How the TV Networks Lost Their Way: Audience, Advertising, Profits, Popular Culture (1991)

• published: 24 Jul 2015
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American television has had very successful programs that have inspired television networks across the world to develop shows of similar types or to syndicate these shows to other countries. Some of these shows are still on the air and some have maintained decent runs in syndication. The opposite is also true; a number of popular American programs were based on shows from other countries, especially the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Canada. The major networks all offer a morning news program, with CBS's CBS This Morning, NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America as standard bearers, as well as an early-evening newscast anchored by the de facto face of the network's news division like Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather for CBS; Chet Huntley, David Brinkley and Tom Brokaw for NBC; and Peter Jennings for ABC. Successful news magazines have included 60 Minutes, 20/20 and Dateline NBC in primetime, and Meet the Press, Face the Nation and This Week on Sunday mornings. Daytime television has been home of many popular game shows over the years, particularly during the 1970s, such as The Price Is Right, Family Feud, Match Game, The Newlywed Game and Concentration. Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! have found their greatest success in the early-evening slot preceding primetime. However, game shows that also aired within primetime had great popularity in the 1950s and 1960s such as What's My Line?, I've Got a Secret and To Tell the Truth; and again, intermittently, in the 2000s with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, The Weakest Link and Deal or No Deal. The Price Is Right, which has aired on CBS since 1972, and Let's Make a Deal, which was revived on that same network in October 2009, are the only daytime game show remaining on the broadcast networks. Primetime comedy has included situation comedies such as I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Happy Days, Family Ties, Cheers, The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond, The King of Queens, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family as well as sketch comedy/variety series such as Texaco Star Theatre, The Carol Burnett Show, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and Saturday Night Live. Dramatic series have taken many forms over the years. Westerns such as Gunsmoke had their greatest popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. Medical dramas such as Marcus Welby, M.D., St. Elsewhere, ER, House and Grey's Anatomy have endured success, as well as family dramas such as The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie, and crime dramas such as Dragnet, Hawaii Five-O, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, L.A. Law, 21 Jump Street, Law & Order, JAG, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and NCIS. Dramedy, a term for a television series that mixes elements of comedy and drama, have seen its popularity grown among viewers, thanks to programs like Ally McBeal, Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives, Devious Maids, Psych and Glee. Television series featuring fantasy and science fiction are also popular with American viewers, since these programs take elements of comedy, drama, adventure, or a combination of all of the above. Among the most notable fantasy series in this genre include Touched By an Angel (centering on angels helping humans in times of personal crisis), Bewitched (a sitcom centering on a witch adjusting to married life), Fantasy Island (which was set at a resort where people live out their fantasies, but at a price), Drop Dead Diva (focusing on a deceased model inhabiting the body of a lawyer) and Once Upon a Time (centering on fairytale characters that are trapped in the present day after a curse was enacted), while Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and the British series Doctor Who rank among the most watched programs in the sci-fi genre. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_the_United_States