People have been talking about the death of the sitcom for years. This season, it may actually happen.
At last week’s upfronts, the five broadcast networks introduced the lowest number of new fall sitcoms, six, in at least five years and perhaps longer.
NBC, the network most closely associated with great comedies over the past 15 years with shows like “Seinfeld,” “Cheers” and “Friends,” doesn’t have a new fall comedy for the first time in its history.
The dearth of sitcoms was the most noticeable programming trend among several that emerged from last week’s fall schedule announcements. Others include dramas that focus on fantasy, programs about hip young career women, and a rebirth of reality shows.
There doesn’t appear to be one reason behind the decline in sitcoms. Rather, it’s a number of factors, such as low ratings for existing comedies and poor development, that finally converged.
It comes after a season in which there was not one standout hit comedy. “Of the new comedies, none of them this year was very good at all or delivered many viewers,” says one media researcher.
The biggest problem is the networks' inability to develop comedies that people want to watch, in what's become a yearly struggle with no apparent end in sight.
Just five new comedies from the more than a dozen that premiered last fall were renewed. The only new comedy to average better than a 3.0 rating among 18-49s was CBS’s “Rules of Engagement,” and even that was beginning to slip in its final few outings.
Media people say the fact that low-rated shows like ABC’s “Notes from the Underbelly,” Fox’s “’Til Death” and NBC’s “30 Rock” were renewed at all is the truest indicator of just how poorly the networks are faring in developing new sitcoms.
“NBC stubbornly keeps renewing and promoting ‘Scrubs’ as though it was actually a hit. It’s not. ‘Scrubs’’ renewal, along with no non-Thursday comedies, is not a positive statement about the NBC’s comedy development,” notes a Magna Global analysis of the new NBC schedule released last week.
Other media people note that reality is increasingly filling the comedy role on the networks’ schedules. The “American Idol” audition episodes, “Dancing with the Stars” and “Survivor” often provide more laughs than any sitcom on television.
Comedic elements are also popping up in soapy hour-long dramas, such as CW’s now-canceled “Gilmore Girls,” ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Desperate Housewives” and NBC’s “Heroes.”
Meanwhile, another upfront trend was the huge boom in fantasy dramas, coming as NBC’s fantasy-based “Heroes” finishes its first season as the top-ranked new program.
Every network has at least one fantasy-based program about raising the dead, vampires or other supernatural elements. NBC has several, including “Bionic Woman” and “Journeyman.”
There were also several shows about career-oriented yet stylish women on the schedule, some three years after “Sex and the City” left the air. NBC’s “Lipstick Jungle,” about three New York executives, is getting the best buzz. There’s also ABC’s “Cashmere Mafia” and “Sam I Am,” as well as the network’s “SATC”-with-guys, “Big Shots.”
And there was a big return to reality, after two years in which unscripted shows were mainly used during the summer and midseason. There are seven airing this fall, including three on Fox. The CW has ordered two for fall and three for midseason.
CBS may have the reality show with the biggest buzz. “Kid Nation” lets 40 kids loose for 40 days to build a new community in a show that’s a bit like “Survivor” without the bugs.
