that crap fest King of the Hill...

Fox didn't treat Family Guy much better either. One look at the airdates on the DVD's, you could tell that Fox really kicked the show around. Season 2 started in Sept 99, then the third episode didn't air until December, and an episode or two later didn't start airing until March.

I wonder now, since Family Guy is a bonafide hit on DVD and Cartoon Network, if Fox will actually give it a secure timeslot when it returns, much like The Simpsons has, instead of kicking it around the going 2-3 months between episodes, etc...

Originally posted by factsoflife
JT-

How was expanding GH and OLTL to 45 mins a bad idea?

They should have just let them both either stay at 30 or go to 60, imo. If I remember reading correctly (read it years ago), they went to 45 for OLTL because Agnes didn't want it to go to 60 (AMC neither, but since it was her favorite, she decided to let it expand). She felt that having a soap at 60 minutes in length was an awful idea and that it would kill soaps. It didn't make sense, imo, because after watching OLTL, say you weren't a GH fan. What would you do? Watch the last 15 of another soap? GH was lagging in ratings, and they thought that putting it directly after OLTL would make people watch GH, thus heightening its ratings. Both shows switched to 60 minutes in 1978, putting together ABC's best lineup, imo, made up of "Ryan's Hope," followed by "All My Children," followed by "One Life to Live," followed by "General Hospital" and ending up with "The Edge of Night."


BRIAN SCOTT FONZ and JILL FARREN-PHELPS. need i say more?

Amen to that! Add Mr. Charles Pratt and Mr. Robert Guza to that list, also!

NBC-

Canceling "Another World" for crappola like "Passions" and "Sunset Beach".


Acutally, SuBe had been on the air for 2 1/2 years when AW ended and PSNS began. SuBe ended its run in December 1999. December 31, I believe.

Right now, I'd say USA Network has the latest bad decision by letting Bitty Shram leave "Monk."

Yeah i knew that Sunest Beach had been on for awhile, i was just making a general comment referring to the lack of quality in both PSNS and SunBe. Neither soap is ANYWHERE NEAR what "Another World" was in its 35 years on the air. NBC used to be unstoppable w/ Another World and Days Of Our Lives, but now they are nothing but a joke.

CBS moving the King of Queens from Monday night to Wednesday nights and putting the most insipid crap ever seen on TV, "Yes Dear," in it's place. "Two and a Half Men" blows, too.

What was CBS thinking? :confused:

And the only show I like on Fox is "King of the Hill," never got much into the Simpsons (which has run it's course and then some).

NBC for cancelling Adam-12 and adding cousin Pam to The Cosby
Show in its seventh season. And ABC for cancelling Battlestar
Galactica and fooling around with Mork & Mindy and dropping
the original Who Wants To Be A Millionaire with Regis Philbin. And
CBS gets honorable mention for attempting to revive All In The
Family without the original stars.

when did CBS attempt to revive "All in the Family"?

Originally posted by treky
when did CBS attempt to revive "All in the Family"?
There was "704 Hauser", a short lived 1994 sitcom set in the old Bunker house, this time occupied by an African American family.

Originally posted by TJL
There was "704 Hauser", a short lived 1994 sitcom set in the old Bunker house, this time occupied by an African American family.

I would really like to see that.
If it had premiered today, rather than a decade ago, Im sure it wouldve gone much better.

Originally posted by TJL
There was "704 Hauser", a short lived 1994 sitcom set in the old Bunker house, this time occupied by an African American family. I liked that show. It wasn't near as good as AITF but it was good.