What's Killing TV Shows?

The TV Guide announcing the new fall television schedule has often been met with excitement and anticipation as we look to catch up with old favorites and see what new things the networks have in store for us. It seems like in the past few years we have been given a bounty of new things to watch and get attached to only to have these so-called geniuses behind the ratings snatch them away. What the network execs don't know is that they are killing their own shows in an attempt to throw even more new shows at us. The result is angry viewers and honestly good television being thrown away.

In days gone by the new season started in the fall and there were few interruptions in weekly episodes until the season closed in the following spring. Classics such as Leave it to Beaver and M*A*S*H began their long seasons in September or October and kept right on going until they passed on the last bit of entertainment they had before leaving us for a summer break. Even as recent as the 80s shows like Friends started a 24 episode run with only minor breaks for holidays. ER began it's now 15 season long run in 1994 with a 25 episode season having only minimal breaks. With decades of a great track record it seems like the network execs are stabbing themselves in the foot with their new idea of television scheduling.

Lost began its first season in September of 2004, repeating it in the summer of 2005 and attracting a legion of fans across the country. With very minimal breaks throughout the original season, Lost plugged along keeping their loyal viewers wanting more and getting more week after week. Then in 2006 everything seemed to change. Old favorites like Lost and ER gave us a brief taste of their new season only to drop us and make us watch something completely new and different for months before returning to what we wanted to begin with. Season 3 of Lost gave us 6 new episodes in the fall of 2006 and didn't return until the following February. The show they put in it's place? Gone. Before the rest of the season could continue we had to watch a catch up episode so we could remember what had happened since it had been so long between episodes. And who can remember what's happening on ER since they take 2-6 week breaks after only a small handful of new ones.

Great shows like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip are given a few episodes that are somehow expected to immediately generate seemingly the entire populace of viewers out there and then taken away before they can even get their feet off the ground. Whatever happened to just letting a show run it's course for a full season? How is anyone expected to fully appreciate a new show when the threat of it being yanked off the air the second they begin to like it always looms over their heads? In order to keep Jericho on the air the fans had to go out of their way to show their loyalty to the show so the CBS execs would renew it - and what they got for all the hard work is a meager mid-season series. It's abhorrent that viewers should actually have to fight for their favorite shows since the powers-that-be can't see their way clear to just let it ride and let it generate an audience. With all that there is to watch these days it's impossible to have everyone watching one show - there actually are people out there that do NOT watch American Idol!

The ratings system needs to be reviewed, the network execs need to be put on a leash and new shows need more then 6 weeks to get off the ground. Nobody cares about what the viewers really want, they are only concerned about the bottom line. Established shows need to stop taking 2 month hiatuses so that we don't need a refresher course on our favorite show before the rest of the season can begin. Give new shows a chance or the viewers will give up on network TV altogether.