One of the biggest screw-ups involving CBS that first and foremost comes to my mind is allowing the NFL to leave (after being on CBS for 38 years) for the upstart Fox network in late 1993. This gave Fox a ton and I mean a ton of credibility and severely crippled CBS for the mid-part of the '90s at least. Without the NFL, it became much harder for CBS to promote their shows. More to the point, CBS' affiliates who were wary w/o the NFL for the foreseeable future moved over to Fox beginning in 1994.

When Viacom owned CBS.

It may have helped CBS with "Survivor", but when there came a buttload of Reality Shows...it became a hindrance!

Getting rid of every show with a tree in it. ;)

When Viacom owned CBS.

I'm not really on the up and up that I wouldn't see how a small entity like Viacom can affect CBS, I just remember seeing the Viacom logos on several sitcoms.

When Les Moonves took over as president of the network. Among his crimes were cancelling one of my favorite new shows (Christy) and putting his wife on one of those millions of reality shows (Julie Chen - Big Brother) and one of the million pointless talk shows (The Talk).

When they moved Murder She Wrote from its Sunday timeslot where it was doing really well in the ratings to Thursdays up against NBC's Friends. The show's ratings plummeted and eventually it was gone. I think this may have been around the time CBS was tired of being known as "the old people network."

Angela Lansbury, of course, is still going strong. I bet she could still play the heck out of Jessica Fletcher today. :cool: :D

Angela Lansbury, of course, is still going strong. I bet she could still play the heck out of Jessica Fletcher today. :cool: :D
I think a "Murder, She Wrote" reunion movie is something we're all hoping for! It would truly make my day! It would be ideal for Hallmark channel to produce and air.

Murder, She Wrote is still going strong with a series of novels. The writer, Donald Bain, does a great job with Jessica's character and they're a lot of fun to read. But I would love a reunion movie too!

When Les Moonves took over as president of the network. Among his crimes were cancelling one of my favorite new shows (Christy) and putting his wife on one of those millions of reality shows (Julie Chen - Big Brother) and one of the million pointless talk shows (The Talk).

You can not like Les Moonves, but he has been the best thing to happen to CBS. He joined CBS when it was mired in third place and has taken it to consistent ratings wins in viewers and now the demo as well

canceling all there rural sitcoms

not canceling "Big Brother"

letting "Two and a Half Men" last as long as it did

foisting "All in the Family" on the American public

canceling "Joan of Arcadia" after just two seasons

not canceling TWO AND A HALF MEN when Charlie sheen was fired.
canceling C.S.I.: NEW YORK.

I think a "Murder, She Wrote" reunion movie is something we're all hoping for! It would truly make my day! It would be ideal for Hallmark channel to produce and air.

They should do it!! I'd watch!! :cool: :D

CBS is my personal least favorite of the big 4 networks, but I can't really think of any big mistakes they've made in recent years. They're a pretty tightly run ship.

The one misstep I can think of is moving 2 Broke Girls to the Monday anchor slot before it was ready, which weakened the entire line-up. But that earned them a stronger Thursday line-up with Big Bang/Two and a Half Men, so...

Getting rid of every show with a tree in it. ;)

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ScrewedByTheNetwork/LiveActionTV

•CBS notoriously did this to an entire genre of television programs. From 1970-72, in what would later be called "The Rural Purge", the network cancelled most of their sitcoms and dramas focusing on country life or country folks living in the city. Petticoat Junction, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Mayberry RFD, Lassie, and Hee Haw were among the shows that got their pink slips during this period, as well as The Ed Sullivan Show; Pat Buttram (Mr. Haney on Green Acres) famously said 1971 was "the year CBS killed everything with a tree in it". Networks began to move away from rural settings to more modern shows set in suburbia and aimed at a younger demographic, such as The Brady Bunch over at ABC. In CBS' defense, their new shows such as All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mash, The Bob Newhart Show, Maude, Good Times, One Day At A Time, and The Jeffersons were all successful, often wildly so, with critics and audiences.

◦Essentially, this bookends NBC's cancellation of Star Trek — Nielsen's demographic breakdowns of a show's ratings had become more specific between 1969 and 1971, thus if Trek's early demise (good demos but low overall ratings) was the before, the 1971 CBS Rural Purge (of shows with good overall numbers but lousy 18-to-49 ones) was the after.

◦Similarly, in 1979 CBS canned Wonder Woman and The Amazing Spider-Man while never going forward on the Doctor Strange and Captain America pilots...not because their ratings were poor, but because CBS didn't want to be seen as "The Super Hero Network". Only The Incredible Hulk survived.

Here's perhaps a slightly more damning mess up that CBS made:
Gilligan's Island, despite having decent ratings, was cancelled because one CBS executive hated the premise and wanted to give its timeslot to Gunsmoke, which was the show that originally was going to be cancelled. Luckily for James Arness, the exec's wife was a fan of the western show.

◦This came back to bite the network on the ass. Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of the show, was so angry at CBS that he vowed not to work for it again. The next show he created ran on ABC, which you may be familiar with.

◦Arguably, both sides got something out of this. Gunsmoke ran for 20 seasons, more than twice the running time of Gilligan/BB combined. However, Brady and Gilligan became two of the most syndicated shows of all time. Alongside spin-offs, reunion movies, and the 1990s Brady films that were a good-natured parody and deconstruction of the series, in the long run Gilligan/Brady have been much more successful.

I'll also add CBS' treatment of WKRP... w/ them never really giving it a stable time-slot. After WKRP... was finally canceled in 1982, it went on to become a huge success in syndication (in a sense, the Star Trek of sitcoms).

When they moved Murder She Wrote from its Sunday timeslot where it was doing really well in the ratings to Thursdays up against NBC's Friends. The show's ratings plummeted and eventually it was gone. I think this may have been around the time CBS was tired of being known as "the old people network."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder,_She_Wrote#Ending

In August 1988, the series was expected to end in June 1990, because Lansbury expressed that she was weary of her commitment. Nevertheless, Lansbury would continue in the role. By the end of the 1994/95 season, Murder, She Wrote's 11th, Lansbury was content in continuing the series, although her advancing age became a concern (she had just turned 70). However, CBS effectively made the decision for her that fall. After spending 11 years on Sunday, the network's longest-running weekly series (at that time) was moved to Thursday nights at 8 p.m. This put the series in direct competition with the first hour of NBC's Must See TV lineup, which had been drawing the highest ratings of the week for any network for years. CBS cited that Murder, She Wrote was "skewing too old" in the ratings demographics, as—while the series was still successful, having just finished the 11th season as the eighth-most watched program on television—they were not gaining the valued 18–49 ratings demographic that is most desired among networks.

Despite protests of many of the show's fans (who believed CBS was intentionally setting the show up to fail in its new timeslot), CBS refused to budge on the new timeslot. Murder, She Wrote plummeted from eighth to 58th in the yearly ratings; the series lost nearly 6 million viewers as the audience was not willing to follow it to Thursday, which left CBS with little choice but to end Murder, She Wrote after 12 seasons in August 1996. To soften the blow, the network agreed to air four Murder, She Wrote movies over the next few years; the first was broadcast in 1997, with three more following in 2000, 2001, and 2003.[11] Lansbury stated in May 2011 that she would like to make a comeback appearance as Jessica Fletcher.[12]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DorkAge/TelevisionNetworks

•CBS went through a bad decade in The Nineties. For much of The Eighties, its shows had skewed much older than its competitors ABC, NBC and (starting in 1987) Fox, meaning that, while it was pulling in huge ratings from seniors and retirees with shows like Dallas and Murder, She Wrote, it wasn't hitting the lucrative 18-49 demographic that advertisers crave. This earned it the nickname "the network of the living dead", and by the early '90s they were relying on their weekend sports coverage to stay in the black.

You can guess how that went. In 1993, after CBS had already lost broadcast rights to NBA and MLB, Fox signed a contract with the NFL that gave them the exclusive rights to air NFC games, a move that firmly established Fox as America's fourth network but utterly devastated CBS. A common joke claimed that CBS stood for "Can't Broadcast Sports". This was followed by Fox's plundering of CBS' sportscasters and, in 1994, through a contract with New World Communications and its merger with Argyle Television, poaching CBS affiliates in such key markets as Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, Milwaukee and Detroitnote NWC would be purchased outright by News Corporation, Fox's parent company, in 1997., forcing CBS to move to lower-tier UHF stations in those and other citiesnote CBS was spared the UHF demotion in Dallas-Fort Worth but still had to move up the dial to Channel 11. CBS would start to recover in 2000 with the debut of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Survivor, its first mega-hits in a long while, and since then it's caught back up to Fox for the #1 spot on the Nielsen charts.

Speaking of CBS Sports, another boneheaded decision (since I've already mentioned them losing the NFL to Fox in 1994) was them spending about $1.2 billion on Major League Baseball (1990-1993) only to wind up losing approximately $500 million when the smoke was cleared.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ScrewedByTheNetwork/LiveActionTV



Here's perhaps a slightly more damning mess up that CBS made:


I'll also add CBS' treatment of WKRP... w/ them never really giving it a stable time-slot. After WKRP... was finally canceled in 1982, it went on to become a huge success in syndication (in a sense, the Star Trek of sitcoms).
They should have kept both Gilligan and Gunsmoke. I don't know if CBS considers it a mistake though. While Gilligan's did become a top hit in syndication, Gunsmoke thrived on CBS after this incident and remained a top 20 hit for most of the rest of the time it was on the air.

I was glad they cancelled all of that hick ****. How about them cancelling The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour because of their politics. Stupid move.

One of CBS's most popular shows is 60 Minutes. In the Mid to late 70s during Football Season people east of the Mississippi Creek (You'd call it a creek too after you saw the Amazon!:lol: ) would seldom see the entire show because of Game Overruns. (NBC did this to The Wonderful World of Disney irking those who wanted to that show as well. Heaven knows how many thousands of letters both networks received from irate viewers.

After they lost football CBS got desperate and tried to imitate FOX. This was around '95 when they moved Murder She Wrote to Thursdays to die opposite Friends and debuted the 'Melrose Place'-like 'Central Park West, and the 'Married With Children' clone 'Bless This House' with Andrew Dice Clay and Cathy Moriarity. The slogan was 'You're On,' they changed their on-air look. one was the iconic 'This is CBS' indents before the local breaks replaced with actor spots.

This effort was an epic fail and they tried to lure the old crowd back with the 'Welcome Home' slogan the following few years.

One Word: Dweebs. That show was a dud.

After they lost football CBS got desperate and tried to imitate FOX. This was around '95 when they moved Murder She Wrote to Thursdays to die opposite Friends and debuted the 'Melrose Place'-like 'Central Park West, and the 'Married With Children' clone 'Bless This House' with Andrew Dice Clay and Cathy Moriarity. The slogan was 'You're On,' they changed their on-air look. one was the iconic 'This is CBS' indents before the local breaks replaced with actor spots.

This effort was an epic fail and they tried to lure the old crowd back with the 'Welcome Home' slogan the following few years.

Exactly right. This is also around the time shows such as Public Morals (which last I think 1 episode) and Dweebs debuted, both of which were critically panned and got no ratings whatsoever.


I think it was a season or two later that CBS adopted the long-serving slogans "Welcome Home To A CBS Night" (sometimes shortened to just "Welcome Home") and "The Address Is CBS".


They wanted people to know that they realized the error of their ways and that they were going back to fare more typical of CBS.

what was PUBLIC MORALS and DWEEBS about? I don't remember either one.

After they lost football CBS got desperate and tried to imitate FOX. This was around '95 when they moved Murder She Wrote to Thursdays to die opposite Friends and debuted the 'Melrose Place'-like 'Central Park West, and the 'Married With Children' clone 'Bless This House' with Andrew Dice Clay and Cathy Moriarity. The slogan was 'You're On,' they changed their on-air look. one was the iconic 'This is CBS' indents before the local breaks replaced with actor spots.

This effort was an epic fail and they tried to lure the old crowd back with the 'Welcome Home' slogan the following few years.

If you want to be basic and upfront then CBS really slid into irrelevance during a good portion of the '90s was because they were seriously mismanaged (http://danielcooper.typepad.com/mediola/2003/11/larry_tisch_die.html) by Laurence Tisch (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-0xGqanotHIJ:https://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/T/htmlT/tischlauren/tischlauren.htm+cbs+laurence+tisch+nfl&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) (who loved to cut costs whenever he saw fit), who was the chairman from 1986-95.

If you want to be basic and upfront then CBS really slid into irrelevance during a good portion of the '90s was because they were seriously mismanaged (http://danielcooper.typepad.com/mediola/2003/11/larry_tisch_die.html) by Laurence Tisch (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-0xGqanotHIJ:https://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/T/htmlT/tischlauren/tischlauren.htm+cbs+laurence+tisch+nfl&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) (who loved to cut costs whenever he saw fit), who was the chairman from 1986-95.he also fired bud grant who was still doing a decent job as head of programing and replaced him with kim lemasters who was probably the second worst entertainment head of any network ever theonly progamer who was worse than lemasters imho was jeff zucker of nbc

moving WKRP IN CINCINNATI around so much then cancelling it.

what was PUBLIC MORALS and DWEEBS about? I don't remember either one.


Public Morals was a sitcom set in a police station, in of all places, the vice squad. It was from Steven Bococho , the creator of NYPD Blue. It was controversial from the start because it featured a scene with a male character in drag. In 1995 this was a controversial idea. The show was panned by critics and cancelled after a single airing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Morals_%28TV_Series%29


and "Dweebs" was a sitcom about nerds working at a software company. Peter Scolari and Corey Feldman were among the stars. Farrah Forke who would later go onto fame on the sitcom "Wings" (as Alex) was the female star of the show. Most of the comedy was about the male characters being intelligent but socially awkward, especially around the character Forke played. It was universally panned by critics and was one of the biggest disasters of the 1995 season.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dweebs_%28TV_series%29

Another bad move by CBS was in 1967 when Fred Silverman began cancelling all the prime time as well as the daytime game shows. The first to get the ax was I've Got a Secret, followed by the prime time To Tell the Truth and What's My Line?. He also made the big mistake of purging the network's successful word game Password and the daytime To Tell the Truth.

As a result of all the cancellations and Silverman's dislike of game shows, the network went four years without a new game show until July 1972 when the short-lived The Amateur's Guide to Love debuted. Although the show was a bust, the network had a new daytime VP Bud Grant (not the Vikings coach) and in September, he brought The Joker's Wild, Gambit and a show that's still on the air today as the first and only hour long daytime game show The Price is Right.

The success of the morning block paved the way for more new games, including The $10,000 Pyramid, Match Game and Tattletales.

Public Morals was a sitcom set in a police station, in of all places, the vice squad. It was from Steven Bococho , the creator of NYPD Blue. It was controversial from the start because it featured a scene with a male character in drag. In 1995 this was a controversial idea. The show was panned by critics and cancelled after a single airing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Morals_%28TV_Series%29


and "Dweebs" was a sitcom about nerds working at a software company. Peter Scolari and Corey Feldman were among the stars. Farrah Forke who would later go onto fame on the sitcom "Wings" (as Alex) was the female star of the show. Most of the comedy was about the male characters being intelligent but socially awkward, especially around the character Forke played. It was universally panned by critics and was one of the biggest disasters of the 1995 season.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dweebs_%28TV_series%29

I find it odd that a sitcom featuring a scene w/ a man in drag would be considered controversial given that we had a whole show built around that sort of premise in Bosom Buddies at least 10 years prior.

Dweebs appears to have been sort of a proto, '90s version of The Big Bang Theory.

I find it odd that a sitcom featuring a scene w/ a man in drag would be considered controversial given that we had a whole show built around that sort of premise in Bosom Buddies at least 10 years prior.

Dweebs appears to have been sort of a proto, '90s version of The Big Bang Theory.


Ahead of its time in that regard. I don't remember how many episodes aired but I remember watching at least two episodes and it wasn't bad. Of course, the main thing the show had going for it was the hotness of Farah Forke. Heck, that's the main reason I probably watched. It was up against TGIF on Fridays IIRC.

I have two of them:

1.) Killing that Evan Cortez character from Nash Bridges' 100th episode in the wrong time before his marriage to Cassidy. It turns out that actor Jamie Gomez, who played Evan, was turned down too quick before he left Nash Bridges too soon for no reason at all.

2.) Making Martial Law sitcom become dependent on Walker Texas Ranger sitcom by helping WTR actor Chuck Norris' struggling acting career and return to the movies. Martial Law is more of an independent sitcom that Walker Texas Ranger.

I have two of them:

1.) Killing that Evan Cortez character from Nash Bridges' 100th episode in the wrong time before his marriage to Cassidy. It turns out that actor Jamie Gomez, who played Evan, was turned down too quick before he left Nash Bridges too soon for no reason at all.

2.) Making Martial Law sitcom become dependent on Walker Texas Ranger sitcom by helping WTR actor Chuck Norris' struggling acting career and return to the movies. Martial Law is more of an independent sitcom that Walker Texas Ranger.

I woudn't consider the first "mess-up" that you listed to be a specfically CBS network related "mess-up" per se. If you're going to go that route, then we'll be here a long time listing all of the biggest mistakes that CBS' shows made on their own instead of the network as a whole.

canceling all there rural sitcoms

The Rural Purge: The Year CBS Gave the Finger to Its Most Loyal Viewers (http://voices.yahoo.com/the-rural-purge-year-cbs-gave-finger-its-1441231.html)

I don't necessarily agree w/ the writer's statement that the "rural purge" was the biggest mistake that CBS ever made. I will still contend that letting the NFL package go to Fox in 1994 was even worse. Without the NFL, CBS had a much harder time finding a platform to promote their shows. Remember back in the day when Pat Summerall (RIP) would say towards the end of the late afternoon games on CBS in his baritone voice "Stay tuned for 60 Minutes followed by Murder...She Wrote!"? Also, as I said prior, they lost many key affiliates to Fox. It was sports that I think really kept CBS in the black since they for the longest time had a harder time attracting worthy advertisers (who tend to target the 18-34 demographic) due to their perception of being the "old folks network".

The Rural Purge: The Year CBS Gave the Finger to Its Most Loyal Viewers (http://voices.yahoo.com/the-rural-purge-year-cbs-gave-finger-its-1441231.html)

I don't necessarily agree w/ the writer's statement that the "rural purge" was the biggest mistake that CBS ever made. I will still contend that letting the NFL package go to Fox in 1994 was even worse. Without the NFL, CBS had a much harder time finding a platform to promote their shows. Remember back in the day when Pat Summerall (RIP) would say towards the end of the late afternoon games on CBS in his baritone voice "Stay tuned for 60 Minutes followed by Murder...She Wrote!"? Also, as I said prior, they lost many key affiliates to Fox. It was sports that I think really kept CBS in the black since they for the longest time had a harder time attracting worthy advertisers (who tend to target the 18-34 demographic) due to their perception of being the "old folks network".
yea well, I'm not into sports.

And who's Pat Summerall?

yea well, I'm not into sports.

And who's Pat Summerall?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Summerall

I find it odd that a sitcom featuring a scene w/ a man in drag would be considered controversial given that we had a whole show built around that sort of premise in Bosom Buddies at least 10 years prior.



I think the difference is that Bosom Buddies was played for comical effect and was seen as innocent and light in nature. Public Morals was a bit more raunchy, and the use of drag in that show was done in a more raunchy manner.

I have two of them:



2.) Making Martial Law sitcom become dependent on Walker Texas Ranger sitcom by helping WTR actor Chuck Norris' struggling acting career and return to the movies. Martial Law is more of an independent sitcom that Walker Texas Ranger.

I don't understand this one. Martial Law and WTR are both dramas and neither one is a sitcom. and I don't get what you mean by "making Martial Law dependent on WTR".

I have to agree about CBS losing the NFL. That was such a huge blow and it took CBS years to recover. I posted a thread about "The Rural Purge" and I think if a show is popular there's no way you should cancel it.

As for Les Moonves. Facts are facts. He came in and with the help of shows like Survivor, I believe its the number 1 network on television. And btw, anytime I could see Julie Chen is a plus for me. :D

he also fired bud grant who was still doing a decent job as head of programing and replaced him with kim lemasters who was probably the second worst entertainment head of any network ever theonly progamer who was worse than lemasters imho was jeff zucker of nbc

For the sake of the argument, here's an examination of Kim LeMasters' regime at CBS (http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/kim-lemasters):
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/01/arts/entertainment-chief-quits-at-last-place-cbs.html

As the chief programmer for the network, Mr. LeMasters made the key decisions on the selection of prime-time shows and their scheduling for the last two years. The network has been last in the ratings throughout Mr. LeMasters tenure as president of entertainment and has not added a significant hit program in five years. No new CBS series has regularly placed in the weekly Nielson top-10 list since ''Murder, She Wrote'' was added to the schedule in 1984

In addition, the network has continued to be unsuccessful in attracting the younger viewers most sought by advertisers. The audience for CBS programs is dominated by viewers over 50.

The network made some improvement in the early hours of its prime-time schedule this fall, and this was one of Mr. LeMasters's stated goals. He said yesterday that he believed CBS had strengthened its programming at 8 P.M. on three nights. They Came. They Saw. They Left. But much of CBS's improvement came in the early weeks of the season after an expensive promotional campaign. CBS's programs have lost ground since September, and three have already been removed from the schedule.

For the sake of the argument, here's an examination of Kim LeMasters' regime at CBS (http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/kim-lemasters):thaks for posting the articles they were both interesting and pretty much right on the money

canceling all there rural sitcoms

:clap

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ScrewedByTheNetwork/LiveActionTV

CBS notoriously did this to an entire genre of television programs. From 1970-72, in what would later be called "The Rural Purge", the network cancelled most of their sitcoms and dramas focusing on country life or country folks living in the city. Petticoat Junction, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Mayberry RFD, Lassie, and Hee Haw were among the shows that got their pink slips during this period, as well as The Ed Sullivan Show; Pat Buttram (Mr. Haney on Green Acres) famously said 1971 was "the year CBS killed everything with a tree in it". Networks began to move away from rural settings to more modern shows set in suburbia and aimed at a younger demographic, such as The Brady Bunch over at ABC. In CBS' defense, their new shows such as All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mash, The Bob Newhart Show, Maude, Good Times, One Day At A Time, and The Jeffersons were all successful, often wildly so, with critics and audiences.

Essentially, this bookends NBC's cancellation of Star Trek — Nielsen's demographic breakdowns of a show's ratings had become more specific between 1969 and 1971, thus if Trek's early demise (good demos but low overall ratings) was the before, the 1971 CBS Rural Purge (of shows with good overall numbers but lousy 18-to-49 ones) was the after.

Similarly, in 1979 CBS canned Wonder Woman and The Amazing Spider-Man while never going forward on the Doctor Strange and Captain America pilots...not because their ratings were poor, but because CBS didn't want to be seen as "The Super Hero Network". Only The Incredible Hulk survived.

The CBS Prime Time Soap 2000 Malibu Road was canned after just six episodes... but not over ratings, which were quite fine — it was because Aaron Spelling didn't want it competing against another of his shows.

American Gothic premiered at 10:00 PM on Fridays, a fairly-good timeslot. There was plenty of press, promotions, a lot of hype. The show aired, got rave reviews from critics and fans alike...and then, for no apparent reason, scheduling issues began cropping up. Whether the executives in charge at CBS changed and wished to do away with the success of their predecessors (though CBS was transitioning from the disastrous cheapskate Tisch era of the network to Westinghouse ownership; the final-year Tisch era had left a FOX-lite schedule with post-NFL transition disasters such as an Andrew Dice Clay sitcom where he plays a family man, Bless This House, and Central Park West with the new owners), didn't understand how good a thing they had, or didn't understand the show at all, all sorts of problems began plaguing the show. It would be preempted; there would be no episode shown, something else randomly stuck on in its place with no explanation; there would be gaps of several weeks between new episodes, sometimes filled by reruns but usually not; episodes were shown out of order, or never aired at all. Then, without warning, the show was completely yanked from the line-up and vanished for many months. Granted, the show was unusual, not for everyone, and very different from most of CBS' usual fare, but with so many praising it for its daring and disturbing nature, you'd think they'd have gotten a clue. Luckily, the creators knew long enough ahead of time that the plug was being pulled and managed to wrap up the main plot points, but even these final episodes were withheld for a long time before being suddenly plunked on TV one right after another as a three-hour movie "event".

Central Park West is an interesting case. The show was originally a way for CBS to bounce back after their disastrous 1994-95 season. The network threw their entire marketing clout behind the show, which was touted as the hottest and sexiest drama to ever air on a network, and bolstered it with a massive advertising campaign - huge banners on buildings, bus advertisements, commercials, you name it. For a reason only known to the executives, CPW's first two episodes were scheduled against anniversary episodes of the two biggest prime time soap operas airing at that time (Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place). It also had to deal with the big affiliate shuffle in the wake of the FOX/NFL deal, where the new CBS stations just wanted to make sure viewers knew where they were on the dial first before getting into things such as network promotion. The show was trounced in the ratings, which would've led to its cancellation had CBS not already invested so much money into the program (roughly $13-15 million for the first season alone).

The show was continually pre-empted, aired on different days (which led to its being trounced by Party of Five) and then taken off the network while the show was Retooled. When it came back, half the cast was gone and the show's theme was changed to a Dynasty-esque clone. However, it didn't last even a handful of episodes before CBS pulled the plug for good.

When Due South first premiered on CBS in 1994, it produced higher-than-expected ratings for the network (and for the CTV network in Canada). Because one of the CBS executives who endorsed the series was fired, the show was canceled. Then, after CBS' Fall lineup became DOA, the show was brought back again. After several months of beating Friends(!), the show was canned once more. This came after a press release praising the show's critical acclaim. It's a good thing the series was then picked up by Canadian and foreign investors.

The US Eleventh Hour had consistently good ratings, but was cancelled by CBS because it essentially didn't get the ratings of its lead-in CSI.

Family Matters, at the very end of its run, was a victim of this. After declining ratings, the series was silently moved from ABC to CBS for its last season, where ratings became almost non-existent. Adding insult to injury, the final episodes aired during Summer 1998 (when TV viewership was typically down due to between-season reruns) and the Grand Finale received little promotion or recognition from CBS. The fact that it aired just a couple months after the Seinfeld finale probably didn't help matters.

It's also an example of an actress getting screwed over by the network. Jaimee Foxworth was inexplicably written off after Season 4 after demanding more money and a larger role for her part. The rest, they say, is history.

Gilligan's Island, despite having decent ratings, was cancelled because one CBS executive hated the premise and wanted to give its timeslot to Gunsmoke, which was the show that originally was going to be cancelled. Luckily for James Arness, the exec's wife was a fan of the western show.

This came back to bite the network on the ass. Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of the show, was so angry at CBS that he vowed not to work for it again. The next show he created ran on ABC, which you may be familiar with.
Arguably, both sides got something out of this. Gunsmoke ran for 20 seasons, more than twice the running time of Gilligan/BB combined. However, Brady and Gilligan became two of the most syndicated shows of all time. Alongside spin-offs, reunion movies, and the 1990s Brady films that were a good-natured parody and deconstruction of the series, in the long run Gilligan/Brady have been much more successful.

The success of The Jeffersons notwithstanding, CBS still chose to cancel it two weeks after the end of Season 12 (the longest run of any Norman Lear sitcom), leaving Sherman Hemsley to find out in his morning newspaper. They didn't even get to shoot a farewell episode, leaving it to the Series Finale of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to provide the needed closure, when Louise and George buy the house.

When Jericho got canceled the first time, CBS decided not to announce its impending doom until after the cliffhanger season finale aired (it made the nuts all the more necessary).

The only consolation prize from all of this was that the writers were prepared for an either-or situation (two different endings, both filmed) and that CBS informed them of their cancellation before airing the series finale. Notice how networks now are giving more of their serial dramas (and their fans) ample warning of likely cancellation before their season finale airs to give writers some time to wrap up major storylines. The Jericho fans may have been a major influence in this change, which would make this seem like a bittersweet victory for fans of quality TV storytelling.

The very short-lived 2012 lawyer series Made In Jersey was cancelled after only two episodes. A shame, since it had set out to undo some of the damage wreaked on the state's reputation by Jersey Shore by having the Jersey girl be the heroine instead of the butt of jokes, and by portraying New Jersey and its citizens in a favorable light instead of as cartoonish stereotypes. The New Jerseyans in the series were refreshingly portrayed as being just as noble as their brethren in New York, a nice change of pace from the usual Jersey-bashing fare put on TV by Hollywood and the New York media.

What really killed this one was the awful reviews and the Friday Night Death Slot. The show basically being a tourism ad for New Jersey only made things worse.

CBS screwed over The New Adventures of Old Christine in its last season by cancelling it despite it being their highest-rated show on Wednesday nights (it was pulling in 8 million viewers on average).

The short-lived series Now And Again was dropped into a Friday Night Death Slot with no lead-in whatsoever, despite its unique premise and high budget. While it initially did well (even defeating Chris Carter's lauded Harsh Realm in the ratings wars), CBS suddenly started to cut back on promoting the show in the spring and the ratings dropped as a result. According to cast members who spoke at conventions that summer, rumor has it that the show was being set up to fail due to internal politics and the CBS/Paramount/Viacom merger.

Unforgettable had Top 20 ratings and was first in its timeslot, but got almost no buzz at all and didn't do better than what The Good Wife did the previous season, so it was canceled at the end of the season...only to be Un-Canceled for a Summer run in 2013 upon CBS realizing Lifetime and TNT were kicking the tires of the show to bring it (and CBS "It Girl" Poppy Montgomery) to their network. The replacement show, the Period Piece Vegas, did no better and also ended up canceled for being popular, but not among anyone under 50.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ScrewedByTheNetwork/WesternAnimation

CBS screwed over its own cartoon lineup in 1994 with budget cuts, so it could have a live-action line-up to compete with TNBC (note that CBS was third place —even fourth sometimes— in ratings back then). It was really bad in the case of Garfield and Friends which was still going strong in the ratings after seven seasons, the show's creators were so outraged by the poor treatment that they decided to end the show rather then letting it suffer from budget cutbacks. For unknown reasons the planned live-action block never materialized, with a revamped cartoon block taking over.

Later on, in 1998, they had a block of Saturday Morning cartoons, The Early Show for two hours, then another two-hour cartoon block led off by Birdz. That show was the first to go, getting replaced in spring 1999 with a cartoon based on Fisher-Price's Rescue Heroes toys.

And when it screwed over Kewlopolis, all DiC cartoons including Strawberry Shortcake got the short stick. While most of the shows have already ended production and fully aired at least once when Kewlopolis got cancelled, Strawberry Shortcake had just finished airing it's third season on Kewlpolis and was about to air Season 4, the final season, when it got the boot. Adding to the complication was the four-way lawsuit between American Greetings, DiC, Cookie Jar, and Moonscoop over the franchise' ownership. Luckily tho, the DVD releases did not stop- and it became the only way Americans could watch the fourth season, which only wrapped up in 2012, 5 years after the series finale aired in Europe!

I wonder when CBS's Saturday Morning ratings started to fall, I remember they were number one for much of the late 80s and very early 90s, when FOX got the top spot. I'm pretty sure they out-ranked ABC in the early-90s. I have no idea how TNBC did by comparison to the cartoon line-ups.

CBS always was playing catch-up on saturdays, they had to have their own sat morning news show because Saturday Today was a success even though practically no one watched their mon-fri morning news show.

They shouldn't have cancelled Captain Kangaroo, that show was an institution. They should have continued to make room for it early Saturday Mornings before the cartoons began. Or at the very least air Captain Kangaroo in the place of CBS Storybreak.

WTR actor Chuck Norris' acting career is in danger and he needs Martial Law to support both his continuance on acting career and return to the movies.

I woudn't consider the first "mess-up" that you listed to be a specfically CBS network related "mess-up" per se. If you're going to go that route, then we'll be here a long time listing all of the biggest mistakes that CBS' shows made on their own instead of the network as a whole.

Now you do...

WTR actor Chuck Norris' acting career is in danger and he needs Martial Law to support both his continuance on acting career and return to the movies.

How exactly did Chuck Norris need Martial Law for support (and yes, I know that the shows crossed over at least once)!? Martial Law lasted two seasons on CBS (1998-2000), while WTR, I think, lasted 8 (1993-2001). And if anything, Chuck Norris pretty much went into semi-retirement (he's more known for being a meme than for his acting) sometime after the end of WTR.

How exactly did Chuck Norris need Martial Law for support (and yes, I know that the shows crossed over at least once)!? Martial Law lasted two seasons on CBS (1998-2000), while WTR, I think, lasted 8 (1993-2001). And if anything, Chuck Norris pretty much went into semi-retirement (he's more known for being a meme than for his acting) sometime after the end of WTR.

Chuck is supposed to be in the movies. But when people found out that he was brought from movies to this series WTR, there something's wrong with Chuck's bad acting style. During the WTR series, the show went bad.

I prefer Martial Law instead rather than WTR, but Martial Law is being dependent on trying support Chuck Norris' struggling and precarious acting career and return to the movies.


Martial Law should be more of an independent show instead, no offense, IMO.

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?476738-How-CBS-Went-from-Worst-to-First

Back a few years ago one CBS executive (it may have been Redstone or someone above him for Viacom) discussed how they had watched CBS guess completely wrong in the mid 1990's and tanked the network in record time. They discussed how one decision seemed to change the fortunes of everything at CBS and would later rebuild the network into the power house we see today .

You see I was watching a comedy special of Bill Cosby , the newest one. Cosby still has his gift for stories and can use things from his marriage and more to make people laugh. Its what led to his 1st real break out show and one that launched NBC to a power house back in the 1980's with the Cosby Show. His stand up delivered and Tartikoff (who was over NBC) saw the special and Johnny Carson appearance and told his wife...I gotta have that guy on my network NOW! That next day things were set in motion to make it happen.

But back in the mid 1990s, CBS had a disaster of a year or two. They had moved a strong ratings show in Murder She Wrote due to the old age demographic it lured on Sundays to a day no one would watch. Then the network decided that they need a complete youth revamp and did the following shows.


Central Park West
The Client
Can't Hurry Love
Bless This House
The Courthouse
New York News
Dweebs
The Bonnie Hunt Show
American Gothic

Almost 90% of these shows was to lure a young demographic with the biggest failure being Central Park West. That failure itself was considered the biggest blunder in that season by CBS who poured thousands into ads to sell the show. Yet it was the hardest year the network had and even its best comedy was showing its age (Murphy Brown , which would fall outta the top 30 after that season).

So who would save CBS ? Well read above when I discussed Bill Cosby. See CBS needed someone with a "NAME" to attract attention back to the network. To get people back and to apologize to the older audience for killing Murder , She Wrote that previous season. So he brought in Bill Cosby to do a traditional comedy show after 4 years away.

CBS executives were damn happy to have a guy like Cosby in their fold. Even if the show never rose to the #1 levels of his previous show, Cosby however as one executive claimed ...made older fans happy as well as affiliates, who were pissed. By the time the show was moved from Monday's , CBS had started its full comeback with Everybody Loves Raymond and King of Queens on Mondays.

But it all comes down to a decision here. CBS was at its lowest ebb in 1995. They were a lot like NBC. Yet they managed to crawl back and now are considered #1.

Martial Law was overchanged too fast, it needs to be rebooted in the future as a independent show.

They killed off the wrong character, Evan Cortez, in the 100th episode of Nash Bridges in the wrong time before his wedding with Cassidy.

Rural purge was mistake for CBS, but they always attracted more 50+ viewers from the beginning, does anyone know why CBS is old people network?

Mistakes:
- moving All in the Family to Monday, The Jeffersons weren't strong to lead the night and Saturday comedy block collapsed
- Rhoda and Joe's divorce
- Falcon Crest airing after Dallas far too long.

Nash bridges should have been renewed for 7th and 8th seasons, so Harvey should get writtened out properly at the end of season 7 and then Nash can retire at the end of season 8.

CBS passed on Law & Order. CBS was also too quick to cancel Airwolf, it should've stayed on Saturdays one more season instead of the Saturday Night Movie.

Wow this is a no brainer since I never watched CBS except for maybe Rescue 911 in the 90's and The Big Bang Theory.

But I think the mistake CBS has done is cater to old farts and sitcoms that drag on for too long, they also failed in trying to create their own family oriented Friday block in the 90's when they brought over Family Matters and Step By Step from ABC.

CBS passed on Law & Order. CBS was also too quick to cancel Airwolf, it should've stayed on Saturdays one more season instead of the Saturday Night Movie.

To play devil's advocate so to speak, wasn't Airwolf cancelled because it was getting too expensive to produce and Jan-Michael Vincent's substance abuse issues were getting to out of control?

Learned a lot from this thread, had no idea CBS gave birth to my love of FOX NFL coverage. FOX still exclusively shows NFC games, while currently CBS airs AFC games.

But I think the mistake CBS has done is cater to old farts and sitcoms that drag on for too long, they also failed in trying to create their own family oriented Friday block in the 90's when they brought over Family Matters and Step By Step from ABC.

Hey, that was one of their BEST decisions! I liked those shows!

Their biggest mistake, however, was not giving those two shows closure.

Wow this is a no brainer since I never watched CBS except for maybe Rescue 911 in the 90's and The Big Bang Theory.

But I think the mistake CBS has done is cater to old farts and sitcoms that drag on for too long, they also failed in trying to create their own family oriented Friday block in the 90's when they brought over Family Matters and Step By Step from ABC.

I want to say that CBS' attempt at having their own "TGIF" (dubbed the "Block Party") failed because #1, Step by Step and Family Matters (which were pretty much the linchpins of the whole thing) were already way past their primes by this point. And #2, when you're broadcasting pretty much, the exact same thing as your competitor, it's inevitable that you're going to split your audience right down the middle.

I want to say that CBS' attempt at having their own "TGIF" (dubbed the "Block Party") failed because #1, Step by Step and Family Matters (which were pretty much the linchpins of the whole thing) were already way past their primes by this point. And #2, when you're broadcasting pretty much, the exact same thing as your competitor, it's inevitable that you're going to split your audience right down the middle.

there were also few people under 50 watching CBS at the time, a lot of people just assumed FM and SBS were cancelled when they moved to CBS

WTR actor Chuck Norris' acting career is in danger and he needs Martial Law to support both his continuance on acting career and return to the movies.
I loved WTR. I enjoyed it till the end. Chuck Norris had a charm that made it last.

Chuck Norris was Walker, Samo Hung was Martial Law. Martial Law was awesome then got ruined by retooling in season 2, Walker got real stale real quick.

If they had left Martial Law alone, it would have lasted a few more years.

I was bummed when they canceled Early Edition . it was one of my favorite shows growing up they didn't even gave it an ending. I heard that they wonted to do reality shows that was it got canned . I enjoyed martial law I enjoyed the early edition and marital law cross over a lot.

I heard that CBS got the rights to air eight NFL games on Thursday nights at the beginning of the season. Can CBS relaly back themselves into a corner with this deal? Since it can affect premiere week and it means moving BBT to another night (like Monday or Wednesday), and delaying the premieres of other established shows to midseason, etc.

Less repeats starting in November, and starting BBT on Monday to give their Monday comedies a boost then moving back to Thursday in November.

I was a bit surprised that CBS got the package as well since they don't need it. I guess they were worried that ABC or NBC would get it and make a dent into their Thursday ratings.

Less repeats starting in November, and starting BBT on Monday to give their Monday comedies a boost then moving back to Thursday in November.

I was a bit surprised that CBS got the package as well since they don't need it. I guess they were worried that ABC or NBC would get it and make a dent into their Thursday ratings.i think it was stupid for cbs to buy a thursday nfl package when that fid not even need it:confused:

My father LOVED 60 Minutes. He was always home at 6 PM on Sunday for it to come on. More than likely, we would have dinner on the table when it was on (we would have a TV at the table, not on the table, but close enough) Sounds weird, but the voice of Morley Safer reminds me of food.

He also hates sports and especially football with a passion. He would get so worked up when he precious 60 Minutes was not on at 6 PM and he would have to wait for it to come on, he would actually whine and bitch like a child about it at the dinner table "How long is the GD football game going to be on....." A game might have three minutes left on the clock, but 3 minutes might be another 30 minutes if the game was close, and God help us if the game went into overtime!

I don't know, but 60 Minutes could have been scheduled later in the evening, or during football season, another night of the week.

-------------------------

The Rural Purge.

I don't think the Rural Purge was such a bad thing. Most of those classic TV shows were on the wane by 1971. All of them were losing viewers, the times have changed and the country was much more urbanized and younger. All In the Family, Bob Newhart, MTM Show, MASH, were more in tune with the 1970's.

Hillbillies and RFD were losing viewers by 1970. Ed Sullivan was an old relic of a bygone era. Out with the old, in with the new. Not all the older shows from the 1960's died out before the 70's classics began. Gunsmoke stuck around until 1975. Probably it could have lasted longer, but it was on over 20 years. Lucy had her last CBS show until '74.

CBS was the "old people network" in the 1990's and have turned that around too. Those shows also had good ratings, but were not watched by the main TV demographic

CBS is the clear champion of the four major networks. Abc was number one for a bit in the 1970's and NBC had their great run in the 1980's, but in TV overall CBS has kicked the pants off the other networks. Look at the ratings of shows in the 1960's. Around 1965, CBS had all 20 shows.

NBC also ruled the ratings in the 90s until CBS regained its' crown.

The Evan Cortez character was forcely killed off in the wrong time in Nash Bridges without a reason.

Martial Law second season was too overchanged because the show was trying to help WTR actor Chuck Norris 1) solve his precarious acting career and 1) return to the movies from where he left off.

I can't recall If I already posted this, but maybe not like "the biggest" mistake ever, but a big mistake was CBS underappreciating and undervaluing "The New Adventures of Old Christine".

that show was a decent, solid hit and they messed with it by moving it to Wed night, which frankly killed any momentum the show had built.

Constantly moving around WKRP in Cincinnati

Continuing two and a half men without Charlie Sheen

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ScrewedByTheNetwork/LiveActionTV



Here's perhaps a slightly more damning mess up that CBS made:


I'll also add CBS' treatment of WKRP... w/ them never really giving it a stable time-slot. After WKRP... was finally canceled in 1982, it went on to become a huge success in syndication (in a sense, the Star Trek of sitcoms).

They should have kept it on Monday nights.

Bringing Robin Williams back from movies to a TV series is obscene. He is doing well in movies, there's no way he should go backwards at all. If he still appears in this current TV sitcom, then he should continue appearing in current movies at the same time.

Bringing Robin Williams back from movies to a TV series is obscene. He is doing well in movies, there's no way he should go backwards at all. If he still appears in this current TV sitcom, then he should continue appearing in current movies at the same time.

Oh really...:rolleyes::
What the Hell Happened to Robin Williams? (http://lebeauleblog.com/2013/04/25/what-the-hell-happened-to-robin-williams/)

Accepting Thursday Night NFL games in it. ABC is a better fit to accept Thursday Night NFL games instead of CBS!

Accepting Thursday Night NFL games in it. ABC is a better fit to accept Thursday Night NFL games instead of CBS!I don't think so. CBS will easily win Thursday nights with football, it will increase their average for the week, and Monday nights will improve being anchored by Big Bang.

http://officialfan.proboards.com/thread/500105/cbs?page=2

Post by Wrong Swanson on 15 hours ago
Well, this should be easy...

-Comedy: every single comedy has an annoying ass laugh track, and they are mostly run by the insufferable Chuck Lorre. They don't try to be very clever at all, and they switch between poking fun at people and stereotypes worse than any comedy on air.

-Drama: procedural after procedural after procedural. The Good Wife is actually pretty decent and Person of Interest isn't bad, but NCIS/The Mentalist/CSI/Criminal Minds are just the same old crap over and over and over again. You would never see a show like Hannibal, Lost or even Sleepy Hollow on CBS at this point, which means they rarely take a risk.

Post by "The Immortal" Hawk Jefferson on 14 hours ago
The C stands for Chuck Lorre and he lost his shine a while ago. I liked the first few seasons of Two and a Half Men (known as Two and a Half Jokes at the Hawk's Nest) before it became "Charlie Sheen makes fun of his depressed brother and likely functionally ******** nephew."

Mike and Molly had a solid few seasons but this year they've revamped it for Molly to be every Melissa McCarthy character just cleaned up for TV. Meanwhile, other characters are just getting more mean spirited.

Big Bang Theory literally had a joke where Raj, Walowitz, Sheldon, and Leonard where in the comic book store, an attractive woman walked in, someone asked "Is she lost?" AND THAT WAS THE JOKE. That's basically their shtick and it's horrible.

On a non-Lorre note, most of their dramas are pretty cheesy and contrived (I will admit to loving Criminal Minds though) and the How I Met Your Mother finale rubbed most of us the wrong way entirely. Not to mention crap garbage like Two Broke Girls.

Post by shempaholic on 13 hours ago
I hate, hate, hate CBS sitcoms. Here's a typical scene from a CBS/Lorre sitcom: Character enters room. "Hello." Uproarious laughter. "Oh, hi there. How are you?" Uproarious laughter. "Fine." Uproarious laughter. Those awful laugh tracks make me want punch Chuck Lorre in the balls.

Now on the other hand, Person Of Interest is one of the best shows on television. The original CSI got a lot of life back in it with the addition of Ted Danson and Elisabeth Shue and is still a decent way to kill an hour.

Another mistake: Not giving a produced-in-house (former) top-tier show a proper "farewell season"/series finale. I feel that the original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation may be axed after this season (its 15th). Last Sunday's season finale hit a new series low: a 1.1 in the 18-49 demo with only 7 million total viewers. Sad. And it was up against the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special (which scored 24 million viewers and an 8 in the demo). Its Miami and NY spinoffs weren't "top tier", and they just didn't have as significant an impact as the original Las Vegas-based show. What if NCIS ended its original run without a proper farewell season/series finale?

Another mistake: Ordering to series some spinoffs of each of the Crime Scene Trifecta (CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds). NCIS: New Orleans may be a success, but I already decided to avoid watching CSI: Cyber because the original CSI is really in danger of cancellation (And I don't even bother watching NCIS: New Orleans, either).

Probably, CBS only give series finales to (usually top-tier) series produced by outside studios How I Met Your Mother (from 20th Century Fox TV), and Two and A Half Men and (surprisingly) The Mentalist (from Warner Bros. TV).

http://officialfan.proboards.com/thread/500105/cbs?page=2
I stopped watching the dramas.

The biggest mistakes that CBS made w/ their 1990-93 MLB coverage (at least in my estimation):
*Not hiring Vin Scully to be their lead play-by-play man. After NBC lost the MLB package to CBS following the 1989 season, Scully was for all intents and purposes, a "free agent". Scully of course, worked at CBS prior to joining NBC in 1983. Scully would've given CBS instant credibility (similar to when Fox hired Pat Summerall and John Madden to front their NFL coverage in 1994). I'm guessing that CBS wanted to put their own personal "thumbprint" and they that that Scully was too intertwined w/ NBC's coverage.

*Pairing Jack Buck together w/ Tim McCarver. As great of an announcer Jack Buck was in his own right, he just never fit or adapted as well it seemed like on TV. I don't know exactly whose fault it really was, but Buck and McCarver were arguably like "oil and water". I know that Jack Buck was a last minute replacement for Brent Musburger (and Buck and McCarver arguably didn't have enough time to develop a proper rhythm together), but Buck was perhaps too much of an "old school" type of announcer to really translate well to a modern TV audience.

*Overemphasizing Tim McCarver. McCarver during his prime, was arguably the best color commentator on TV (he and Tony Kubek were probably the first real "modern day" baseball color commentators on TV). The problem however, is that Tim McCarver (even back then) arguably had a bad habit of being too verbose and being over-analytical. McCarver was perhaps able to get away w/ that w/o much trouble at ABC because he was often on big games a paired w/ Al Michaels and Jim Palmer. But at CBS, they pretty much anticipated or expected him to be the main star, instead of the play-by-play man (this is in part, what got Jack Buck in trouble).

*Their non-consistent and erratic regular season scheduling (add to that that they broadcast even less regular season games than NBC did). CBS could literally go a whole month w/o broadcasting a baseball game because of their other sports commitments like golf. It became quite apparent that CBS lived and breathed for October so that they could have a better platform to promote their fall shows.

*Overpaying for the MLB package by about $500 million. 

McCarver was perhaps able to get away w/ that w/o much trouble at ABC because he was often on big games a paired w/ Al Michaels and Jim Palmer. 

That he was! I think that his biggest ABC assignment was that of the 1985 World Series between St. Louis and K.C. (I happen to have the DVD release of that, BTW).

NCIS needs one more spin-off as a fourth type or CSI needs one more spin-off as a fifth type instead!

That he was! I think that his biggest ABC assignment was that of the 1985 World Series between St. Louis and K.C. (I happen to have the DVD release of that, BTW).

That was the first World Series that Tim McCarver helped announce for TV. He was actually a last minute replacement in the booth for Howard Cosell. ABC removed Cosell because they weren't too happy about his book I Never Played the Game, which was highly critical of numerous colleagues at ABC Sports. If you ever get a chance to read Al Michaels' recent autobiography, he'll tell you that he was elated when ABC finally removed Cosell once and for all from their baseball broadcasts.

Hey, that was one of their BEST decisions! I liked those shows!

Their biggest mistake, however, was not giving those two shows closure.

Yup, that decision is way up there on my list of biggest mistakes CBS made. I respect Les Moonves to no end and admire the man..almost everything he's touched during his time there has ended up a smash hit. But for all that success the way he treated those two shows at the end was completely terrible. When he announced the CBS Friday Night Party Block at the Upfron in '97, everyone there was in complete surprise and shock...at the block created to try taking on ABC's TGIF but especially shocked he picked up both Family Matters and Step By Step for it. I remember he was very proud of that, and excited he got both shows. He said that day he was committed to giving the shows at least 2 more seasons each. You'd think with all that excitement and pride he'd keep the long runs and legacies of both shows in mind when he decided to cancel both but I guess not. I can respect the decision to cancel..the ratings for both shoes their final year were just about zero. But, when he made the cancellation decision for the shows he should absolutely have told the casts and crews in January, and allowed them both series finales with ample time to prepare good finales. The fans deserved that much. You do NOT let a show just end the way he let Family Matters end with that cliffhanger!! Sorry, his decision still has me upset almost 17 years lateThat was my last year of high school and I was busy with stuff so I only saw a few episodes of each that season. I wish I ciukd have supported them more :(

How did both sets of casts and crews find out the shows were done? Reginald VelJohnson said in an interview in Fall '98 they had wrapped in either April or May-I can't remember which month he said..both shows went back in the next week to start working on the next season of the shows and were told they'd been cancelled, pack up their stuff and go home. He was very upset because he felt the fans deserved proper series finales and closure. Disgraceful, Les. I'm beginning to feel like this wasn't Les' decision..his career started at Lorimar Television, then part of Warner, who produced both shows...he's grateful to and looks well on his days there I can't see this decision having been his alone but we'll never know for sure.

Two more dumb and decisions CBS has made:

As others have said, moving WKRP around to a different night of the week every week for damn near its entire run..at some points towards the end it was on late nights even :O! After the cancellation, that summer as we all know the knuckle heads finally got it into a regular time slot and surprise surprise it took off...was number 1 most weeks. CBS realized their mistake and tried to bring the show back but it was too late..sets were taken down already avd everyone had already signed to new projects. At least looking back the people responsible understand it was a huge mistake. Still,my he show should hafe had a minimum of one more year at least.

The WKRP fiasco is closely followed by CBS insisting on fixing what wasn't broken with Bob Newhart's third sitcom. They felt it absolutely necessary to tear up the outstanding foundation they'd built for it, and the excellent first season his 3rd show had. Decided to totally scrap what they had and rebuild from the ground up. A lot of potential up in smoke. That show coulda had as long a run as his first show, maybe even as long as Newhart. Between WKRP and that one not sure which was the bigger mistake..to me they're equally as bad.

Those are my votes for worst CBS mistakes for sure.

Edit-please excuse the iPad typos, of which there's quite a few :( you should be able to understand 99 percent of the post still.

His third show had potential. CBS was Bobs' home.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ScrewedByTheNetwork/LiveActionTV



Here's perhaps a slightly more damning mess up that CBS made:


I'll also add CBS' treatment of WKRP... w/ them never really giving it a stable time-slot. After WKRP... was finally canceled in 1982, it went on to become a huge success in syndication (in a sense, the Star Trek of sitcoms).l


And it's a shame that WKRP didn't come back with new episodes until 1991. I know it was attempted twice before new wkrp

Les Moonves passing on a recent attempt at a revival of name tbat tune

Canceling Robin Williams last sitcom the crazy ones when it was doing so well in fb ratings

And I think CBS was planning on giving family matters another season and even planned on bringibg back judy even hiring an actress to play her but the sets were already destroyed.

The biggest mistakes that CBS made w/ their 1990-93 MLB coverage (at least in my estimation):
*Not hiring Vin Scully to be their lead play-by-play man. After NBC lost the MLB package to CBS following the 1989 season, Scully was for all intents and purposes, a "free agent". Scully of course, worked at CBS prior to joining NBC in 1983. Scully would've given CBS instant credibility (similar to when Fox hired Pat Summerall and John Madden to front their NFL coverage in 1994). I'm guessing that CBS wanted to put their own personal "thumbprint" and they that that Scully was too intertwined w/ NBC's coverage.

*Pairing Jack Buck together w/ Tim McCarver. As great of an announcer Jack Buck was in his own right, he just never fit or adapted as well it seemed like on TV. I don't know exactly whose fault it really was, but Buck and McCarver were arguably like "oil and water". I know that Jack Buck was a last minute replacement for Brent Musburger (and Buck and McCarver arguably didn't have enough time to develop a proper rhythm together), but Buck was perhaps too much of an "old school" type of announcer to really translate well to a modern TV audience.

*Overemphasizing Tim McCarver. McCarver during his prime, was arguably the best color commentator on TV (he and Tony Kubek were probably the first real "modern day" baseball color commentators on TV). The problem however, is that Tim McCarver (even back then) arguably had a bad habit of being too verbose and being over-analytical. McCarver was perhaps able to get away w/ that w/o much trouble at ABC because he was often on big games a paired w/ Al Michaels and Jim Palmer. But at CBS, they pretty much anticipated or expected him to be the main star, instead of the play-by-play man (this is in part, what got Jack Buck in trouble).

*Their non-consistent and erratic regular season scheduling (add to that that they broadcast even less regular season games than NBC did). CBS could literally go a whole month w/o broadcasting a baseball game because of their other sports commitments like golf. It became quite apparent that CBS lived and breathed for October so that they could have a better platform to promote their fall shows.

*Overpaying for the MLB package by about $500 million. 


It was a disaster from the start. From what I remember, I didnt mind Buck and McCarver but the erratic scheduling kind of did them in. I would guess that Scully would have done football after CBS lost the MLB package but what else would he have done once CBS lost both the NFL and MLB?

One other thing that I think was a mistake is something that relates to CBS Sports: in Jim Nantz's first two seasons in the studio (1985 and '86) with The Prudential College Football Report, the theme for game coverage was recycled from Super Bowl XVIII between Washington and L.A., and the billboard music for Jim's Prudential segment (as well as the College Football Report Update gamebreak music) was taken from the theme of The NCAA Today (studio show with Brent Musburger that was in for the 1982 and '83 seasons). Then, when the current game coverage theme song debuted in 1987, it was made to where it applied to both the games and the studio coverage, much the same as is done with NFL coverage now (and this is the way it was done in the 1990 season as well with the NFL). Why is that?

Canceling Robin Williams last sitcom the crazy ones when it was doing so well in fb ratings



The Crazy One's was not doing well in the ratings, AT ALL. It was a total flop. It lost viewers nearly every week it was on. It debuted to 15+ million viewers and by the season finale the audience had eroded to around 5 million viewers.

Thats true but you have to give shows a chance to build an audience, no?

Thats true but you have to give shows a chance to build an audience, no?

I think they could tell this show wasn't going to build an audience. In fact it did the exact opposite, it kept losing viewers each week!

I can see CBS point although sometimes a show needs a few seasons to get going. Seinfeld and Melrose Place comes to mind.

The Crazy Ones was a clear case of an audience trying it and not liking. It premiered with a strong 4.0 rating but fell to a 1.5 by the end, over half the audience gone. And the total viewer drop was even worse, from 15 million to 5 million is a 2/3 loss.

I wanted to like the Crazy Ones. It just was a bad show.

I can see CBS point although sometimes a show needs a few seasons to get going. Seinfeld and Melrose Place comes to mind.

Yeah, but this show just kept loosing viewers, there was zero growth.

I wanted to like the Crazy Ones. It just was a bad show.It was definitely not Robin Williams' best work. I dropped it after 5 episodes.

Choosing Survivor over a revival of What's my line

Choosing Survivor over a revival of What's my line

How is this a mistake? Survivor is one of the most successful shows CBS has ever aired!

Amen to that! Not to mention, MTM's inexcusable treatment of it. Mary Tyler Moore even stated it was a show she wouldn't watch. MTM would not allow WKRP to tape at their studio until the final season. Also, Kevin Tannehill: the man responsible for WKRP attempted to being back WKRP in syndication during the heyday of original syndicated sitcoms. He approached MTM twice when he was working for Hubbard Brosdcasting and Group W respectively but they said no.

I personally hate reality shows. I am afraid reality shows are killing traditional game shows

I've rarely watched Survivor but you can't argue its been huge for CBS and still is. Ironically, out of the thousands of reality shows that have been created, Survivor seems like its survived them all and its still standing.

Their shoddy treatment of WKRP in Cincinnati. Keep in mind that after CBS canned WKRP and before it went into syndication, CBS reran it during the summer and the ratings were high because people knew where to find it. CBS realized the error of their ways and planned on bringing WKRP back but by then it was to late.

Canceling Early Edition

Canceling Diagnosis Murder

Angela Lansbury, of course, is still going strong. I bet she could still play the heck out of Jessica Fletcher today. :cool: :D

I wish NBC continued their planned revival of MSW and brought back Jessica Fletcher. I wish they would revive MSW with Angela Lansbury reprising her role as Jessica.

Canceling The Incredible Hulk

I wish NBC continued their planned revival of MSW and brought back Jessica Fletcher. I wish they would revive MSW with Angela Lansbury reprising her role as Jessica.The problem with that is she could potentially die during the revival.

Exactly. They were going to go ahead with the woman who won the Oscar from the movie The Help. I forgot her name but she was younger and it would have worked.

I dont know if you guys remember a show called "Thats' Life"? It was on in early 2001 and it starred Heather Paige Kent and Paul Sorvino was in it. I really liked it and they cancelled it.

Exactly. They were going to go ahead with the woman who won the Oscar from the movie The Help. I forgot her name but she was younger and it would have worked.

Octavia Spencer.

I dont know if you guys remember a show called "Thats' Life"? It was on in early 2001 and it starred Heather Paige Kent and Paul Sorvino was in it. I really liked it and they cancelled it.


Yes, I remember that show. It was about an adult women who went back to college. I think it had Ellen Burstyn in the cast as well and Kevin Dillon. CBS basically squandered that show by burying it into a difficult timeslot and abandoning any promotion for the show.

Heather Paige Kent is now known as Heather Dubrow and is on The Real Housewives of Orange County.

It actually debuted against the closing ceremonies of the summer Olympics, that is a clear indication of how much faith CBS had in the show. It also aired most of its episodes on Friday nights.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers that show. ;)

Octavia Spencer.
Thank you.

It was a disaster from the start. From what I remember, I didnt mind Buck and McCarver but the erratic scheduling kind of did them in. I would guess that Scully would have done football after CBS lost the MLB package but what else would he have done once CBS lost both the NFL and MLB?

I'm pretty sure that Vin Scully would've just gone back to doing Dodgers games like he actually still does today despite being in his late 80s. Scully didn't do NFL games when he was at NBC (when baseball season was over, he did golf for NBC w/ Lee Trevino) and that was it. From my understanding, the main factor for why he left CBS in the first place was that he didn't like the fact that CBS was promoting Pat Summerall to be the main NFL play-by-play man (to work w/ John Madden). CBS as a compromise (and perhaps in hopes of softening Scully's bruised ego), allowed him along w/ Hank Stram, to call the NFC Championship Game between San Francisco and Dallas (the game in which Dwight Clark made the legendary "catch", which was the launching pad for the 49ers' '80s dynasty) while Pat Summerall called the game on CBS Radio w/ Jack Buck.

Meanwhile, here's some insight on CBS Sports' overspending during the late '80s-early '90s:
CBS' dream season turned to nightmare on W. 52nd St. (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-02-24/sports/1991055029_1_sports-calender-sports-programs-sports-news-network)

One other thing that I think was a mistake is something that relates to CBS Sports: in Jim Nantz's first two seasons in the studio (1985 and '86) with The Prudential College Football Report, the theme for game coverage was recycled from Super Bowl XVIII between Washington and L.A., and the billboard music for Jim's Prudential segment (as well as the College Football Report Update gamebreak music) was taken from the theme of The NCAA Today (studio show with Brent Musburger that was in for the 1982 and '83 seasons). Then, when the current game coverage theme song debuted in 1987, it was made to where it applied to both the games and the studio coverage, much the same as is done with NFL coverage now (and this is the way it was done in the 1990 season as well with the NFL). Why is that?

Speaking of music, I've always hated that CBS stopped using the Frankie Vinci composed NFL theme (which debuted in time for their coverage of Super Bowl 26) in favor of their current theme by ES Posthumus. I'll be the first to tell you that I don't care much for the ES Posthumus NFL on CBS theme (which debuted in 2003). It's not at all catchy and it sounds way too overwhelming and threatening. It just sounds like what somebody who has never watched professional American football or is in-tune w/ memorable TV themes, would think a football theme "should" sound like.

It's not at all catchy and it sounds way too overwhelming and threatening.

That's what I thought about the billboard music for The Prudential College Football Report with Jim Nantz when I first saw that halftime segment in the 1985 season; I was four years old then. Flash forward 30 years later, and not only is it incredibly non-threatening to me, and even catchy as well (the panhellenic Greek sound contributing greatly to that), but also one of the best examples, IMO, of what a sports theme song should sound like (not only that, but the studio coverage itself for both that and the NFL was far more professional then than it is now).

Here's an example of the same from the 1986 season, from a broadcast between Arizona and UCLA. Not only do you hear the music, but also CBS Sports V/O Don Robertson delivering the billboard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYROodzEM-s&t=102m20s

The Rural Purge: The Year CBS Gave the Finger to Its Most Loyal Viewers (http://voices.yahoo.com/the-rural-purge-year-cbs-gave-finger-its-1441231.html)

Without the NFL, CBS had a much harder time finding a platform to promote their shows. Remember back in the day when Pat Summerall (RIP) would say towards the end of the late afternoon games on CBS in his baritone voice "Stay tuned for 60 Minutes followed by Murder...She Wrote!"?

Yup...being a huge, "Murder, She Wrote" fan, I always found it a treat to hear Summerall belt out the promo for "Murder, She Wrote". Sometimes, the games would run really late (until almost 8 pm), and MSW would get pre-empted; I was visiting my sister one time when that happened and Summerall did his 60 Minutes promo, followed by the one for the movie...and my sister looked at me like I was going to explode and said "Uh, oh...no "Murder, She Wrote" tonight!"

I especially remember the very last NFL telecast for CBS. Summerall waxed nostalgic, going on and on for what seemed like several minutes about leaving CBS and all the memories and finished his spiel by saying "...and I'm going to miss saying 'Stay tuned for 60 Minutes and Murder, She Wrote after that". I loved every second of his little soliloquy -- a piece of television history that would never be repeated.

I don't know if that little speech can be found on YouTube or not but I'm gonna go look right now!

Definitely not giving WKRP a consistent timeslot, then eventually cancelling it. I felt it had another season left.

The "Friday Night Block Party", an attempt to rip off ABC's TGIF, which was falling off itself. Granted, this was when Family Matters and Step by Step (both former TGIF sitcoms) moved to CBS, so this may have been the efforts to capitalize on that. Neither lasted beyond the 1997-98 season, though.

The Talk...I get it, Les Moonves' wife is a co-hostess. The show still blows.

When CBS This Morning tried to add a studio audience in the mid-90s, in an effort to catch up to Today and Good Morning America. The ratings still went nowhere, and the audience was dropped after about a year.

The Early Show

CBS' Sunday NFL coverage is already a snoozefest. Then they added the Thursday edition, and it became an even bigger mess. Didn't help that the first several games were all blowouts, and therefore over at halftime. The Thursday Night Football theme sounds like a wannabe Sunday Night Football theme. There's no replicating John Williams' masterpiece.

The Monday night sitcom lineup. Sorry...2 Broke Girls and Mike and Molly are abysmal.

Cramming an "Only CBS" announcement into live awards shows, every chance they get. Enough already.

The constant promos reminding us they're the most watched network. Makes football on Sunday even more insufferable.

The constant promos reminding us they're the most watched network. Makes football on Sunday even more insufferable.

It's not just on Sundays. It's also on SEC broadcasts on Saturdays.

The Monday night sitcom lineup. Sorry...2 Broke Girls and Mike and Molly are abysmal.

Another potential mess-up mistake that CBS could be committing: Reducing their comedy hours to just two going forward (all on a single night - Thursday, especially after Thursday Night Football is over).

Believe me, the two new single-cams debuting in fall of 2015, Life in Pieces and Angel from Hell, are going to be even worse than 2BG and M&M.

It's not just on Sundays. It's also on SEC broadcasts on Saturdays.
Come to think of it, they do it during the NCAA Tournament as well. Ugh.

Another potential mess-up mistake that CBS could be committing: Reducing their comedy hours to just two going forward (all on a single night - Thursday, especially after Thursday Night Football is over).

Believe me, the two new single-cams debuting in fall of 2015, Life in Pieces and Angel from Hell, are going to be even worse than 2BG and M&M.life in pieces looks really stupid based on the promos that I have seen

Yup...being a huge, "Murder, She Wrote" fan, I always found it a treat to hear Summerall belt out the promo for "Murder, She Wrote". Sometimes, the games would run really late (until almost 8 pm), and MSW would get pre-empted; I was visiting my sister one time when that happened and Summerall did his 60 Minutes promo, followed by the one for the movie...and my sister looked at me like I was going to explode and said "Uh, oh...no "Murder, She Wrote" tonight!"

I especially remember the very last NFL telecast for CBS. Summerall waxed nostalgic, going on and on for what seemed like several minutes about leaving CBS and all the memories and finished his spiel by saying "...and I'm going to miss saying 'Stay tuned for 60 Minutes and Murder, She Wrote after that". I loved every second of his little soliloquy -- a piece of television history that would never be repeated.

I don't know if that little speech can be found on YouTube or not but I'm gonna go look right now!
i remember that happening once during a ABC college football game between
UCLA and Oregon State with Steve Alvarez and Dick Vermeil and they were talking about The Young Riders, China Beach, and Twin Peaks and the game was long running or was close and just ran late they actually thought about the possibility that one of the shows would be preempted Dick Vermell said something about that he was fine about preempting The Young Riders but not China Beach or Twin Peaks! id wished i had that on tape it was back when Saturday night programming was really good(the Michgan Iowa game which was the main game had ended early or was a blowout and ABC had switched to the UCLA Oregon State game)

CBS' treatment of the NBA during the 1970s through 1986 can be considered (http://awfulannouncing.com/2015/5-low-points-in-the-history-of-the-nba-on-tv.html).

cancelling the revival of THE FUGITIVE in 2000.

"Up next, Murder...She Wrote."

Buying Wink Martindale's game show Top Secret and pulling it at the last minute.

"Up next, Murder...She Wrote."

:lol:

"Up next, Murder...She Wrote."

I remember when it was that, Crazy Like a Fox, and Trapper John, M.D. on Sundays (that was when CBS was with the NFC). Now, you don't get anything like that anymore after CBS' current AFC coverage.

I'm pretty sure that Vin Scully would've just gone back to doing Dodgers games like he actually still does today despite being in his late 80s. Scully didn't do NFL games when he was at NBC (when baseball season was over, he did golf for NBC w/ Lee Trevino) and that was it. From my understanding, the main factor for why he left CBS in the first place was that he didn't like the fact that CBS was promoting Pat Summerall to be the main NFL play-by-play man (to work w/ John Madden). CBS as a compromise (and perhaps in hopes of softening Scully's bruised ego), allowed him along w/ Hank Stram, to call the NFC Championship Game between San Francisco and Dallas (the game in which Dwight Clark made the legendary "catch", which was the launching pad for the 49ers' '80s dynasty) while Pat Summerall called the game on CBS Radio w/ Jack Buck.

Meanwhile, here's some insight on CBS Sports' overspending during the late '80s-early '90s:
CBS' dream season turned to nightmare on W. 52nd St. (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-02-24/sports/1991055029_1_sports-calender-sports-programs-sports-news-network)
it makes me wonder who would have ABC or NBC used in 1990 on MLB while ABC had Al Michaels i wonder who ABC would have used for the backup game and the "other LCS"? id say it would have been Gary Throne of course NBC would have used Scully and Costas but what if Vin decided to do just the Dodgers games who did they have to do the backup game then i was thinking they would pull Marv Albert from the pregame show but.. they also had Hammond and even Enberg

it makes me wonder who would have ABC or NBC used in 1990 on MLB while ABC had Al Michaels i wonder who ABC would have used for the backup game and the "other LCS"? id say it would have been Gary Throne of course NBC would have used Scully and Costas but what if Vin decided to do just the Dodgers games who did they have to do the backup game then i was thinking they would pull Marv Albert from the pregame show but.. they also had Hammond and even Enberg

In 1989 (the last time that ABC had the baseball package before it moved to CBS), Gary Throne was the #2 play-by-play man (working w/ Joe Morgan) behind Al Michaels (who worked w/ Tim McCarver and Jim Palmer on the "A-Team"). So it would be easy to assume that Throne and Morgan would've called the other League Championship Series had ABC maintained baseball going into 1990.

The one problem though is that in 1990, Joe Morgan moved over to ESPN to start his 2 decade long stint on Sunday Night Baseball w/ Jon Miller. Would Morgan have still split duties on network TV like he would eventually do on NBC from 1994-2000 (granted, NBC didn't broadcast regular season games beginning in 1996 when The Baseball Network dissolved).

As for NBC, I'm highly confident that had they not lost the MLB package after 1990, then Vin Scully would've continued in the role as the lead play-by-play announcer alongside Tom Seaver (w/ Bob Costas and Tony Kubek backing them up). I mean, it would be pretty stupid to try to chase off arguably the best to ever broadcast the game in Vin Scully.

Here's a database of literally every national television Major League Baseball broadcast ever:
http://sabrmedia.org/databases/network-tv-broadcasts/searchable-network-tv-broadcasts/

if Brent isnt fired by CBS in 90 who owuld have done CFB behind Keith Jackson? my guess would have been Bender but..

if Brent isnt fired by CBS in 90 who owuld have done CFB behind Keith Jackson? my guess would have been Bender but..

By this time, Jim Nantz was I believe, CBS' main college football play-by-play man. So even if Musburger had stayed around, I wouldn't be hard pressed to assume that he would've given up his former role in that capacity.

TMC, two great links about CBS Dream season and about the announcers. I think the baseball package could've worked but the fact that CBS schedule was somewhat inconsistent didnt help.

By this time, Jim Nantz was I believe, CBS' main college football play-by-play man. So even if Musburger had stayed around, I wouldn't be hard pressed to assume that he would've given up his former role in that capacity.

Jim Nantz had become the lead PBP on college football for the 1989 season, having come off of a four-season run in the New York studio with The Prudential College Football Report.

one moment i do remember about CBS and baseball in 91 my CBS station(WSPA in Spartanburg) stayed with a Braves Dodgers game after a rain delay when just the Alanta CBS station was supposed to do so.. i was shocked when that happened of course two weeks later CBS did that split screen with Dodgers Giants when the Braves were playing in Houston and won and the Giants game went into extras..

In 1989 (the last time that ABC had the baseball package before it moved to CBS), Gary Throne was the #2 play-by-play man (working w/ Joe Morgan) behind Al Michaels (who worked w/ Tim McCarver and Jim Palmer on the "A-Team"). So it would be easy to assume that Throne and Morgan would've called the other League Championship Series had ABC maintained baseball going into 1990.

The one problem though is that in 1990, Joe Morgan moved over to ESPN to start his 2 decade long stint on Sunday Night Baseball w/ Jon Miller. Would Morgan have still split duties on network TV like he would eventually do on NBC from 1994-2000 (granted, NBC didn't broadcast regular season games beginning in 1996 when The Baseball Network dissolved).

As for NBC, I'm highly confident that had they not lost the MLB package after 1990, then Vin Scully would've continued in the role as the lead play-by-play announcer alongside Tom Seaver (w/ Bob Costas and Tony Kubek backing them up). I mean, it would be pretty stupid to try to chase off arguably the best to ever broadcast the game in Vin Scully.

Here's a database of literally every national television Major League Baseball broadcast ever:
http://sabrmedia.org/databases/network-tv-broadcasts/searchable-network-tv-broadcasts/
but i wonder who would have done golf for NBC in 90? remember they used Gumbel(even though he was hosting Today at that time) but maybe Scully does golf with Charlie Jones filling in(but they would have wanted Vin to anchor their first Ryder Cup in 91)

Ending a tradition of having comedies in the Monday night 9-10 ET hour, one going back probably to "I Love Lucy". While the eyeball net will still have comedies in the 8-9 hour, it won't be the same in the following hour after so many decades.

one moment i do remember about CBS and baseball in 91 my CBS station(WSPA in Spartanburg) stayed with a Braves Dodgers game after a rain delay when just the Alanta CBS station was supposed to do so.. i was shocked when that happened of course two weeks later CBS did that split screen with Dodgers Giants when the Braves were playing in Houston and won and the Giants game went into extras..
i remember also how the Dodgers Giants game on CBS kept going on and on while on my NBC station there was a "On Scene" episode with a look at rescue efforts following the 1990 crash of Avianca Airlines Flight 52 in New York, which were hampered by bad weather and heavy traffic i remember watching both until the Giants killed any chances of the Dodgers forcing a playoff with a home run i also remember the late Jack Buck(or maybe it was Dick Stockton) doing that game from San Fransisco

Shortening MacGyvers episode order from 23 episodes to like 13 episodes.

Shortening MacGyvers episode order from 23 episodes to like 13 episodes.

Why are you putting this on the CBS mistake thread? It should be on the ABC one, because ABC was the network where MacGyver was originally. CBS is the distributor for the DVD releases (or at least was for the last two or three, IIRC).

Oops! I accidentally put here because the dvds have the CBS signature and I thought it was on CBS because of CBS's signature on the dvds.

10 Shows CBS Should Be Embarrassed About Canceling (http://www.cinemablend.com/television/10-Shows-CBS-Should-Embarrassed-About-Canceling-99447.html)

Renewing survivor and big brother for the 28 season. 2Awful shows. Can't understand why they keep on getting renewed

I've never seen these 2. But I heard Big Brother is stupid.

Renewing survivor and big brother for the 28 season. 2Awful shows. Can't understand why they keep on getting renewedI have no interest in those shows but they do well in ratings, so they're not going anywhere.

Renewing survivor and big brother for the 28 season. 2Awful shows. Can't understand why they keep on getting renewed

Survivor, especially! I'll admit that it does have its fanbase, but I have never been and will never be part of it!

Another big mistake by CBS: Screwing over Person of Interest by reducing the order for that season to just 13 episodes and then cancelling it. Plus, the network waited until May to start airing that season. Even after all that positive critical reception and excellent ratings for its first couple of seasons, CBS still axed PoI because it is produced by Warner Bros. TV and not by the network's in-house studio.

1990 - Outside of picking up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the rest of their Saturday Morning fare and their daytime programming (save for Wheel of Fortune, which was one of their big blemishes and mistakes in the daytime ratings) 1990 was a nightmare year for CBS. Their 1990-91 campaign slogan ad they called a Dream Season was actually a Nightmare Season for them.

1990 was the beginning of their massive slide in the sports department when they lost longtime stalwart Brent Musberger to ABC Sports (following the April Fools' Day telecast of the NBA Playoffs). They would eventually lose the rights to the NBA over to NBC Sports after their telecast of the 1990 NBA Finals. Then they severely overpaid for MLB and bombed after 3 years, only for FOX to snatch it up and air MLB ever since.

They also lost or was about to lose longtime stalwart shows in Newhart, Falcon Crest and Dallas, the latter would enter its final season in that Fall of 1990. They picked up the rights to The Hogan Family and paired it up with another Miller-Boyett show in The Family Man and neither struck gold for them, thanks to the terrible moves they made with both shows, especially the former.

Their CBS News post-Walter Cronkite era wasn't very kind to them, especially during Dan Rather's tenure with the CBS Evening News in particular.

During Dan Rather's time with The CBS Evening News, it slid to 3rd Place behind The NBC Nightly News w/ Tom Brokaw and ABC World Evening News Tonight w/ the late Peter Jennings where it stayed for years. Outside of 60 Minutes since, CBS was the weakest of the original Big 3 Networks in the News Department. Also, the George W. Bush Documents controversy also caused Dan Rather to get sacked as anchor of the CBS Evening News and from his post on 60 Minutes Two and CBS as a whole.

The biggest mistakes that CBS made w/ their 1990-93 MLB coverage (at least in my estimation):
*Not hiring Vin Scully to be their lead play-by-play man. After NBC lost the MLB package to CBS following the 1989 season, Scully was for all intents and purposes, a "free agent". Scully of course, worked at CBS prior to joining NBC in 1983. Scully would've given CBS instant credibility (similar to when Fox hired Pat Summerall and John Madden to front their NFL coverage in 1994). I'm guessing that CBS wanted to put their own personal "thumbprint" and they that that Scully was too intertwined w/ NBC's coverage.

*Pairing Jack Buck together w/ Tim McCarver. As great of an announcer Jack Buck was in his own right, he just never fit or adapted as well it seemed like on TV. I don't know exactly whose fault it really was, but Buck and McCarver were arguably like "oil and water". I know that Jack Buck was a last minute replacement for Brent Musburger (and Buck and McCarver arguably didn't have enough time to develop a proper rhythm together), but Buck was perhaps too much of an "old school" type of announcer to really translate well to a modern TV audience.

[QUOTE]*Overemphasizing Tim McCarver. McCarver during his prime, was arguably the best color commentator on TV (he and Tony Kubek were probably the first real "modern day" baseball color commentators on TV). The problem however, is that Tim McCarver (even back then) arguably had a bad habit of being too verbose and being over-analytical. McCarver was perhaps able to get away w/ that w/o much trouble at ABC because he was often on big games a paired w/ Al Michaels and Jim Palmer. But at CBS, they pretty much anticipated or expected him to be the main star, instead of the play-by-play man (this is in part, what got Jack Buck in trouble).

*Their non-consistent and erratic regular season scheduling (add to that that they broadcast even less regular season games than NBC did). CBS could literally go a whole month w/o broadcasting a baseball game because of their other sports commitments like golf. It became quite apparent that CBS lived and breathed for October so that they could have a better platform to promote their fall shows.

*Overpaying for the MLB package by about $500 million. 
CBS could have given up some of their other sports commitments like golf. Maybe ABC would have been happy to get some of the golf events that CBS had back then. CBS also had NASCAR at that time. Maybe giving up the races they had during summer to ESPN could have worked too. Also, CBS could have carried some Sunday doubleheaders in place of reruns of 60 Minutes during the summer. the baseball games might draw a few more viewers to the network during that time, and CBS could have scheduled prime time to start at 8:00. Also, CBS could have given up their CFA deal to ABC to do more games in September. I'm sure that ABC would have loved to have the CFA one year earlier.
Also i would have NOT overemphasized Tim McCarver, since CBS could have signed Jim Palmer to work with Buck on the main crew. A Buck/Palmer team would have been very good and would have gotten praise from viewers as well as critics.

This going to be quite debatable, but CBS forcing Walter Cronkite, who had just turned 65, to retire from the CBS Evening News and replacing him w/ Dan Rather. While Cronkite earned the trust of his audience, viewers didn't feel comfortable with Rather and saw right through his phony home-spun persona. That “Kenneth" incident (as well as Rather walking off set in protest to a US Open tennis match running long, thus creating "dead air" for about five to six minutes) didn't help Rather's image either along with that hokey (and thankfully short-lived) sign off of his.

Another major mistake CBS that arguably made was trying to pass off Connie Chung as a believable (or more believable depending on your point of view) anchor by teaming her up with Rather. It just felt like a major waste of time and money on CBS’ part trying to pass her off as being creditable when the network could have used that money and effort in recruiting younger talent.

I don't understand why Dan Rather would walk off the set because of the US Open running late.
I mean, Dan could have kept quiet and let the tennis match finish, and then done a shortened program. I've never seen a anchor do that since.

Renewing survivor and big brother for the 28 season. 2Awful shows. Can't understand why they keep on getting renewed

It's also because the president and CEO of C, that's B.S. Les Moonves's wife (Julie Chen) hosts the latter and as long she's still married to him, she isn't going anywhere.

It's also the very reason why The Talk (which is a ripoff of ABC's The View) was selected to replace the now long-cancelled soap As the World Turns over other shows (like the planned $1M Pyramid in particular) in the 1st place.

It's also the very reason why The Talk (which is a ripoff of ABC's The View) was selected to replace the now long-cancelled soap As the World Turns over other shows (like the planned $1M Pyramid in particular) in the 1st place.

and why Julie Chen is basically given complete control over The Talk, especially in terms of casting. Julie's preference for Sharon Osbourne is one of the reasons that Julie was allowed to force Leah Remini and Holly Robinson Peete off the show after season 1.

Hey guys,

20 years ago this fall,

CBS cancelled 2 of their long running shows:

Murder, She Wrote after 12 seasons and Rescue 911 after 7 seasons

The reason is real simple:

another BIG TIME Mess-Up by CBS

and here's why:

Murder, She Wrote was a Sunday Night Tradition for the 1st 11 seasons from 1984-1995 and was in the Nielsen Ratings Top 20 during its run on Sunday Nights including its trip to the Top 10 for the 1st 5 seasons, Seasons 8 & 9 and Season 11, plus from the Fall of '85 to the Spring of '88, it was in the Nielsen Ratings Top 5 for 3 consecutive seasons joining up with the likes of The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers and The Golden Girls as well as A Different World when NBC moved Ties to Sunday Nights against MSW

MSW was also Prime Time's #1 drama for 9 seasons from 1985-1994

Rescue 911 with William Shatner was a Tuesday Night Tradition for 1st 6 seasons during the very 1st season, the show didn't get off to a great start as it was up against NBC's Popular Mystery Matlock and abc's Who's the Boss? and The Wonder Years

But during the 90/91 Season, it cracked the Top 40 and beginning with the Fall of '91, the show was in the Nielsen Ratings Top 30 for 3 straight seasons and was in the Top 20 for 2 straight seasons when the show up against Full House and even though the show didn't get higher ratings than FH, the show did however get better ratings than NBC Tuesday Nights

However, the 94/95 Season, the show dropped out of the Top 30 thanks to not only Full House, but also, NBC's WINGS

But...the biggest mess-up happened during the 95/96 season when both MSW and 911 moved to Thursday Nights against NBC's Thursday Night Juggernaut known as Must-See TV

CBS put Murder, She Wrote up against Friends and the new comedy The Single Guy and Rescue 911 was up against TV's #1 comedy Seinfeld and the new comedy Caroline in the City and 48 Hours with Dan Rather was up against TV's #1 drama and the #1 show of the season ER and as a result, Murder, She Wrote tumbled 50 BIG Notches from #8 to #58 and Rescue 911 dropped 36 BIG Notches from #48 to #84

IMO, putting both Murder, She Wrote and Rescue 911 against NBC's Must-See TV hurt both shows and it was no way in the world that they were gonna outdo Friends, The Single Guy, Seinfeld and Caroline in the City

911 moved to Thursday Nights after the network cancelled New York News with Mary Tyler Moore, Joe Morton, Gregory Harrison and Melina Kanakaredes of Guiding Light, Providence and CSI: NY

Imo, I don't think Must See TV was that strong. Yes, Friends and Seinfeld were huge but Caroline in the City and The Single Guy were unproven. I don't think those two shows got as big of ratings than Friends and Seinfeld.

Hey guys,
Murder, She Wrote was a Sunday Night Tradition for the 1st 11 seasons from 1984-1995 and was in the Nielsen Ratings Top 20 during its run on Sunday Nights including its trip to the Top 10 for the 1st 5 seasons, Seasons 8 & 9 and Season 11, plus from the Fall of '85 to the Spring of '88, it was in the Nielsen Ratings Top 5 for 3 consecutive seasons joining up with the likes of The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers and The Golden Girls as well as A Different World when NBC moved Ties to Sunday Nights against MSW


And I remember Pat Summerall promoting on Sundays that MSW, Crazy Like A Fox, and Trapper John, M.D., among others, would follow CBS' late broadcasts of NFL football when CBS had the NFC rights. Nothing like that has followed after CBS' current AFC broadcasts, and that's a shame.

Imo, I don't think Must See TV was that strong. Yes, Friends and Seinfeld were huge but Caroline in the City and The Single Guy were unproven. I don't think those two shows got as big of ratings than Friends and Seinfeld.

Well here were the ratings:

ER #1
Seinfeld #2
Friends #3
Caroline in the City #4
Monday Night Football #5
The Single Guy #6

Well it may not have gotten bigger ratings than Friends and Seinfeld, but they were still great shows, but when Caroline got moved to Monday Nights, that's when the show sinked in the ratings

also, Must-See TV Thursdays was the reason that NBC was still #1 over abc and CBS during the mid-90's

This going to be quite debatable, but CBS forcing Walter Cronkite, who had just turned 65, to retire from the CBS Evening News and replacing him w/ Dan Rather. While Cronkite earned the trust of his audience, viewers didn't feel comfortable with Rather and saw right through his phony home-spun persona. That “Kenneth" incident (as well as Rather walking off set in protest to a US Open tennis match running long, thus creating "dead air" for about five to six minutes) didn't help Rather's image either along with that hokey (and thankfully short-lived) sign off of his.

Another major mistake CBS that arguably made was trying to pass off Connie Chung as a believable (or more believable depending on your point of view) anchor by teaming her up with Rather. It just felt like a major waste of time and money on CBS’ part trying to pass her off as being creditable when the network could have used that money and effort in recruiting younger talent.

Also passing over Roger Mudd for The main anchor position for CBS Evening News. Dan threatened to lewve for ABC.

Well here were the ratings:

ER #1
Seinfeld #2
Friends #3
Caroline in the City #4
Monday Night Football #5
The Single Guy #6

Well it may not have gotten bigger ratings than Friends and Seinfeld, but they were still great shows, but when Caroline got moved to Monday Nights, that's when the show sinked in the ratings

also, Must-See TV Thursdays was the reason that NBC was still #1 over abc and CBS during the mid-90's

Well, I'm an idiot.

Hey guys,

20 years ago this fall,

CBS cancelled 2 of their long running shows:

Murder, She Wrote after 12 seasons and Rescue 911 after 7 seasons

The reason is real simple:

another BIG TIME Mess-Up by CBS

and here's why:

Murder, She Wrote was a Sunday Night Tradition for the 1st 11 seasons from 1984-1995 and was in the Nielsen Ratings Top 20 during its run on Sunday Nights including its trip to the Top 10 for the 1st 5 seasons, Seasons 8 & 9 and Season 11, plus from the Fall of '85 to the Spring of '88, it was in the Nielsen Ratings Top 5 for 3 consecutive seasons joining up with the likes of The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers and The Golden Girls as well as A Different World when NBC moved Ties to Sunday Nights against MSW

MSW was also Prime Time's #1 drama for 9 seasons from 1985-1994

Rescue 911 with William Shatner was a Tuesday Night Tradition for 1st 6 seasons during the very 1st season, the show didn't get off to a great start as it was up against NBC's Popular Mystery Matlock and abc's Who's the Boss? and The Wonder Years

But during the 90/91 Season, it cracked the Top 40 and beginning with the Fall of '91, the show was in the Nielsen Ratings Top 30 for 3 straight seasons and was in the Top 20 for 2 straight seasons when the show up against Full House and even though the show didn't get higher ratings than FH, the show did however get better ratings than NBC Tuesday Nights

However, the 94/95 Season, the show dropped out of the Top 30 thanks to not only Full House, but also, NBC's WINGS

But...the biggest mess-up happened during the 95/96 season when both MSW and 911 moved to Thursday Nights against NBC's Thursday Night Juggernaut known as Must-See TV

CBS put Murder, She Wrote up against Friends and the new comedy The Single Guy and Rescue 911 was up against TV's #1 comedy Seinfeld and the new comedy Caroline in the City and 48 Hours with Dan Rather was up against TV's #1 drama and the #1 show of the season ER and as a result, Murder, She Wrote tumbled 50 BIG Notches from #8 to #58 and Rescue 911 dropped 36 BIG Notches from #48 to #84

IMO, putting both Murder, She Wrote and Rescue 911 against NBC's Must-See TV hurt both shows and it was no way in the world that they were gonna outdo Friends, The Single Guy, Seinfeld and Caroline in the City

911 moved to Thursday Nights after the network cancelled New York News with Mary Tyler Moore, Joe Morton, Gregory Harrison and Melina Kanakaredes of Guiding Light, Providence and CSI: NY

I don't have all of the details right in front of me but I thought that towards the end of [i]MSW's[i/] run, Angela Lansbury was beginning to get weary of the grind of weekly, episodic television. Plus Leslie Moonves was starting to come into power at CBS and he in his own way, was weary of CBS' decidedly negative image/stigma of being the network for senior citizens. And of course, one of your biggest shows for the past 10+ years essentially being an American version of Miss Marple is sort of emblematic of the problem.

This going to be quite debatable, but CBS forcing Walter Cronkite, who had just turned 65, to retire from the CBS Evening News and replacing him w/ Dan Rather. While Cronkite earned the trust of his audience, viewers didn't feel comfortable with Rather and saw right through his phony home-spun persona. That “Kenneth" incident (as well as Rather walking off set in protest to a US Open tennis match running long, thus creating "dead air" for about five to six minutes) didn't help Rather's image either along with that hokey (and thankfully short-lived) sign off of his.

Another major mistake CBS that arguably made was trying to pass off Connie Chung as a believable (or more believable depending on your point of view) anchor by teaming her up with Rather. It just felt like a major waste of time and money on CBS’ part trying to pass her off as being creditable when the network could have used that money and effort in recruiting younger talent.

Actually, Cronkite chose to retire and believe it or not, according to Cronkite's biography by Douglas Brinkley. Rather actually had more international experience and he was the relentless gumshoe reporter of the JFK assassination, civil rights, Vietnam, and Nixon woes.

This going to be quite debatable, but CBS forcing Walter Cronkite, who had just turned 65, to retire from the CBS Evening News and replacing him w/ Dan Rather. While Cronkite earned the trust of his audience, viewers didn't feel comfortable with Rather and saw right through his phony home-spun persona. That “Kenneth" incident (as well as Rather walking off set in protest to a US Open tennis match running long, thus creating "dead air" for about five to six minutes) didn't help Rather's image either along with that hokey (and thankfully short-lived) sign off of his.

Another major mistake CBS that arguably made was trying to pass off Connie Chung as a believable (or more believable depending on your point of view) anchor by teaming her up with Rather. It just felt like a major waste of time and money on CBS’ part trying to pass her off as being creditable when the network could have used that money and effort in recruiting younger talent.

Also treating Cronkite like yesterday's news (no,pun intended) after he retired!

Unfairly dismissing Paget Brewster and A.J. Cook from Criminal Minds, all to free up funds for the failed spin off Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, when it was pretty clear that Brewster and Cook were the only two female cast members who were active agents, as opposed to Kirsten Vangsness, who was mostly playing a technical analyst. It was like the CBS suits were telling women all across the country to "stay in the kitchen."

Unfairly dismissing Thomas Gibson from Criminal Minds for misbehavior off camera, yet giving chance after chance to Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men for even worse misbehavior.

The news division treating Cronkite like crap after Rather took over and Rather and his ego and forcing changed into the news and burying Cronkite when he did his specials. Also lack of promoting his specials and continually moving around his science program: Universe

Yup...being a huge, "Murder, She Wrote" fan, I always found it a treat to hear Summerall belt out the promo for "Murder, She Wrote". Sometimes, the games would run really late (until almost 8 pm), and MSW would get pre-empted; I was visiting my sister one time when that happened and Summerall did his 60 Minutes promo, followed by the one for the movie...and my sister looked at me like I was going to explode and said "Uh, oh...no "Murder, She Wrote" tonight!"

I especially remember the very last NFL telecast for CBS. Summerall waxed nostalgic, going on and on for what seemed like several minutes about leaving CBS and all the memories and finished his spiel by saying "...and I'm going to miss saying 'Stay tuned for 60 Minutes and Murder, She Wrote after that". I loved every second of his little soliloquy -- a piece of television history that would never be repeated.

I don't know if that little speech can be found on YouTube or not but I'm gonna go look right now!

I remember once when MSW was preempted: it was the Eagles-Raiders game in 1986. It wasn't Summerall doing it though, it was Gary Bender and Hank Stram doing that game. I remember as the game entered the OT period, Gary Bender was doing the 60 Minutes promo, followed by the one for the movie...and I knew that MSW wasn't going to be on that night because it listed only 60 Minutes and the movie.

Cancelling the crazy ones!

Pat Sajak wanted his talk show to be like Jack Paar's old show. However, CBS made it too much like Carson's.

The way CBS handled "Unsolved Mysteries" on it's schedule is worthy of a mess-up mention.

"UM" was picked up by CBS after NBC had canceled it despite rising ratings in the 1996-1997 TV Season.

CBS debuted "UM" on a Thursday Night at 10 PM in November 1997 with hardly any promotion.

Then after airing just one episode, CBS put the series on hiatus until April 1998.

When the show resumed airing in April 1998, CBS aired the show at 9 PM. For the first time in its 10 year history, the show did not air at 8 PM. Which would have been fine if it's lead-in had strong ratings and was stable in it's timeslot.

The perfect lead-ins show were canceled two years prior "Rescue 911" and "Murder She Wrote"

UM's lead in for April 1998 were "Kids Say the Darndest Things" and "Candid Camera" This two shows were mid-season fillers that were used to try to patch up the colossal BUST known as "The CBS Friday Night Block Party."

If CBS was DEAD SET on airing UM at 9 PM, they should have used "48 Hours" or "60 Minutes" as a lead in. UM is the kind of show that I feel is a MAIN EVENT. An event in which you should have NO LEAD-IN show but if you do make it something related to the UM format.

The poor ratings of UM in 1998 reflected the poor 9 PM Friday timeslot. Miraculously, CBS renewed the show for another season in the Spring of 1999, but once again CBS repeated the 9 PM Friday timeslot with the pathetic Kids Say/Candid Camera lead in.

I remember once when MSW was preempted: it was the Eagles-Raiders game in 1986. It wasn't Summerall doing it though, it was Gary Bender and Hank Stram doing that game. I remember as the game entered the OT period, Gary Bender was doing the 60 Minutes promo, followed by the one for the movie...and I knew that MSW wasn't going to be on that night because it listed only 60 Minutes and the movie.

By the time CBS lost the National Football Conference package to Fox in 1993, they were a shear and utter mess. To put things into proper perspective, they barely had any hit sitcoms in the 1980s other than Newhart, Kate & Allie and Designing Women. And after most of the prime time soaps (i.e. Dallas, Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest) were dead or had reached zombie status, they thought The Golden Palace (the spin-off/continuation of The Golden Girls sans Bea Arthur) would revitalize Friday night and head off a two-hour block of sitcoms that was basically like TGIF for grown-ups, even moving DW there and hammering another nail in its coffin in the process. There's also the fact that Family Matters was a top-rated show at the time. But it still lasted longer than The Bradys (Sherwood Schwartz biting off more than he could chew) did in that time slot, just two years earlier.

With all of that being said, losing the NFL just flat out exposed how bad the programming was for CBS at the time as well. While in the meantime, there were some very good shows like Chicago Hope, The Nanny, Walker, Texas Ranger, Picket Fences and Touched by an Angel as well as Murphy Brown and Murder, She Wrote, they were all slated towards older viewers.

By the time CBS lost the National Football Conference package to Fox in 1993, they were a shear and utter mess. To put things into proper perspective, they barely had any hit sitcoms in the 1980s other than Newhart, Kate & Allie and Designing Women. And after most of the prime time soaps (i.e. Dallas, Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest) were dead or had reached zombie status, they thought The Golden Palace (the spin-off/continuation of The Golden Girls sans Bea Arthur) would revitalize Friday night and head off a two-hour block of sitcoms that was basically like TGIF for grown-ups, even moving DW there and hammering another nail in its coffin in the process. There's also the fact that Family Matters was a top-rated show at the time. But it still lasted longer than The Bradys (Sherwood Schwartz biting off more than he could chew) did in that time slot, just two years earlier.

With all of that being said, losing the NFL just flat out exposed how bad the programming was for CBS at the time as well. While in the meantime, there were some very good shows like Chicago Hope, The Nanny, Walker, Texas Ranger, Picket Fences and Touched by an Angel as well as Murphy Brown and Murder, She Wrote, they were all slated towards older viewers.very well said

By the time CBS lost the National Football Conference package to Fox in 1993, they were a shear and utter mess. To put things into proper perspective, they barely had any hit sitcoms in the 1980s other than Newhart, Kate & Allie and Designing Women. And after most of the prime time soaps (i.e. Dallas, Knots Landing, and Falcon Crest) were dead or had reached zombie status, they thought The Golden Palace (the spin-off/continuation of The Golden Girls sans Bea Arthur) would revitalize Friday night and head off a two-hour block of sitcoms that was basically like TGIF for grown-ups, even moving DW there and hammering another nail in its coffin in the process. There's also the fact that Family Matters was a top-rated show at the time. But it still lasted longer than The Bradys (Sherwood Schwartz biting off more than he could chew) did in that time slot, just two years earlier.

With all of that being said, losing the NFL just flat out exposed how bad the programming was for CBS at the time as well. While in the meantime, there were some very good shows like Chicago Hope, The Nanny, Walker, Texas Ranger, Picket Fences and Touched by an Angel as well as Murphy Brown and Murder, She Wrote, they were all slated towards older viewers.

It does make me wonder; if CBS hadn't lost the National Football Conference package to Fox in 1993, how much shape they would have been in?

Laying off Scott Pelley

The cancellation of 2 Broke Girls.

CBS gives 2BG a one-hour season premiere last October. Then, once Superior Donuts premieres in February after having been ordered to series immediately after the season begins, CBS demotes 2BG from the 9:00 PM anchor slot to the 9:30 PM hammock slot to make room for SD (I don't understand why it couldn't have been the other way around). 2BG's season finale airs in mid-April,and its showrunner promises us that it wouldn't be the last episode. And then 2BG is abruptly cancelled when negotiations for a potential final season broke down between CBS and Warner Bros. TV, and then Warner Bros. TV all of a sudden decided not to shop 2BG around to other outlets. And unlike Two and a Half Men and Mike & Molly (which were also produced by WBTV), 2 Broke Girls didn't even get a proper wrap-up episode,which is just plain unfair. Fans of 2BG will be left hanging forever after its sixth-season finale.

If the cancellation of 2 Broke Girls were a very real possibility beforehand, then WBTV should have thought about moving the sitcom to TBS for future seasons if CBS can't air them.

Also, CBS ended Mike & Molly in 2015 after the network opted not to renew its licensing agreement with Warner Bros. TV after its sixth season. Will the same thing happen with Mom after its sixth season (in 2018-19) ends? Three of the new sitcoms that will premiere on CBS during the 2017-18 season come from Warner Bros. TV: Me, Myself and I, By the Book, and The Big Bang Theory's spinoff/prequel Young Sheldon. I think the cycle of ending a WBTV-produced CBS sitcom after six seasons will eventually just repeat itself with those shows, regardless of whether they have a proper send-off or not.

The cancellation of 2 Broke Girls.

CBS gives 2BG a one-hour season premiere last October. Then, once Superior Donuts premieres in February after having been ordered to series immediately after the season begins, CBS demotes 2BG from the 9:00 PM anchor slot to the 9:30 PM hammock slot to make room for SD (I don't understand why it couldn't have been the other way around). 2BG's season finale airs in mid-April,and its showrunner promises us that it wouldn't be the last episode. And then 2BG is abruptly cancelled when negotiations for a potential final season broke down between CBS and Warner Bros. TV, and then Warner Bros. TV all of a sudden decided not to shop 2BG around to other outlets. And unlike Two and a Half Men and Mike & Molly (which were also produced by WBTV), 2 Broke Girls didn't even get a proper wrap-up episode,which is just plain unfair. Fans of 2BG will be left hanging forever after its sixth-season finale.

If the cancellation of 2 Broke Girls were a very real possibility beforehand, then WBTV should have thought about moving the sitcom to TBS for future seasons if CBS can't air them.

Also, CBS ended Mike & Molly in 2015 after the network opted not to renew its licensing agreement with Warner Bros. TV after its sixth season. Will the same thing happen with Mom after its sixth season (in 2018-19) ends? Three of the new sitcoms that will premiere on CBS during the 2017-18 season come from Warner Bros. TV: Me, Myself and I, By the Book, and The Big Bang Theory's spinoff/prequel Young Sheldon. I think the cycle of ending a WBTV-produced CBS sitcom after six seasons will eventually just repeat itself with those shows, regardless of whether they have a proper send-off or not.you know i like superior donuts but i do get sick of cbs acting like its the next all in the family or big bang theory even most of the people like myself who like the show for what it is do not seem to be as ga ga about this show as the cbs exces seem to be

Per what I said about The Prudential College Football Report w/Jim Nantz and how it used not only a version of the theme song of The NCAA Today (this for the first two seasons [1985 and '86]), but also today's CBS college football music (this not only for the last two seasons w/Jim Nantz [1987 and '88], and one w/Greg Gumbel [1989]), here's a mini-vid I made showing the evolution of the billboards of that CBS college football studio halftime segment (Don Robertson was the announcer on all of these, BTW). What I'd like to know is, which music did/do you like better?

sp-kH8t0aro

1990 - Outside of picking up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the rest of their Saturday Morning fare and their daytime programming (save for Wheel of Fortune, which was one of their big blemishes and mistakes in the daytime ratings) 1990 was a nightmare year for CBS. Their 1990-91 campaign slogan ad they called a Dream Season was actually a Nightmare Season for them.

1990 was the beginning of their massive slide in the sports department when they lost longtime stalwart Brent Musberger to ABC Sports (following the April Fools' Day telecast of the NBA Playoffs). They would eventually lose the rights to the NBA over to NBC Sports after their telecast of the 1990 NBA Finals. Then they severely overpaid for MLB and bombed after 3 years, only for FOX to snatch it up and air MLB ever since.

They also lost or was about to lose longtime stalwart shows in Newhart, Falcon Crest and Dallas, the latter would enter its final season in that Fall of 1990. They picked up the rights to The Hogan Family and paired it up with another Miller-Boyett show in The Family Man and neither struck gold for them, thanks to the terrible moves they made with both shows, especially the former.

Their CBS News post-Walter Cronkite era wasn't very kind to them, especially during Dan Rather's tenure with the CBS Evening News in particular.

During Dan Rather's time with The CBS Evening News, it slid to 3rd Place behind The NBC Nightly News w/ Tom Brokaw and ABC World Evening News Tonight w/ the late Peter Jennings where it stayed for years. Outside of 60 Minutes since, CBS was the weakest of the original Big 3 Networks in the News Department. Also, the George W. Bush Documents controversy also caused Dan Rather to get sacked as anchor of the CBS Evening News and from his post on 60 Minutes Two and CBS as a whole.

1990 also saw the birth of CBS KID TV on Saturday Mornings 4 consecutive seasons and the 2 flagship shows for that block were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Garfield & Friends

For those that don't know, The Family Man was a Sitcom Produced by Miller-Boyett the Producers of such shows as Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Perfect Strangers, Full House, Family Matters and Step By Step

The title role to The Family Man was played by CBS Veteran Gregory Harrison best known for his dramatic roles in CBS Shows such as the 70's Cult Classic Sci-Fi Drama Series Logan's Run (based on the 1976 Film of the same name Starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter & ex-Charlie's Angel in the late Farrah Fawcett) Trapper John, M.D. as Dr. George Alonzo Gates and he even starred in the Final Season of another LORIMAR Series Falcon Crest

This was Gregory Harrison's 1st starring role in a Television Sitcom, the series also stars Scott Weinger of Full House and the voice of Disney's Aladdin, the late Ed Winter of M*A*S*H, the late Al Molinaro of The Odd Couple and Happy Days and Gail Edwards of the 80's series It's a Living

Harrison would also host the Reality Drama Series True Detectives a series from the producer of Rescue 911

The Family Man finished #113 out of 141 prime time shows for the 1990-91 season Nielsen rankings.

Not only that, but putting The Family Man and The Hogan Family to Saturday Nights was a HUGE Mess-Up by the networks

I personally didn't care for The Hogan Family, I liked it when it was Valerie, but when they killed off her character, Valerie sued LORIMAR for over $1.75 Million Dollars and won her case

But that's another story on another thread

But also, speaking of CBS News being in 3rd place in the News Dept., CBS News FIRED Kathleen Sullivan (formally of ABC News World News This Morning) from CBS This Morning and they replaced her with Future CNN News Anchor Paula Zhan and that was the same year that NBC News paired Bryant Gumbel w/Deborah Norville (formally of NBC NEWS SUNRISE and now currently of Inside Edition) on The TODAY Show and both CBS This Morning and The TODAY Show suffered ratings @ the hands of Good Morning America (which celebrated their 15th Anniversary)

Joan Lunden (who celebrated her 10th Anniversary) and Charles Gibson (who replaced longtime anchor and former actor 6'5" David Hartman) were a tough team to beat

and Lunden & Gibson kicked everyone's butt in the ratings including the team of Gumbel & Norville and Smith & Zhan and GMA would be the #1 Morning News Show in america from 1990-1995

Now, other than CBS Daytime being #1 thanks in part to Family Feud w/the late Ray Combs, The Price is Right w/Bob Barker, The Young & the Restless, The Bold & the Beautiful, As the World Turns and Guiding Light, CBS was in 3rd place in both the News Dept. and their Prime Time Line-Up

Their only Hit Shows on that network are their Sunday Night Juggernauts in 60 Minutes and Prime Time's #1 Drama Murder, She Wrote as well as Murphy Brown and Designing Women which were Top 10 Hits in the Nielsen Ratings and Rescue 911 was also in the Nielsen Ratings Top 30

1990 also saw the birth of CBS KID TV on Saturday Mornings 4 consecutive seasons and the 2 flagship shows for that block were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Garfield & Friends

For those that don't know, The Family Man was a Sitcom Produced by Miller-Boyett the Producers of such shows as Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Perfect Strangers, Full House, Family Matters and Step By Step

The title role to The Family Man was played by CBS Veteran Gregory Harrison best known for his dramatic roles in CBS Shows such as the 70's Cult Classic Sci-Fi Drama Series Logan's Run (based on the 1976 Film of the same name Starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter & ex-Charlie's Angel in the late Farrah Fawcett)

This was Gregory Harrison's 1st starring role in a Television Sitcom, the series also stars Scott Weinger of Full House and the voice of Disney's Aladdin, the late Ed Winter of M*A*S*H, the late Al Molinaro of The Odd Couple and Happy Days and Gail Edwards of the 80's series It's a Living

Harrison would also host the Reality Drama Series True Detectives a series from the producer of Rescue 911

The Family Man finished #113 out of 141 prime time shows for the 1990-91 season Nielsen rankings.

Not only that, but putting The Family Man and The Hogan Family to Saturday Nights was a HUGE Mess-Up by the networks

I personally didn't care for The Hogan Family, I liked it when it was Valerie, but when they killed off her character, Valerie sued LORIMAR for over $1.75 Million Dollars and won her case

But that's another story on another thread

But also, speaking of CBS News being in 3rd place in the News Dept., CBS News FIRED Kathleen Sullivan (formally of ABC News World News This Morning) from CBS This Morning and they replaced her with Future CNN News Anchor Paula Zhan and that was the same year that NBC News paired Bryant Gumbel w/Deborah Norville (formally of NBC NEWS SUNRISE and now currently of Inside Edition) on The TODAY Show and both CBS This Morning and The TODAY Show suffered ratings @ the hands of Good Morning America (which celebrated their 15th Anniversary)

Joan Lunden (who celebrated her 10th Anniversary) and Charles Gibson (who replaced longtime anchor and former actor 6'5" David Hartman) were a tough team to beat

and Lunden & Gibson kicked everyone's butt in the ratings including the team of Gumbel & Norville and Smith & Zhan and GMA would be the #1 Morning News Show in america from 1990-1995

Now, other than CBS Daytime being #1 thanks in part to Family Feud w/the late Ray Combs, The Price is Right w/Bob Barker, The Young & the Restless, The Bold & the Beautiful, As the World Turns and Guiding Light, CBS was in 3rd place in both the News Dept. and their Prime Time Line-Up

Their only Hit Shows on that network are their Sunday Night Juggernauts in 60 Minutes and Prime Time's #1 Drama Murder, She Wrote as well as Murphy Brown and Designing Women which were Top 10 Hits in the Nielsen Ratings and Rescue 911 was also in the Nielsen Ratings Top 30

Well CBS had good reason to fire her. They caught her insulting their network on the air! She didn't realize the mic was on she called CBS the cheap broadcasting system on the air!

I don't blame her for calling it that. Because CBS cheapened the hell out of daytime Wheel of Fortune when they bought it from NBC in 1989.

Well CBS had good reason to fire her. They caught her insulting their network on the air! She didn't realize the mic was on she called CBS the cheap broadcasting system on the air!

I don't blame her for calling it that. Because CBS cheapened the hell out of daytime Wheel of Fortune when they bought it from NBC in 1989.

That I agree with

I mean, Bob Goen was a good host for Daytime Wheel and Pat Sajak also hosted the show in the same studio CBS Television City in HOLLYWOOD and he was even doin' his Late Night Talk Show

When I watched the Daytime Wheel, I saw they had spaces like $50 $75 $100 $125 $150 $175 and when I think of that, I'm like what the heck?

and it also made Bob Goen look bad, I'll bet Sajak was probably happy that he didn't have to host Daytime Wheel with those kinda payoffs

Vanna White was still busy doin' both Daytime Wheel and Nighttime Wheel

cancelling The Jeffersons without letting the cast and crew know. Sherman Hemsley had to read it in the newspaper.

Here's another Mess-Up

West 57th, named after the famous street where the CBS Broadcast Center is located

This series was a Newsmagazine Program described as the younger and hippier version of 60 Minutes, I personally call it the Channel One News of it's hay day

It featured young reporters like Jane Wallace, Bob Sirott, Meredith Vieira, John Ferrugia, Karen Burnes and of course, Steve Kroft

The show was pretty good, however, beginning in the 86/87 Season, the show was moved to Saturday Nights @ 10/9 Central competing against NBC's Saturday Night Cop Show HUNTER

The theme was great and was composed by the great Edd Kalehoff

However, when Jane Wallace left the show after the 87/88 Season, she was replaced by Selena Scott and the show wasn't the same and the series was cancelled after 4 years in 1989 and the show was replaced by another Newsmagazine Show called Saturday Night with Connie Chung aka Mrs. Maury Povich

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJw0FsA-iQ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Giv6R6v-mWM

Not standing up to Norman Lear and his constant race baiting.

Passing up Wink Martindale's game show Top Secret at the last minute

Passing up Wink Martindale's game show Top Secret at the last minute

Angela Lansbury, of course, is still going strong. I bet she could still play the heck out of Jessica Fletcher today. :cool: :D


I hope they do a reboot with her in it. Instead of that crappy pilot that NBC did with an African American playing Jessica

I think a "Murder, She Wrote" reunion movie is something we're all hoping for! It would truly make my day! It would be ideal for Hallmark channel to produce and air.

Better yet a reboot with Angela Lansbury! Like Fuller House or Girl Meets World not that crappy attempt that didn't get picked up with an African American!

Hey, that was one of their BEST decisions! I liked those shows!

Their biggest mistake, however, was not giving those two shows closure.

Amen to that, I used to watch both shows along with Meego and Gregory Hines every Friday night

Canceling Dave's World

Cancelling Press Your Luck and Body Language and givin' the 3:00 P.M. Time Slots to syndication

Not picking up a Name That a Tube revival with Donny Osmond

*name that tune

Not allowing GSN or Buzzr to rerun The Price is Right

Not allowing GSN or Buzzr to rerun The Price is RightI don't think that is CBS. Bob Barker hates a lot of the models that were on his show and refuses to let it be seen again.

I don't think that is CBS. Bob Barker hates a lot of the models that were on his show and refuses to let it be seen again.


He's an ******* and also his hang-ups on animal rights.

I second that about Barker and his animal rights stand. Wish someone would challenge him on that.

Where's Ted Nugent when you need him.

I don't think that is CBS. Bob Barker hates a lot of the models that were on his show and refuses to let it be seen again.

What gave you this idea?

He's an ******* and also his hang-ups on animal rights.

Terrible comment.

I second that about Barker and his animal rights stand. Wish someone would challenge him on that.

Could you explain the reason for this comment?

What gave you this idea?I used to be a member of the GSN boards. This topic came up a few times about Bob Barker's control issues.

^He may had not liked some of them (most likely the ones who sued him), but I do not believe he "hated a lot of them". I also do not believe he would want certain editions of the program banned from being seen again because of some of these "models" (I had always preferred to call them "helpers").

Hiring Phyllis George for CBS Morning News and passing over qualified candidates in Jane Wallace and Meredith Vierira. Kurtis and George didn't have chemistry on the air and there was a big debacle in her interview with a false accuser of rape and her accusee

I second that about Barker and his animal rights stand. Wish someone would challenge him on that.

Betty White did in 2009. Over an Elephant. He wanted that elephant moved near the San Andreas fault line so it could have fun with the earthquakes while Betty believed in building a bigger cage for it.

Hiring Phyllis George for CBS Morning News and passing over qualified candidates in Jane Wallace and Meredith Vierira. Kurtis and George didn't have chemistry on the air and there was a big debacle in her interview with a false accuser of rape and her accusee

CSrxWm8JQAo

http://tv.avclub.com/cbs-this-morning-1798171137

This actually established a pattern at CBS, where the news division would do the best it could to turn out a program worthy of the memories of Edward R. Murow and Walter Cronkite with what it had to work with, and then, periodically, some higher-up who seemed to have never met a woman but had been told that they class up a joint, and also that women watch TV and like to watch shows featuring members of their own gender, would put out a press release announcing that they were bringing a woman on board. Although CBS (https://books.google.com/books?id=jjFYILQnxlYC&pg=PT74&lpg=PT74&dq=Phyllis+George+Gary+Dotson&source=bl&ots=8mfkjzyW4m&sig=o_N1JpKv_PmY0dkLJkr1ol28ovo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiH1aD2953WAhXnq1QKHXzHBEw4ChDoAQg1MAM#v=onepage&q=Phyllis%20George%20Gary%20Dotson&f=false) has had access to a fair number of intelligent, ambitious, and talented TV journalists who happened to be women, the woman hired to make the morning shows more like Today have tended to be women who have distinguished themselves in other fields. For instance, the biggest "get" in the time slot's history since Sally Quinn was Phyllis George (https://books.google.com/books?id=KH5iToNJhzcC&pg=PT233&lpg=PT233&dq=Phyllis+George+Gary+Dotson&source=bl&ots=L_MoyWtolD&sig=0LNjJz5uodnoV3AUDo1P9TpXr20&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiH1aD2953WAhXnq1QKHXzHBEw4ChDoAQgnMAA#v=onepage&q=Phyllis%20George%20Gary%20Dotson&f=false), who joined the show in 1985, at a time when her greatest accomplishments included winning the Miss America pageant and not throwing up while sitting next to Jimmy the Greek. George's tenure is best remembered for her interview with Gary Dotson, a man who had just been released from prison after serving six years on the basis of a false charge of rape, and Cathleen Crowell, the woman who had accused him when she was sixteen and then recanted. The atmosphere in that room must have been pretty tense, but George smiled all the way through the interview and seemed to get through it without anything too embarrassing or awkward. An entire nation sighed in relief. Then George leaned in and, her smile going nuclear, said to Dotson and Crowell, "How about a hug?"

http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/cathleen-crowell-webb-with-alleged-rapist-gary-dotson-after-webb-her-picture-id515242380

On the day that Phyllis George was practicing relationship counseling (https://books.google.com/books?id=z8MBAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=Phyllis+George+Gary+Dotson&source=bl&ots=NfU1RBILmx&sig=v1RwaVmjK8OgwXvUB75HjDbjCWY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjkq_mo953WAhWJhVQKHbuBCE8Q6AEIbDAP#v=onepage&q=Phyllis%20George%20Gary%20Dotson&f=false) between two people whose most fervent shared hope must have been that neither of them would ever be reminded again of the other's existence, the show was called CBS Morning News. By the time Gumbel took the reins, it was called The Early Show, the title that it stuck with up to the end of last week. (Gumbel left in 2002. After he was gone, the show settled into a not unpleasant, snoozy groove, practically making a solemn vow that it would only make news if someone who had just been voted off Survivor showed up for his interview drunk.) As of this past Monday, when it kicked off its latest reboot, it is called CBS This Morning. But whatever you call it, it always feels like the latest tinkering with the same basic commodity, with the same built-in contradiction: the new division wants to do solid, hard-news show, so they can hold their heads high when they're with their drinking buddies, and the people who sign their checks want a show that can compete with the happy-happy-joy-joy shows on NBC and ABC. The desire to find a compromise is the same impulse that led to the hiring of Katie Couric to anchor the CBS Evening News. If that show was a disappointment for all involved, it's not so much because of anything Couric did wrong but because nobody could figure out a way to make a network evening news broadcast relevant in the era of the Internet and 24-hour cable news channels. (Though it might have helped if CBS News weren't ridiculously underfunded, which means that it might have helped if Couric had told the network, "That's okay, I don't really need fifteen million dollars a year to live on, why don't you take most of that and plow it into correspondents and research teams and overseas bureaus—which I guess means there was something she could have done.)

Phyllis George Resigns Post On `Morning News` (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-08-31/news/8502260974_1_eunice-kennedy-shriver-phyllis-george-edward-m-joyce)

PHYLLIS GEORGE QUITS 'CBS MORNING NEWS' (http://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/31/arts/phyllis-george-quits-cbs-morning-news.html?mcubz=1)

Invitation to a Hug Phyllis George's Gaffe With Dotson & (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/05/16/invitation-to-a-hug-phyllis-georges-gaffe-with-dotson-38/abd90ef2-c53a-4785-947a-56709e47d0b5/?utm_term=.2daf8c10dd7b)

Cbs And Phyllis George: It Just Didn't Work Out (http://articles.latimes.com/1985-09-04/entertainment/ca-23346_1_phyllis-george)

Phyllis George, the former Miss America whose eight months... (http://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/08/31/Phyllis-George-the-former-Miss-America-whose-eight-months/6959494308800/)

'Incredibly Poor Taste' : Suggestion To Embrace Puts George On Hot Seat (http://articles.latimes.com/1985-05-16/entertainment/ca-17653_1_morning-news)

-replacing WKRP with House Calls. 9:30 was the perfect time slot for it on Monday's to boot. CBS should have kept WKRP on Monday's.

- passing over bachelor at law a show with Harold Gould and John Ritter in what would have been his first breakout role. For a show called Roll Out. Roll out lasted thirteen weeks and was replaced by Good Times. John Ritter eventually got his breakout role as Jack Tripper in Three's Company

Cancelling Evening Shade when it was still in the top 30. The ugliness surrounding the Burt Reynolds-Loni Anderson divorce caused both their shows to be cancelled that year. Over on NBC, Nurses actually built-on its Empty Nest lead-in that season.

Not picking up Beanes of Boston, the 1979 US adaptation of Are You Being Served. Powerhouse producer Garry Marshall was behind it and it had a strong cast. AYBS co-creator Jeremy Lloyd was involved with the project and they adapted the classic German-day episode for the pilot.

AYBS is my favorite brit-com, hands down. 'Allo 'Allo and Faulty Towers are pretty good too. My uncle and aunt love Keeping Up Appearances but I never cared for that.

Charlotte Rae as Miss Slocombe and John Hillerman as Peacock! Mr Humphries was comparably weak but I've recently got into Laugh-In and I think Alan Sues would've grown in the role. Of course Lorna Patterson was lovely on the eyes as the equivalent of Miss Brahms. It could've been a classic! :(

Cancelling Evening Shade when it was still in the top 30. The ugliness surrounding the Burt Reynolds-Loni Anderson divorce caused both their shows to be cancelled that year. Over on NBC, Nurses actually built-on its Empty Nest lead-in that season.

What's more passing over Loni Anderson for Marilu Henner. Loni Anderson attempted to co star alongside him but they chose Marilu Henner instead.

Passing on Wink Martindale's game show Top Secret at the eleventh hour

Not picking up Beanes of Boston, the 1979 US adaptation of Are You Being Served. Powerhouse producer Garry Marshall was behind it and it had a strong cast. AYBS co-creator Jeremy Lloyd was involved with the project and they adapted the classic German-day episode for the pilot.

AYBS is my favorite brit-com, hands down. 'Allo 'Allo and Faulty Towers are pretty good too. My uncle and aunt love Keeping Up Appearances but I never cared for that.

Charlotte Rae as Miss Slocombe and John Hillerman as Peacock! Mr Humphries was comparably weak but I've recently got into Laugh-In and I think Alan Sues would've grown in the role. Of course Lorna Patterson was lovely on the eyes as the equivalent of Miss Brahms. It could've been a classic! :(

If they picked it up, sho would have played Mrs. Garrett?

I don't think that is CBS. Bob Barker hates a lot of the models that were on his show and refuses to let it be seen again.

Part of it is CBS as well. Some contractual bull**** with Fremantle. CBS won't let Buzzr air it because they do not want old ones to air and compare them to Drew's version and they're too afraid of overexposure of the series.

Is that a legit reason? If it is, that should be rectified ASAP. I think that's petty if it's true. Look in the mirror if you think Carey's TPIR is failing. What's with the gimmicks they have? Every show is a theme show.

Part of it is CBS as well. Some contractual bull**** with Fremantle. CBS won't let Buzzr air it because they do not want old ones to air and compare them to Drew's version and they're too afraid of overexposure of the series.

Why did you feel the need to post this if it was going to be censored anyway? By the way, I did not believe that statement about the Bob Barker of "The Price is Right".

Why did you feel the need to post this if it was going to be censored anyway? By the way, I did not believe that statement about the Bob Barker of "The Price is Right".

Ask Chris Mann

Why did you feel the need to post this if it was going to be censored anyway? By the way, I did not believe that statement about the Bob Barker of "The Price is Right".

Bob Barker treated Rod Roddy like crap in his final years

Ask Chris Mann

Could you be more specific?

Bob Barker treated Rod Roddy like crap in his final years

This appears to be a rude accusation.

Bob Barker treated Rod Roddy like crap in his final years

Source?


...

http://popspeaking.blogspot.com/2013/12/this-post-is-very-very-special-to-me.html

http://www.retroality.tv/2014/02/buy-this-book-backstage-at-price-is.html

Cancelling Crazy Like A Fox. Yanking around Crazy Like A Fox around the schedule. It was highly rated on Sundays and the perfect companion for Murder, She Wrote. Also a pleasant alternative to movies. We did not need a THIRD network movie in that time-slot. CLAF was fun and could've easily had a decent run of 3+ seasons at least.

Not merging with Disney in the mid-90s. Made a hell of a lot of sense for Disney to buy CBS instead of ABC.

CBS has always been the king of the networks and while they have a variety of different shows ranging from game shows talk shows news programs and dramas sitcoms have always been CBS's strongest links and it's no secret that sitcoms like Mom and The Big Bang Theory are monster hits in TV but in my mind the biggest mistake CBS did in history was in 1989 was debut a sitcom named What's Alan Watching? that was gonna be a hit but due to only one episode airing of the whole series What's Alan Watching? was cancelled with no reason given and CBS could've had a hit sitcom on their hands and another sitcom that I fell in love with from the very first time I saw the preview of it "probably because my school was learning about colonial times and Thanksgiving at the time" was a sitcom called Thanks that was destined to be a huge hit but was cancelled after a few episodes in the 90's and I think that really hurt CBS terribly in the 90's. Another thing that was wrong of CBS to do was end Walker Texas Ranger in 2001 and then making TV movies of Walker Texas Ranger and if CBS was smart they could've made more episodes of Walker Texas Ranger and let the show end in 2002. With reality shows in it's infancy and beginning a new chapter in TV Survivor really proved that CBS was on a roll and because of Survivor's popularity this marked the start of a new lineup for Thursday Nights starting with the debut of CSI and if you look at the complete picture CSI became the top show for CBS in ratings after Survivor but none of the other spin-offs in the CSI family did well except for CSI Miami which got strong ratings then soon after Survivor's success Big Brother and The Amazing Race debuted and they are still going strong but when Mark Burnett decided to create a reality show called Pirate Master the show was gonna be a success but Pirate Master was cancelled for no reason explained. I also think why the reason Robin Williams's sitcom The Crazy Ones was cancelled by CBS is they were going to make Robin Williams a bigger star in TV and when The Crazy Ones was cancelled I think it caused Robin Williams a lot of stress and I think that's why he died after The Crazy Ones was cancelled. Another mistake CBS did was cancel the game show Million Dollar Password instead of having it renewed for another season and it seemed that the show was made as a way to promote CBS stars and mark Regis Philbin's comeback to the game show world. And why didn't CBS cancel The Price Is Right when Bob Barker retired instead of having Drew Carey host it? Because it seems that when CBS has Drew Carey or Wayne Brady as their top game show hosts they would always guest star on CBS sitcoms sometimes. But CBS will still be the king of sitcoms for all time for years to come
Bestie

CSI: NY was successful, it lasted 9 seasons and almost 200 episodes.

CBS has always been the king of the networks and while they have a variety of different shows ranging from game shows talk shows news programs and dramas sitcoms have always been CBS's strongest links and it's no secret that sitcoms like Mom and The Big Bang Theory are monster hits in TV but in my mind the biggest mistake CBS did in history was in 1989 was debut a sitcom named What's Alan Watching? that was gonna be a hit but due to only one episode airing of the whole series What's Alan Watching? was cancelled with no reason given and CBS could've had a hit sitcom on their hands and another sitcom that I fell in love with from the very first time I saw the preview of it "probably because my school was learning about colonial times and Thanksgiving at the time" was a sitcom called Thanks that was destined to be a huge hit but was cancelled after a few episodes in the 90's and I think that really hurt CBS terribly in the 90's. Another thing that was wrong of CBS to do was end Walker Texas Ranger in 2001 and then making TV movies of Walker Texas Ranger and if CBS was smart they could've made more episodes of Walker Texas Ranger and let the show end in 2002. With reality shows in it's infancy and beginning a new chapter in TV Survivor really proved that CBS was on a roll and because of Survivor's popularity this marked the start of a new lineup for Thursday Nights starting with the debut of CSI and if you look at the complete picture CSI became the top show for CBS in ratings after Survivor but none of the other spin-offs in the CSI family did well except for CSI Miami which got strong ratings then soon after Survivor's success Big Brother and The Amazing Race debuted and they are still going strong but when Mark Burnett decided to create a reality show called Pirate Master the show was gonna be a success but Pirate Master was cancelled for no reason explained. I also think why the reason Robin Williams's sitcom The Crazy Ones was cancelled by CBS is they were going to make Robin Williams a bigger star in TV and when The Crazy Ones was cancelled I think it caused Robin Williams a lot of stress and I think that's why he died after The Crazy Ones was cancelled. Another mistake CBS did was cancel the game show Million Dollar Password instead of having it renewed for another season and it seemed that the show was made as a way to promote CBS stars and mark Regis Philbin's comeback to the game show world. And why didn't CBS cancel The Price Is Right when Bob Barker retired instead of having Drew Carey host it? Because it seems that when CBS has Drew Carey or Wayne Brady as their top game show hosts they would always guest star on CBS sitcoms sometimes. But CBS will still be the king of sitcoms for all time for years to come
Bestie

Yesa, I agree about crazy ones. Also, they made a mistake cancelling Diagnosis murder and airing a couple TV movies after that

Firing John Amos from Good Times

The Bradys

Picking up Family Matters and Step by Step from ABC. One one hand it was an interesting move but both shows (especially FM) were long-in-the-tooth. There was no chance that they were going to be successful on CBS. TGIF was still a well-oiled machine and probably benefited by dropping the oldest shows on the line-up. CBS should've learned their lesson when they picked up The Hogan Family from NBC.

Making The Pat Sajak Show into a carbon copy of Johnny Carson instead of making it like Jack Paar's old talk show as originally planned. Jack Paar was Sajak's hero and role model. and Michael Brockman and Pat Sajak wanted it to be like Jack Paar's show but it ended up being a carbon copy of Johnny Carson.

Here's something for ya:

Dallas

Yes, the show was a successful hit from 1979-1986 when it was in the Nielsen Ratings Top 10

However, IMO, after the Who Shot J.R.? Cliffhanger and after the death of Jim Davis, the show seemed to lose its direction

Sure the show was still in the Top 2 and yes, Larry Hagman was the Heart & Soul of the show, but Jim Davis as Jock Ewing was the Team Captain and the Anchor for the show

No offense to the late Howard Keel who was a phenomenal actor, but he wasn't the answer for the replacement of Jim Davis and Clayton Farlow was NOT the answer to Jock Ewing

and also, after the Dream Season and bringing back Patrick Duffy after he quit after 1 season, the show went downhill with bad storylines and horrible scripts

Not to mention, Dallas along with Magnum, P.I., Simon & Simon and many other TV Dramas on CBS started losing viewers thanks to The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, The Golden Girls, A Different World, Empty Nest and many others, plus Murder She Wrote became THE Most Dominant Drama on Prime Time Television

The Final Years of Dallas saw the departures of Victoria Principal, Steve Kanaly and Linda Gray, the show took a HUGE DIVE and dropped out of the Top 30 and the Final 2 Seasons saw the openings without the split screens and the Final Season without Barbara Bel Geddes and Charlene Tilton and focusing on J.R. & Bobby was the final nail in the coffin

Even the Final Episode was downright stupid, but thankfully, 5 years later, CBS brought back Dallas with a 2-Hour Made for TV Movie "J.R. Returns" and it explained that J.R. blew a hole in his mirror, it was pretty good, but the 2nd movie "War of the Ewings"was awful

Dallas was AWESOME and it was voted by TV Guide as THE Greatest Prime Time Soap of All-Time, but not without its flaws

Cancelling The Crazy Ones with Robin Williams. The show gave him something to live for and he wouldn't have ended life when he did if the show was renewed. He felt like the masses have rejected him.

Rebecca Schaffer probably wouldn't have been murdered if My Sister Sam was renewed. See: The Butterfly Effect. She would've at least have had some security being a network star.

Cancelling The Crazy Ones with Robin Williams. The show gave him something to live for and he wouldn't have ended life when he did if the show was renewed. He felt like the masses have rejected him.
The Crazy Ones was a big disappointment for me. It was nowhere near Robin William's best work. Stars have shows get cancelled all the time, his depression and suicidal thoughts went a lot deeper than that.

CBS' sitcom outlook by the start of the '80s showed just how they had lost their way.

For example, in one fell swoop, they cancelled WKRP in Cincinnati only to turn around undermine One Day at a Time's premise by having Howard Hesseman come on as Sam Royer and marry Ann. If I'm not mistaken, even Bonnie Franklin thought so. And the audience at the time agreed: it was ranked #16 in the 1982-1983 season but fell out of the top 30 altogether in the 1983-1984 season. Ultimately, Bonnie Franklin and Valerie Bertinelli told TV Guide they would not be returning for a tenth season, hence the last-ditch effort to re-invent it with Schneider taking care of his dead brother's children.

Meanwhile, The Jeffersons and Alice hung on another year and just plain got old.

-expanding Family Feud to an hour. As a result The Bullseye round took too long to play. It overwhelmed Ray Combs so much that it was basically the beginning of his downfall.

- In 1990, CBS attempted to counter program ABC’s game show block of Super Jeopardy and Monopoly with a prime time version of The Price is Right. However, they failed to give Mark Goodson enough notice to prepare one and he candidly told them so

Never getting a sitcom to air after the Super Bowl. Ever since the modern era of Super Bowl led-out programs started with NBC's Friends in 1996, CBS has only had two reality series, two dramas, and one of their late-night talk shows air in the post-Super Bowl timeslot, and never a sitcom. It was announced today that another reality series, a competition titled The World's Best, will air after Super Bowl 53. The Super Bowl lead-out programs on CBS were:

2001 (XXXV): Survivor: The Australian Outback
2004 (XXXVIII): Survivor: All-Stars
2007 (XLI): Criminal Minds
2010 (XLIV): Undercover Boss
2013 (XLVII): Elementary
2016 (L): The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
2019 (LIII): The World's Best

CBS' sitcom outlook by the start of the '80s showed just how they had lost their way.

For example, in one fell swoop, they cancelled WKRP in Cincinnati only to turn around undermine One Day at a Time's premise by having Howard Hesseman come on as Sam Royer and marry Ann. If I'm not mistaken, even Bonnie Franklin thought so. And the audience at the time agreed: it was ranked #16 in the 1982-1983 season but fell out of the top 30 altogether in the 1983-1984 season. Ultimately, Bonnie Franklin and Valerie Bertinelli told TV Guide they would not be returning for a tenth season, hence the last-ditch effort to re-invent it with Schneider taking care of his dead brother's children.

Meanwhile, The Jeffersons and Alice hung on another year and just plain got old.

Yes! Had Howard Hesseman not agreed to do ODAAT, we could have seen WKRP come back!

Cancelling Murphy Brown

Allowing "Good Times" to go on without John Amos. Show was never the same after his departure.

Not cancelling "The Andy Griffith Show" when Don Knotts left. The show got worse afterwards

Cancelling Murphy Brown

Now they're canceling it again. There is a god.

Canceling Gilligan's Island and the Beverly Hillbillies without proper endings.

Cancelling The Crazy Ones with Robin Williams. The show gave him something to live for and he wouldn't have ended life when he did if the show was renewed. He felt like the masses have rejected him.

Rebecca Schaffer probably wouldn't have been murdered if My Sister Sam was renewed. See: The Butterfly Effect. She would've at least have had some security being a network star.

I'm not comfortable with the theory or narrative that had The Crazy Ones not been canceled so early, then Robin Williams wouldn't have ended his life. You have to keep in mind, that Robin Williams was sick with Lewy body dementia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewy_body_dementia).

As far as Rebecca Schaeffer, what apparently drove her killer, Robert Bardo over the edge was her appearance in a movie called Class Struggle in Beverly Hills. There's a scene in which Rebecca is in bed with a man, which really upset Bardo because it tainted his image of her as this "pure, innocent young woman". Robert Bardo was also able to find out where Rebecca lived by going to the DMV, paying a small fee, and filling out a form stating who they are, what person they want information on, the reason, and how they intend to use it (even if they lie). Because the way that the general public and law enforcement viewed stalking of celebrities back then (and as an up and comer, Rebecca Schaeffer sadly, wasn't yet viewed as that big of a star to worth protecting), her murder may have been inevitable.

pulling the plug on Wink Martindale’s Game Show Top Secret at the last minute.

Not picking up Ross Shafer’s Match Game as planned

Firing John Amos from Good Times

That was Norman Lear and the producers. CBS had no involvement, whatsoever.

It's also because the president and CEO of C, that's B.S. Les Moonves's wife (Julie Chen) hosts the latter and as long she's still married to him, she isn't going anywhere.

It's also the very reason why The Talk (which is a ripoff of ABC's The View) was selected to replace the now long-cancelled soap As the World Turns over other shows (like the planned $1M Pyramid in particular) in the 1st place.

I wonder how Ms. Chen will fare now that Mr. Moonves has since been ousted from CBS due to sexual assault allegations.

Casting Beth Behrs on The Neighborhood after the circumstances surrounding the unexpected cancellation of 2 Broke Girls (her previous sitcom on CBS).

Agreeing and signing on for their O&O’s to air a revival of The $64,000 Question only to pitch a fit because it exceeded their $25k winnings limit on game shows.


Cheapening Daytime Wheel.

Casting Beth Behrs on The Neighborhood after the circumstances surrounding the unexpected cancellation of 2 Broke Girls (her previous sitcom on CBS).With you being such a big 2 Broke Girls fan, wouldn't you want to support Beth Behrs in her future projects? She wouldn't have agreed to The Neighborhood if she didn't like it. And 2BG cancellation may have been some of a surprise, but with being an aging, unowned show it wasn't a huge shock. The same thing happened with Mike and Molly. Even the Chuck Lorre influence couldn't make that show go longer, as it wasn't a big hit like TBBT and 2.5 Men.

With you being such a big 2 Broke Girls fan, wouldn't you want to support Beth Behrs in her future projects? She wouldn't have agreed to The Neighborhood if she didn't like it. And 2BG cancellation may have been some of a surprise, but with being an aging, unowned show it wasn't a huge shock. The same thing happened with Mike and Molly. Even the Chuck Lorre influence couldn't make that show go longer, as it wasn't a big hit like TBBT and 2.5 Men.

Frankly, catsrule, I had zero idea that 2 Broke Girls was going to get cancelled as abruptly as it did, nor did I think it was already going to get as expensive as Two and a Half Men did, so the cancellation of 2BG really was a big shock. I also didn't know that being moved around the network's schedule so frequently throughout its run would make it easier for a veteran show to get cancelled without a proper send-off. I would have glasly takes a 7th and final 13-episode season of 2BG that debuted as a replacement for a failed freshman sitcom instead of an outright and abrupt cancellation. I also thought that 2BG was going to move to TBS after the CBS cancellation (since TBS was already airing syndicated reruns of 2BG), but it wasn't to be. Now I never want to watch any syndicated reruns of 2 Broke Girls ever again. And considering CBS's poor treatment of 2BG, I was thinking its cast and crew should never work on a CBS show again, and CBS itself should stop ordering and airing new series from Warner Bros. TV altogether.

Remember the cancellations of WKRP in Cincinnati and Square Pegs? Well, considering that 2BG had been the network's youngest-skewing comedy series, CBS's screwing-over of WKRP and Square Pegs (as well as a failed attempt to court younger viewers in the mid-1990s after they lost the NFL to FOX-TV) is an indication that CBS does not like its shows' audiences to skew too young.

And I would have supported Beth Behrs in her future projects, but not if she was going to return to a network who screwed over her previous (long-running) show in the first place. I think her casting on The Neighborhood was a total surprise, and I would have had a falling-out with Beth Behrs over this, and I would avoid interacting with Ms. Behrs as long as she is on the main cast of The Neighborhood (or any CBS show, for that matter). Beth Behrs should have joined the cast of a cable channel's or digital/SVOD platform's original show instead. At least Kat Dennings is now starring in a series on Hulu (Dollface).

CBS gave The Mentalist, Person of Interest, and Mike & Molly proper send-offs (all of those are also produced by Warner Bros.), and I'll never get over them not giving one to 2BG. Scorpion, on the other hand, was an owned show, and that also died with no send-off.

And now that The Big Bang Theory is gone from new episodes for good (I believe that is almost entirely Jim Parsons's fault), I'm just never going to watch any new CBS sitcoms, or any shows produced by Warner Bros., for as long as I live.:(

Putting their revival.ofPerson to Person with Charlie Rose and Lara Logan against American Idol

Revamping Together We Stand and getting rid of Elliott Goukd.