Thursday has traditionally seen the biggest television ratings wars, with the networks throwing their heaviest weaponry into the fray. 2007-08 was basically a static season when it came to Thursday nights, as the major commercial networks all stuck with their strengths: female-oriented fare on ABC, procedurals on CBS, sitcoms on NBC, game shows on Fox, and (mostly) lighthearted suspense on the CW. The result was that very little changed: positive results for ABC and CBS, and three other networks were searching for a way to join in the fun.

CBS has had by far the most stable situation on Thursdays, as Survivor and the original CSI have held down the fort for seven seasons, joined for most of that time by Without a Trace. Survivor gets a lot of negative attention because its ratings slip a little bit every season, but when considering that prime-time ratings for all network shows are sliding, Survivor has held up remarkably well. It still wins 8 PM comfortably, even though the competition no longer avoids putting up a fight.

As for the second year of the Grey's Anatomy/CSI battle, that has to be considered a narrow win for Grey's on demographic grounds. CSI has great strength for a show finishing its eighth season (it is still the highest rated show on CBS), but its numbers fell noticeably after the strike, and as the show is facing major cast turnover for the first time, the situation bears watching. Without a Trace recovered much of its old strength with a move back to its traditional Thursday home at 10:00, although CBS is moving it again next season as it tries to break in a younger program.

ABC's 2006 gamble of moving Grey's Anatomy to Thursday has to be termed a success, and fans seemed pleased with the season just past. But the show has been unable to anchor the night in the same way CSI has anchored CBS. Thursday at 10:00 has become an embarrassing trouble spot, as the network has cycled through several options after trying out and then quickly abandoning the one series that could have been a good fit, Men in Trees. In the weirdest scheduling move of the season, the fall entry at 10:00 PM was the male-oriented Big Shots, which wouldn't have worked anywhere, much less following Grey's. Eli Stone debuted toward the tail end of the WGA strike and while it won some fans with its eccentricity, its renewal for next season was a close call.

As for the show that was supposed to be taking dead aim at Survivor by now, Ugly Betty, it was a sophomore slump season by most accounts, as plots began to get soapier and sillier and the heart of the series, Betty herself, seemed to be ignored much of the time. Ugly Betty is still a key part of the ABC strategy, but expectations for it may have to be scaled back. Speaking of which, Lost seems to have officially evolved in its fourth season from a ratings hit to a cult phenomenon, reversing the usual formula. No show gets or deserves more buzz, but its ratings continued to slip despite the series airing on Thursdays for the first time. The frequent interruptions, long off seasons, and the admitted complexity of the plot have all taken their toll, although it's nothing ABC won't put up with considering the fervor of its fan base, and considering that at least for a half season, it gives the network nothing to worry about at 10:00 PM.

Fox has never had much idea what to do about Thursday, other than occasionally considering shifting the American Idol schedule to cover the night. Their solution for this past season wasn't half bad, however: stick the low-cost game shows Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? and Don't Forget the Lyrics out there and get a predictable, if small, family audience week in week out. The network will air Moment of Truth at 8:00 PM in the fall, really going after Survivor for the first time ever.

The CW stuck with Smallville and Supernatural on Thursdays again. Both shows have a tiny and devoted audience, but the coming season will almost certainly mark the end of the arrangement (it will definitely be the last season for Smallville, which is losing a key actor in Michael Rosenbaum), giving the network yet another trouble spot.

Programmers at NBC have to be pulling their hair out (too late in the case of Jeff Zucker) about this network's continuing ratings black hole on the night it owned for a generation. It would be one thing if NBC was failing with garbage, but its sitcom lineup is as well-regarded as any network has had in this decade, and yet people simply aren't watching. While not everyone was happy with the major plot turns this season on My Name is Earl, or with the too-frequent hour-long episodes of The Office, both series continued to crank out Emmy-quality work -- or it would be Emmy-quality work if not for the presence of the even better 30 Rock on the same night. But in the same way Scrubs soldiered on for years long after people stopped associated-Thursday-TV-watching with NBC sitcoms, the network brass may have to accept that this is now how it is going to be.

ER still holds down 10:00 PM for NBC, although the series will finally end next winter after 15 seasons of helicopters falling on personnel and more inter-hospital nookie than even Grey's Anatomy. During the ER winter break, the network tried out the Candace Bushnell product Lipstick Jungle at 10:00 PM, and it did barely well enough to make it back for a second season. The WGA strike and a format change that made the show a VH1-style celebrity self-parody proved to be saving graces for The Apprentice, the last real hit NBC had on Thursdays back when it was new. Unfortunately, the peacock is looking about as bad on Thursday nowadays as the Trump haircut.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us