HBO is Sunday schooled

Tony Soprano may whack the networks this Sunday -- again. And like “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero before them, the victims seem resigned to their fate.

As “The Sopranos” returns for its fifth season on HBO, there’s a nagging question hanging over America’s broadcast networks: What happened to Sundays?

In a sign of larger changes shaking the television industry, the broadcasters are facing some huge problems on what was once their biggest night. Throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, Sunday prime time was a showcase for TV movies and, before that, such top-rated series as NBC’s “Bonanza.” Now, it’s become a repository for special events (including the Oscar telecast, which moved from Mondays starting with the 1999 telecast) and an ever-growing array of heavily touted cable premieres, such as Showtime’s “The L-Word” and HBO’s upcoming revisionist western “Deadwood.”

The result? The networks’ regular series are for the most part lost in the shuffle.

“It’s become difficult for any series program on Sunday nights, in a way that did not exist three years ago,” said Jeff Zucker, president of NBC’s Entertainment, News and Cable Group. “It’s tough for broadcasters to gain a lot of momentum.”

“It really has been a significant erosion” for broadcasters on Sunday,” said Bob Greenblatt, entertainment president of Showtime Networks and former independent producer with credits including HBO’s “Six Feet Under” and UPN’s “Eve.” “The cable networks ... just woke up and saw there was an opportunity there.”

Indeed, “The Sopranos” -- entering its next-to-last season -- could set another ratings record at 9 p.m. this Sunday. The fourth season debut of the mob drama, in September 2002, drew 13.4 million viewers to HBO, the largest audience in the history of the pay cable network. HBO had the most-watched program during that time slot and drew twice as many viewers as CBS, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research.

Since then, Nielsen has begun offering audience measurements for each of HBO’s individual networks, rather than one combined number for all of them. That could make it more difficult for “Sopranos” to deliver an eye-popping number this time around.

On the other hand, the networks aren’t exactly planning Nielsen heroics for Sunday. ABC will air its ratings-challenged spy drama “Alias,” while NBC is sticking with “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” Fox has its usual sitcom lineup of “Malcolm in the Middle” and “Arrested Development.” CBS will feature a made-for-TV movie about three women who band together after being raped by the same man.

It may be tempting to say that HBO simply caught the networks napping and has, since “The Sopranos” premiered in January 1999, figured out how to upstage broadcasters on Sundays. There’s little doubt that original cable series play a huge role. Subscription-only HBO opened up Sunday as a premiere night in the late 1990s, after executives realized that they could easily promote new series before and after the major theatrical premieres airing on Saturday nights. The idea quickly spread across the cable dial, and Sunday has become the top-rated night for ad-supported cable networks as well as HBO.

But for broadcasters, the problem extends well past Tony Soprano. Special events preempt many Sunday series. Networks are increasingly chasing ad dollars -- and scheduling their hottest shows -- on more lucrative nights. Furthermore, the TV movie business has essentially migrated to cable, robbing the networks of a once-reliable programming option.

Then there is the surge in competition that affects the networks across the board. The number of channels available in the average U.S. home has swelled from 41 in 1995 to more than 100 today.

“I’m not surprised” the networks are struggling on Sundays, said Dave Baldwin, executive vice president of program planning at HBO. “They’re down all over.”

Yet although the broadcast networks have lost audience share to cable every night, the problem is especially acute on Sundays. The big networks’ combined share of the young-adult viewers advertisers covet has slipped to 47% on that night, compared with 64% during the 1997-98 season, the last before HBO’s “Sopranos” and “Sex and the City” premiered. For the rest of the week, broadcasters still snare more than half of those young-adult viewers.

To be fair, Sundays are far from a total disaster for broadcasters. Because they are available in nearly all U.S. homes with televisions, broadcast networks are still able to pile up much larger audiences for individual shows than their cable counterparts. For example, a recent episode of CBS’ freshman drama “Cold Case,” airing at 8 p.m. Sunday, rounded up 15 million viewers -- a figure cable networks seldom come close to matching. CBS, in fact, boasts a much-strengthened Sunday schedule this season, thanks to the success of “Cold Case” and improved ratings for its movies.

Most of the Sunday trends, however, are not encouraging for broadcasters. Two of the night’s top series, CBS’ “60 Minutes” and Fox’s “The Simpsons,” have been on the air for years and are well past their ratings primes. Several new series added in recent years have failed, including NBC’s dramas “Boomtown” and CBS’ sitcom “Bram & Alice.” Before “Cold Case,” no network had conjured a real Sunday hit since “Malcolm in the Middle,” and that premiered four years ago.

Cable is also bleeding viewers from the broadcasters with such offerings as movies on TNT, TBS and USA and Discovery’s documentary shows, among others.

“The closest thing to a lightning rod is ‘The Sopranos,’ ” said Preston Beckman, executive vice president at Fox Broadcasting Co. “There isn’t a ‘CSI’-like or ‘ER’-like show” on Sundays.

That marks a big shift in TV history. For decades, Sunday was considered the programmers’ Holy Grail, because more people watched that night than any other. Entire families gathered around the set during the 1950s and 1960s to watch “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Beginning in the 1970s, Sundays were devoted mainly to features and made-for-TV movies.

But with the exception of CBS, which still schedules a Sunday movie, the networks abandoned the TV movie business as such cable networks as Lifetime and TNT developed their own original movies, following the very successful trail HBO blazed over the last 15 years. “A lot of cable networks have come in and stolen the movie thunder,” Showtime’s Greenblatt said.

The Sunday problems for broadcasters “probably started when network movies started to decline,” said Steve Sternberg, executive vice president of ad agency Magna Global in New York.

Meanwhile, such special events as the Oscars, the Golden Globes and the Grammys are interrupting Sunday series in the middle of the season, making it harder for devoted viewers to follow their favorite shows. “It’s rare that the viewer gets to watch any series for as long as four or five weeks without preemption,” HBO’s Baldwin said.

Finally, advertising has helped drive programming decisions that have weakened Sundays for broadcasters.

Although Sundays are TV’s second-most-watched night (behind Mondays), networks are more interested in chasing young-adult viewers later in the week, when advertisers -- hoping to grab the attention of viewers planning their weekends -- spend top dollar to tout new movies and other products. That helps explain why CBS moved “Survivor” and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” to Thursdays once the shows were hits on other nights. It also reveals why networks are even less interested in Fridays and Saturdays -- the two least-watched nights -- than they are in Sundays.

“Advertisers will pay the greatest premiums on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,” NBC’s Zucker said.

What puzzles many analysts and observers is that the networks have not found a way to perk up Sundays with an unscripted hit akin to “American Idol” or “The Apprentice.” Despite the enormous clout of so-called reality series during the rest of the week, the Sunday schedule has just one such program, “The Surreal Life” on the WB Network (which is part owned by the Tribune Co., The Times’ parent company).

Zucker said that NBC won’t rule out finding a signature reality series for Sunday night. But he said the network is looking at other programming strategies as well, including scripted series that would air just six or 10 episodes, thus limiting preemptions for special events.

Whatever happens, it’s clear that networks haven’t entirely ceded Sunday to Tony Soprano. Not yet, anyway.

“Sunday does have to be programmed differently,” Zucker said, adding: “We’ve spent a tremendous amount of time talking about this.”