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After catering to TV critics and obsessive fans for years with envelope-pushing series that willfully disregarded most of the country's television viewers, ABC, NBC and Fox are looking to develop more of the traditional series that CBS never abandoned.
Turns out, a lot of those envelope-pushing shows left networks with scrapbooks full of fawning reviews and rabid fans who turned out at Comic-Con but, as viewers go, did not turn out in large enough numbers to sustain broadcast TV series.
CBS's fuddy-duddy lineup of procedural crime dramas and old-fashioned sitcoms has made it the country's most-watched TV network. It's also the only broadcast network attracting more viewers this season than last -- which is saying a lot. Last season got aborted by the writers' strike, forcing broadcasters to pad their lineups with reruns and reality hole-fillers for 100 days; you'd think all the networks would be attracting more viewers this season.
CBS's newest non-envelope-pushing drama, "The Mentalist," is this season's only bona fide hit, now attracting crowds approaching "American Idol" levels. The network's "Two and a Half Men" is the country's most-watched sitcom -- and now averages more of the 18-to-49-year-old viewers who are the Holy Grail of the ad community than NBC's critically adored, envelope-pushing comedy "The Office." Plus, CBS's "Big Bang Theory," from "Two and a Half Men" creator Chuck Lorre, averages more of those 18-to-49-year-olds than NBC's much-ballyhooed, trophy-winning, envelope-pushing, product-placing comedy "30 Rock."
CBS, despite its frumpy dress, has become the prettiest girl at the party. And the other networks are struggling to figure out how to pull off the look.
Network suits have just finished ordering pilots for next season's shows -- about 80 in all, fewer than half of which will become series for the 2009-10 television season, which starts in September. Their pilot lists confirm that the other networks are chasing the CBS formula of meat-and-potatoes comfort-food programming. To whit:
-- NBC is actually developing a couple of traditional sitcoms this season, which in itself is a stunning about-face. Yes, you may actually hear a laugh track on NBC next season, perhaps on "100 Questions for Charlotte Payne," about a young woman navigating life with friends in Manhattan. The Peacock Network's playing-it-safer pilot lineup also includes another David E. Kelley law-firm drama filled with "quirky characters."
-- Fox is bulking up on closed-ended dramas (ones that wrap up the story line in every episode, like CBS's "Criminal Minds"), including "Human Target," about a mysterious freelancer who takes on a different identity each week to help those in peril.
-- ABC has even ordered a pilot for a Jerry Bruckheimer procedural crime drama, "The Unknown," about a team of amateur detectives working on cases with unidentified victims. Bruckheimer's the guy who produces most of CBS's procedural crime dramas, including the first of the litter, "CSI," which originally had been pitched to ABC -- only ABC decided it was a dud and passed, after which CBS picked it up and the rest is ratings history.
