With New Shows, Network Patience Is a Lost Virtue

As a result, the very idea of a "new TV season" each fall is becoming increasingly quaint. The networks still debut dozens of new shows in September, just as they have since the late 1940s, but the weeding of the schedule now goes on year-round. Many long-running shows made their debut at midseason in January; for the past five or six years, a big launch period has been the historically drowsy summer months, when programs such as "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," "Survivor," "Dancing With the Stars" and "Deal or No Deal" debuted.

All this weeding and reseeding has diminished the chances that a slow-starting series will build momentum and develop into a hit. Some of the most important and popular shows ever owe their survival to network executives who were willing to endure low ratings early on -- shows such as "Hill Street Blues," "All in the Family," "M*A*S*H," "Cheers" and "Seinfeld."

Such slow-developing hits still happen -- NBC's "Scrubs" is an example, as is "Close to Home" on CBS -- but Kahl notes that it takes an intensely loyal fan base or tremendous critical support to keep an underachiever on the schedule when the numbers don't add up. Fox famously stuck with the ratings-deficient sitcom "Arrested Development" for several seasons, collecting several Emmys, before finally giving up on it last season.

John Rash, a senior vice president at the Campbell Mithun ad agency in Minneapolis, predicts that the 2006-07 season could see a return to some stability on the networks' schedules, albeit modestly. Rash bases his prediction on two factors: the increased number of serialized dramas -- the new "Kidnapped," "The Nine" and "Six Degrees," for instance -- and the sorry state of the sitcom after such '90s shows as "Seinfeld."

The serial dramas -- which are much in the style of "24," "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" -- feature weekly cliffhangers, enhancing the prospect that viewers will keep coming back, Rash says. "If viewers repeatedly invest in these shows only to be left hanging [by an abrupt cancellation], it will be very difficult for the networks to sell the next serialized drama," he says.

As for sitcoms, the recent failure of so many suggests the need for more patience; Rash points out that NBC kept "The Office" on its schedule last year and eventually was rewarded with a modest ratings success and an Emmy for best comedy series.

"The industry is realizing that their search for the next generation-defining [sitcom] may still be a ways off," he says. "They don't have a lot of choice" but to stand pat.

Which would mean that the newest change about network TV this fall would be to make not much change at all.