Zoneboy
11-26-2008, 04:39 AM
Link (http://www.cleveland.com/tv/index.ssf/2008/11/comedy_series_losing_viewers_a.html)
So what are you laughing at? Well, according to the ratings supplied each week by Nielsen Media Research, you're not finding much of anything that tickles the old funny bone.
The 2008-09 season is about 2 months old, and only one comedy, "Desperate Housewives," is in the top 10. Although filmed on the same Universal Studios back-lot street that was home to "Leave It to Beaver" and "The Munsters," ABC's soapy and satirical series is far removed from the classic half-hour sitcom form that prospered in the prime-time neighborhood for so many years.
So what is America watching? That's easy. Three genres rule the ratings roost: procedural crime dramas (led by No. 1 in total viewers "C.S.I." and accounting for 10 of the top 25), reality shows (led by No. 2 "Dancing With the Stars" and accounting for six of the top 25) and medical dramas (with both "Grey's Anatomy" and "House" making the top 15).
Do the math. Take away these three genres, and 18 of America's 25 top-rated shows disappear. Where does that leave the sitcom?
There's just one half-hour comedy in the top 25, Charlie Sheen's "Two and a Half Men." It's the only ratings bright spot for a form that, up to six years ago, was a constant and substantial part of the nation's television diet.
Compare the current state of comedy to the 1988-89 season, when eight of the top 10 shows were half-hour comedies. Comedy was king, all right, placing a staggering 16 shows among the top 25 that season.
Twenty seasons later, comedy hasn't merely abdicated its prime-time crown. It has gone into exile.
You can't even make the excuse that the 1988-89 season was some kind of comedic aberration in the history of television. Seven of the top 10 shows for the 1962-63 season were sitcoms; nine of the top 10 for the 1978-79 season; and eight of the top 10 for the 1991-92 season.
The country's love affair with the sitcom blossomed during the 1952-53 season, when "I Love Lucy" claimed viewers' hearts and the No. 1 spot. It was the first sitcom -- filmed on a soundstage using three cameras and a live audience -- to accomplish this. "Friends," No. 1 for the 2001-02 season, was the last.
Those two victories span 50 television seasons, and a sitcom was the No. 1 show for 24 of them. But there's nothing funny about the numbers being posted by half-hour comedies during the last few seasons.
Is the sitcom dead? Or is it just comatose, waiting to snap back to consciousness and vitality?
A genre that needs a shaking up?
"It's a tough form," said writer-comedian Larry Wilmore, an Emmy winner and a regular on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." "I think a lot of it could be generational. Some people, with the three-camera sitcom, it's just not their visual language or whatever, and you've just got to keep shaking it up."
There are plenty of writers and producers, like Wilmore, shaking up the TV notion of comedy. You can find comedy all over the television landscape. You can't find sitcoms.
Even NBC's acclaimed half-hour Thursday comedies, "30 Rock" and "The Office," don't qualify as traditional sitcoms (not using the three-camera, live audience method).
But TV historian Earle Marsh, co-author of "The Complete Guide to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows," believes the sitcom is only one hit show away from a lightning comeback.
"Nothing in television is ever dead," said Marsh, a Cleveland Heights native. "It's a cyclical business. Remember, in 1984 the prime-time soap was king, and everybody was saying the sitcom was dead. Along came 'The Cosby Show,' and the sitcom was king again."
True, but the season before "Cosby" premiered, there still were seven sitcoms in the top 25. The reports of the sitcom's death were greatly exaggerated in 1984. There also hadn't been a disruption in a mentoring system that had been working since the radio comedies of the 1930s. Young comedy writers learned their craft from veteran producers. Carl Reiner ("The Dick Van Dyke Show") helped to guide Garry Marshall, who went on to produce "The Odd Couple," "Happy Days" and "Laverne & Shirley."
"It's harder for writers to get established and sell scripts," Marsh said. "And this has been a long drought, but you'll see a breakthrough sitcom, and then everyone will copy it."
A lack of creative confidence
Wilmore agrees that the sitcom will come back, but America and the networks might first need to become disenchanted with the supercheap reality shows.
"Both Jimmy Burrows, the pre-eminent director of sitcoms, and Garry Marshall pointed to reality shows and said, 'For some reason, people would rather laugh at their neighbor in a crazy situation than at a fictional character like a Jackie Gleason-type,' " said Michael Kantor, the writer, producer and director of "Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America," a documentary PBS will premiere in January.
"I think a lot of confidence has left the creative space," said Kevin Reilly, president of Fox's entertainment division. "I see really talented people coming in very skittish, not knowing what to pitch, what to sell. I see executives trying to figure out where is that nerve to hit. I'll tell you one thing we're doing, which just sounds silly, but we've agreed we're not going to take comedy pitches in our office. We're going out to meet the writers on their turf. . . .We've got to do anything to mix it up."
It makes good business sense, too. While reality shows post big one-time ratings, they don't offer back-end profits through repeats, merchandising, syndication, foreign sales, cable runs, foreign distribution and DVD sales.
"Look at 'Seinfeld,' " Marsh said. "Nothing has longer legs than a sitcom, because you can watch the same episode over and over. A hit sitcom is the gift that keeps giving."
So what are you laughing at? Well, according to the ratings supplied each week by Nielsen Media Research, you're not finding much of anything that tickles the old funny bone.
The 2008-09 season is about 2 months old, and only one comedy, "Desperate Housewives," is in the top 10. Although filmed on the same Universal Studios back-lot street that was home to "Leave It to Beaver" and "The Munsters," ABC's soapy and satirical series is far removed from the classic half-hour sitcom form that prospered in the prime-time neighborhood for so many years.
So what is America watching? That's easy. Three genres rule the ratings roost: procedural crime dramas (led by No. 1 in total viewers "C.S.I." and accounting for 10 of the top 25), reality shows (led by No. 2 "Dancing With the Stars" and accounting for six of the top 25) and medical dramas (with both "Grey's Anatomy" and "House" making the top 15).
Do the math. Take away these three genres, and 18 of America's 25 top-rated shows disappear. Where does that leave the sitcom?
There's just one half-hour comedy in the top 25, Charlie Sheen's "Two and a Half Men." It's the only ratings bright spot for a form that, up to six years ago, was a constant and substantial part of the nation's television diet.
Compare the current state of comedy to the 1988-89 season, when eight of the top 10 shows were half-hour comedies. Comedy was king, all right, placing a staggering 16 shows among the top 25 that season.
Twenty seasons later, comedy hasn't merely abdicated its prime-time crown. It has gone into exile.
You can't even make the excuse that the 1988-89 season was some kind of comedic aberration in the history of television. Seven of the top 10 shows for the 1962-63 season were sitcoms; nine of the top 10 for the 1978-79 season; and eight of the top 10 for the 1991-92 season.
The country's love affair with the sitcom blossomed during the 1952-53 season, when "I Love Lucy" claimed viewers' hearts and the No. 1 spot. It was the first sitcom -- filmed on a soundstage using three cameras and a live audience -- to accomplish this. "Friends," No. 1 for the 2001-02 season, was the last.
Those two victories span 50 television seasons, and a sitcom was the No. 1 show for 24 of them. But there's nothing funny about the numbers being posted by half-hour comedies during the last few seasons.
Is the sitcom dead? Or is it just comatose, waiting to snap back to consciousness and vitality?
A genre that needs a shaking up?
"It's a tough form," said writer-comedian Larry Wilmore, an Emmy winner and a regular on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." "I think a lot of it could be generational. Some people, with the three-camera sitcom, it's just not their visual language or whatever, and you've just got to keep shaking it up."
There are plenty of writers and producers, like Wilmore, shaking up the TV notion of comedy. You can find comedy all over the television landscape. You can't find sitcoms.
Even NBC's acclaimed half-hour Thursday comedies, "30 Rock" and "The Office," don't qualify as traditional sitcoms (not using the three-camera, live audience method).
But TV historian Earle Marsh, co-author of "The Complete Guide to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows," believes the sitcom is only one hit show away from a lightning comeback.
"Nothing in television is ever dead," said Marsh, a Cleveland Heights native. "It's a cyclical business. Remember, in 1984 the prime-time soap was king, and everybody was saying the sitcom was dead. Along came 'The Cosby Show,' and the sitcom was king again."
True, but the season before "Cosby" premiered, there still were seven sitcoms in the top 25. The reports of the sitcom's death were greatly exaggerated in 1984. There also hadn't been a disruption in a mentoring system that had been working since the radio comedies of the 1930s. Young comedy writers learned their craft from veteran producers. Carl Reiner ("The Dick Van Dyke Show") helped to guide Garry Marshall, who went on to produce "The Odd Couple," "Happy Days" and "Laverne & Shirley."
"It's harder for writers to get established and sell scripts," Marsh said. "And this has been a long drought, but you'll see a breakthrough sitcom, and then everyone will copy it."
A lack of creative confidence
Wilmore agrees that the sitcom will come back, but America and the networks might first need to become disenchanted with the supercheap reality shows.
"Both Jimmy Burrows, the pre-eminent director of sitcoms, and Garry Marshall pointed to reality shows and said, 'For some reason, people would rather laugh at their neighbor in a crazy situation than at a fictional character like a Jackie Gleason-type,' " said Michael Kantor, the writer, producer and director of "Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America," a documentary PBS will premiere in January.
"I think a lot of confidence has left the creative space," said Kevin Reilly, president of Fox's entertainment division. "I see really talented people coming in very skittish, not knowing what to pitch, what to sell. I see executives trying to figure out where is that nerve to hit. I'll tell you one thing we're doing, which just sounds silly, but we've agreed we're not going to take comedy pitches in our office. We're going out to meet the writers on their turf. . . .We've got to do anything to mix it up."
It makes good business sense, too. While reality shows post big one-time ratings, they don't offer back-end profits through repeats, merchandising, syndication, foreign sales, cable runs, foreign distribution and DVD sales.
"Look at 'Seinfeld,' " Marsh said. "Nothing has longer legs than a sitcom, because you can watch the same episode over and over. A hit sitcom is the gift that keeps giving."