NBC: A Season of Reruns and "Encore" Presentations

NBC seems to have a new trend: Repeats. While NBC calls them encore presentations they are not doing their viewers or their new programs any favors by airing reruns of any given program.

As viewers we tune in during the September premiere month to new programming and to find out how the cliffhangers from last season turned out. Sadly, NBC is making a habit of rerunning new programs such as "Kidnapped" before the viewer even has a chance to decide if they wish to add that program to their regular viewing list.

Granted, the first episode of Kidnapped was intriguing and appears to be worth watching a couple of more episodes in hopes that the series will continue to be as well acted and written as the premiere but the viewer wants to know what happens next not what happened in the last episode they watched earlier this week. To make matters worse the pilot episode is scheduled to run a third time the following week as well.

"Law And Order: SVU" seems to have fallen under the same curse. While the season premier episode aired earlier in the week, Saturday night brought about an "encore" viewing.

Does NBC honestly believe that their viewers are going to appreciate the reruns? Between VCR's DVR's and TIVO it is impossible for most viewers to miss any program they wish to see on TV. NBC calling reruns "encore" presentations is nothing short of insulting their regular viewers and a good way to lose new ones.

Often times being the last to air fall episodes and many times throughout the season rerunning more episodes than airing new NBC is bound to see their ratings drop even more than they have in the past.

There are too many options for television viewing for anyone to have to sit through reruns especially in the very beginning of the season. Viewers are looking for fresh episodes of old favorites and unique ideas from new programming, the other networks make a point of drawing their viewers in and keeping them. NBC has seemed to forgotten that they must work to keep viewers and draw in those who don't normally tune into their programming.

Along with delaying the premier of such favorites as "Crossing Jordan" viewers are becoming disgusted with the
overwhelming number of reruns and encore programming on NBC.

NBC seems to have failed to come up with a Saturday night schedule to keep their viewers interested, along with rescheduling many favorite programs such as "Las Vegas", "Crossing Jordan" and "Law And Order" they may find themselves not only competing with certain shows such as "CSI on other networks as it has in the past, it is likely to find that the late night shows may suffer as well because many viewers will not change the channel at 11 PM for their local news.

It is not uncommon for viewers to see the trailer for "Letterman" or other late night talk shows and see something that catches their interest. If viewers are not turning on NBC for their favorite programs it is likely they won't get up to change the channel for late night programs either.

Though NBC has added Sunday night football to their new fall season, this will not ensure a large number of the ratings as they are still competing with other networks for other sports and of course the female viewer is bound to be tuning into ABC to watch "Desperate Housewives."

It is time NBC took their viewers into consideration and started working harder to keep them watching their local stations. Viewers do not want to watch reruns of reruns in the fall they want fresh programming with compelling storylines and characters. Hopefully, those can be found on other networks as NBC has obviously dropped the ball this season.