The Incredible Shrinking Schedule

The fall is traditionally a time when the air begins to cool and football fills every nook and cranny of the weekends.

In a small corner of the universe, however, what this usually signals is that six broadcast networks should begin besieging us with more than 30 new prime-time series as part of the 104 hours of programming NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, the WB and UPN dish out each week in the coveted hours between the last vowel is turned on “Wheel of Fortune” and the fanfare of the “Eyewitness News” theme.

Yet in an age when DVDs slather on hours of extra footage and new cable channels seem to spring from the ground like the skeletons in “Jason and the Argonauts,” when was the last time you paused to ask, “Hey, does anyone really need that much programming?”

Believe it or not, the three eldest television networks have asked that very thing over the years, wondering whether churning out 22 hours of splashy prime-time programming each week (including four hours on Sundays) still makes sense--or more accurately, dollars and cents--in today’s penny-pinching corporate environment.

If you haven’t been paying close attention, in fact, you might have missed that the nightly lineups on ABC, CBS and NBC have been dwindling right before our very eyes--what might be called the incredible shrinking schedule.

As usual, Chicken Little-like warnings that this was a possibility went largely unheeded or were summarily dismissed and ridiculed. Back in 1991, then-ABC Entertainment President Robert Iger flatly told a roomful of reporters that the economics of network television were so bad that one of the networks might not be around to greet the new millennium. Short of that, Iger said, he could foresee a day when the networks pared back the number of hours they programmed each week by half, essentially telling their affiliates, the local stations charged with filling hours that the networks don’t, “Here, you take it.”

Explaining that the bottom third of a network’s schedule is a money-losing proposition, Iger concluded, “It might be in a network’s best interest to concede those hours and those unprofitable [time periods] to their affiliates. We have to adjust. Because as the [audience] shares decline, it obviously creates significant economic hardship.”

Iger is currently president of ABC’s parent, the Walt Disney Co., so his imprudent brush with candidness didn’t cost him severely over the long haul. And although ABC took something of a beating in the press for his remarks, the network wasn’t alone in lamenting the state of its business. In fact, the other networks reportedly held conversations around that time about brokering time periods, and even entire nights, to studios--in essence saying, “Pay us for the shelf space, produce the programs and sell the advertising yourself.”

So what’s changed? Not much, in certain respects. The economy has turned sour again, with networks complaining about a downturn in the advertising market and the difficulty of getting audiences to tune in for reruns, which is vital to justifying the cost of producing expensive one-hour shows such as “The West Wing” and “The X-Files.”

Granted, with the exception of NBC, the major networks are now owned by studios, and all increasingly produce--and thus own the rerun rights to--many of their programs. Still, because the vast majority of shows fail long before reaching the magic 100-episode plateau needed to cash in by selling those rights (which can generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the next “Friends” or “Seinfeld”), all that means most of the time is the network producing and broadcasting a series loses money on two fronts simultaneously.

Faced with that twisted mathematical equation, the networks have gone about the task of minimizing their risk--and the cost of supplying their schedule--albeit in a more subtle manner than Iger discussed.

Just look back to 1986, right before Fox made its debut in prime time. That year, only four of the 66 hours programmed by the Big Three networks--those devoted to “60 Minutes,” “20/20” and “Monday Night Football”--were occupied by something other than a scripted series or made-for-TV movie slot.

This fall, those same three channels have allocated 24 hours--or more than a third of their total rosters--to newsmagazines, unscripted programs, quiz shows and the like, including Saturday movies on ABC and NBC that amount to throwing in the towel by running theatrical films on a night when overall TV-viewing levels tend to be lower anyway.

Indeed, long before the networks stumbled across the allure of unscripted series such as “Survivor” and quiz shows such as “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and “The Weakest Link,” newsmagazines had become a key staple letting them inexpensively flesh out their schedules, until “Dateline NBC” anchors Jane Pauley and Stone Phillips became to out-of-work sitcom writers the kind of fear-inducing duo that Batman and Robin are to criminals. Even with unscripted shows cutting into the presence of news programs (which, in “Dateline’s” case, peaked at a staggering five editions a week in 1998), network news departments still account for eight hours in prime time--a figure that can quickly be expanded as series disappear.

Of course, new networks signed on during the mid-1990s, offsetting some of the time (and Hollywood-based jobs) lost to these alternative formats. Taking a page from Fox--which made good on its pledge to become “the fourth network” while still providing a third less programming than its better-established rivals--the WB and UPN networks have gradually added nights but limit their weekly prime-time exposure to 13 and 10 hours, respectively.

Yet those figures can be misleading. As WB President and Chief Operating Officer Jed Petrick points out, his fledgling network, with its assortment of sitcoms and dramas, actually offers as much traditional entertainment programming as ABC. This fall, both networks will serve up 11 hours of scripted sitcoms and dramas in prime time, meaning that news, unscripted shows, “Millionaire” and “Monday Night Football” make up fully half of the latter’s schedule. (The WB is part-owned by the Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times.)

The major networks “have been chipping away, finding ways to bring their programming budgets down,” Petrick says, adding that those same networks--with their built-up news, sports and entertainment divisions--are gradually adapting “from the old days of these guys trying to be everything to everybody.”

The irony is that Fox didn’t cap its contribution to prime time at 15 hours out of any grand design, but rather out of practical necessity. Declining to exceed that plateau skirted onerous Federal Communications Commission rules (ultimately revised, in a sign of Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch’s lobbying acumen, specifically to bolster Fox’s growth) that defined a network as any entity providing more than 15 hours of prime-time programming on a national basis.

Over time, however, Fox’s strategy and business plan increasingly appeared to have unique merits. The network’s big-city stations, such as KTTV in Los Angeles, were able to play profitable local newscasts at 10 p.m., catching an audience that might not want to wait up for its fix of news, weather and sports. No wonder the elder networks have wrestled with affiliated stations in the Pacific time zone who want to start prime time an hour earlier, precisely so they can attract better ratings--and thus pocket more money--by scheduling an hour of late news at 10.

“To some extent, the networks have almost gotten to the model that Fox created,” says Mitchell Stern, chairman and chief executive of the Fox Television Stations.

Although network programming provides prestige, local fare has consistently offered stations bigger profits and helps them forge bonds in their community. Selling local advertising is also often easier and more profitable than garnering national sponsors--one reason ABC, in the face of sluggish advertising sales, reportedly offered to return a few minutes during “Monday Night Football” to stations to peddle locally, hoping to split the loot.

In similar fashion, locally produced morning shows, such as KTTV’s “Good Day L.A.,” have become money machines for the Fox stations. “It really begs the question, can the affiliates, in certain day parts, be a lot more successful if you are not uniform and national?” Stern says.

The relationship between networks and their station partners has also grown strained under the weight of industry consolidation, as shown last spring when a group of 600 affiliates petitioned the FCC to protect them from network abuses. Again, economics are at the heart of the dispute, with stations chafing, among other things, over contracts that limit their freedom to preempt network fare--a threat, the stations maintain, to the very premise of localism and diversity of voices upon which the U.S. system of broadcasting was founded. It’s the stations, after all, that are licensed by the government and obligated to serve the public interest, however murky that concept may have become.

Beyond the legislative and financial quagmire, there are qualitative factors to consider as well. Network executives have long pointed enviously at the advantages enjoyed by cable channels--especially Home Box Office--which produce a mere handful of original series each year, affording them the luxury of more tightly focusing their production efforts and promotional resources.

Bristling at the critical praise showered on HBO, some network officials have noted that the pay service is playing an entirely different game by centering its original programming largely on a single night, putting “The Sopranos,” “Sex and the City” and “Six Feet Under” on Sundays. These executives contend that if each network could put forward only their best series--say, “ER,” “Law & Order” and “Frasier” on NBC--they measure up reasonably well, with an inevitable diminution of quality as the number of programs expands.

Moreover, the addition of new broadcast and cable channels has only heightened the difficulty of finding top-notch programs, network officials insist, creating a mad dash to attract established talent that inevitably dilutes the available pool, giving rise to an assortment of undistinguished shows that rapidly fail.

If all of this poor-mouthing prompts one to wonder why the networks bother at all, it’s worth remembering that along with the return of football, each fall brings with it renewed hope that more hits are around the corner. Just when people begin to write the networks off, another “NYPD Blue,” “West Wing,” “Malcolm in the Middle” or “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” comes along to make up for plenty of past errors. And simplistic as it sounds, you can’t establish those programs without owning the real estate on which they’re built.

That said, the television business is changing so rapidly it seems certain that sooner or later, something has got to give. “If you had a crystal ball and looked 10 years into the future, it’s just going to be totally different,” says producer Fred Silverman, who sat in the entertainment president’s hot seat at each of the Big Three networks over the years. “You’re not going to have 22 hours a week of big, expensive programming.”

In that respect, Sony Corp. of America Chief Executive Howard Stringer may have clearly glimpsed the future--and the networks’ current predicament--a decade ago, when, as president of the CBS Broadcast Group, he met with reporters and put his own spin on Iger’s comments.

“We need to take risks,” he said. “If we don’t, the demon out there is the 100-channel universe where writers and producers are spread thin, and mediocrity is inevitable.”