If the fall was disappointing for new scripted series, the midseason has been disastrous. One drama after another has flopped, and the comedies are leaving few viewers laughing.
What can you say about a TV season that produces Donald Trump as the star of the biggest new hit?
At the very least, it has been mighty odd. And reality still reigns.
” ‘Survivor,’ ‘American Idol’ and ‘The Apprentice’ are eclipsing everything on television right now,” says analyst John Rash, senior vice president of Campbell Mithun advertising agency in Minneapolis. “Quickly, the media machine will focus on the series finales of ‘Frasier’ and ‘Friends.’ It’s unlikely any new scripted series will gain any traction until a quieter time.”
After the hectic February sweeps ratings period, March seemed the optimum time to trot out some new series. But viewers weren’t interested in law, whether practiced in modern-day Los Angeles in ABC’s “The D.A.” or in the L.A. of 2030 in CBS’ “Century City,” which was canceled last week after only four weeks on the air.
ABC trumpeted “Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital” as a potential hit before its debut March 3. But the horror drama stumbled so badly that the Disney-owned network will shift it to Thursdays, starting this week, where it will die a quiet death against CBS’ “CSI” and “The Apprentice.”
Viewers have treated the new comedies like stale leftovers. Fox’s “Cracking Up,” about a dysfunctional family, started strongly before the audience departed in droves. CBS’ “The Stones,” about another wacky family, sank in the ratings, as did “The Help,” the WB’s pitiful look at the domestic staff of an affluent family.
“The entire television culture is leaning more to reality,” Rash says.
But the networks should be concerned about relying on too much reality, according to a survey last week from the research firm Ipsos-Insight.
The survey of 1,000 adults, from March 12 to 15, found that respondents think there are too many dating programs (79 percent), too many survival programs (67 percent) and too many makeover shows (52 percent).
Senior analyst Lynne Bartos of Ipsos-Insight says the survey suggests that the audience is overwhelmed by reality. But the networks have to hope the survey results are wrong. Coming Wednesday: the latest installment of ABC’s “The Bachelor,” and Fox’s “The Swan,” a makeover show with a beauty pageant.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
