NBC takes a populist approach this fall

For most of the last 20 years, NBC had a lock on upscale TV viewers, thanks to such relatable yuppie favorites as “Seinfeld,” “Friends” and “The West Wing.”

So what’s the bright new hope for reversing last year’s double-digit ratings slide? “My Name Is Earl,” a comedy about a scruffy working-class guy struggling to redeem a lifetime of boorish behavior.

“Earl,” which has its debut Sept. 20, is part of a larger shift at NBC, where the overall lineup has an unmistakably populist feeling this fall. There’s “Three Wishes,” a feel-good reality show hosted by Christian pop singer Amy Grant, which executives hope will deliver ratings akin to ABC’s hit “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” Then there’s “Surface,” a pulpy adventure about explorers who encounter mysterious sea creatures.

And if all that’s not enough to pack ‘em into the big tent, NBC is bringing back football, a perennial crowd-pleaser. After years of dismissing big-league sports as a money-losing proposition, the network recently reversed course and announced a deal for NFL games on Sundays, starting next year.

Thanks to poor ratings and heightened competition from cable networks chasing niche audiences, NBC is making its boldest push for mainstream American viewers in years. Many TV veterans say that catering to the luxury-loving crowd is a luxury NBC can no longer afford. The network needs to boost its audience any way it can, whether it draws on Neiman Marcus habitues or the Wal-Mart masses.

“When you’re at the bottom, the only way to get back on track is to do things that have mass appeal,” said Bill Lawrence, executive producer of “Scrubs,” the critically lauded sitcom that NBC will bring back for a fifth year sometime in midseason.

“If you look at the characters that were predominantly on their schedule, with ‘The West Wing,’ ‘Frasier’ and ‘Seinfeld,’ they were detached, elitist and urban,” said Bill Carroll, vice president at Katz Media, which advises local stations. Now “every network is trying to reach as broad an audience as possible.”

That helps explain why the network that once rode to high ratings with an effete call-in shrink named Frasier Crane now has its fall hopes bound up in a show about a bedraggled, underemployed guy named Earl, played by Jason Lee.

Writer-producer Greg Garcia, who said he got the idea for “Earl” during a visit with relatives in North Carolina, thinks it’s a fallacy to assume that people only want to see entertainment that reflects their reality.

“Upscale audiences don’t necessarily need to sit and watch themselves on TV,” Garcia said.

NBC says that the pilot tested well among upscale viewers who participated in focus groups and that just because the hero is broke doesn’t mean higher-income people won’t watch.

Overall, NBC executives say they’ve hardly abandoned upscale viewers, although they acknowledge their desire to improve the network’s overall ratings.

“It may appear that we’re trying to go in a different direction,” but that’s only because programmers are trying to find shows that are “relatable” for the audience, said John Miller, chief marketing officer of NBC Universal Television Group. “Whether we’re executing on that, I think time will tell.”

NBC is hardly the only network tinkering with its identity. The WB Network, which has chased teens for years, is now hoping to snag more grown-ups. And after years of edgy comedies and cheesy reality shows, Fox has taken on a more family-friendly image thanks to “American Idol.”

The network with the most consistent programming strategy, Carroll said, is probably CBS, which has emphasized mass appeal fare for years. Its reward? The network has maintained its No. 1 position among total viewers while also competing more effectively for young adults, thanks in part to reality hits such as “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race.”

NBC’s shift is especially notable given that the network has commanded the allegiance of yuppie viewers for so long -- and used that advantage to extract some of the highest ad prices in prime time. Thirty-second ads on the last episode of “Friends” in May 2004, for example, fetched a reported $2 million -- roughly the same price as an ad on the Super Bowl, TV’s most-watched annual event.

The network began targeting well-heeled professionals in the early 1980s, Miller said, when then-entertainment chief Brandon Tartikoff instructed his programmers: “First be best, then be first.”

At the time, NBC was mired in a seemingly irreversible ratings funk. But backed by network chairman and chief executive Grant Tinker, Tartikoff nurtured creatively sophisticated, sometimes risky series, most notably the groundbreaking cop drama “Hill Street Blues.” Critics hailed the show, and audiences -- especially affluent viewers in big markets -- eventually caught on as well. (Still, this is broadcast TV, after all, and even then, not every NBC hit was for urban sophisticates; another Tartikoff offering was “The A-Team,” an action romp with Mr. T that seemed aimed mostly at 13-year-old boys.)

By the mid-1990s, NBC was firmly ensconced as the network of “quality” shows and was using the slogan “must-see TV” to market its Thursday night lineup, which dominated the most prized demographic -- adults ages 18 to 49 -- for the next decade.

“The dynasty ran for 20-some-odd years,” said Robert J. Thompson, professor and director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. “NBC had a brand identity that very few networks have enjoyed.”

But NBC faces many challenges in recapturing its momentum. Hits such as “Friends” and “Frasier” have been off the air for more than a year, and dramas such as “ER” and “Law & Order” are aging. Attempts to find new hits -- including critically acclaimed dramas such as “Boomtown” and comedies such as the “Friends” spinoff “Joey” -- have foundered.

Perhaps most important, many well-educated, high-income viewers have already fled broadcast networks for cable series such as “The Sopranos.” Nowadays, a broadcaster who aims to be “best” may not necessarily end up first.

“When NBC was going highbrow in the early 1980s, they had no place to go but up,” Thompson said. “Now it’s harder to get the [viewers who] can make a show like ‘West Wing’ work, because they’d rather go to HBO.”

For those urban professionals who haven’t defected to premium cable, though, NBC is covered. It still has plenty of shows aimed at the affluent and those who aspire to be.

It’s a safe bet that many upscale viewers will at least check out “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart,” an extension of Donald Trump’s business-oriented contest, and “E-Ring,” a thriller set inside the Pentagon. The original “Apprentice,” along with “The West Wing,” are among the network TV series with the largest concentrations of high-income viewers.

Of course, if NBC’s new shows fail, the push to the mainstream might end up short-lived. But analysts and executives agree that in the 100-channel universe, it’s become more important than ever for viewers to know what a network stands for.

“To a large degree,” NBC’s Miller said, “a network is defined by its shows.”