Broadcast networks are launching fewer new shows than usual this fall, the latest sign of their diminished popularity and ambitions amid ever-growing competition from streaming services, reports The Wall Street Journal.
The parent companies of ABC, NBC and CBS now see the networks as a first stop for their content before it moves to their sister streaming services. They argue that is the role they should be judged for now.
“That is an infinite loop we believe in,” said Mark Lazarus, chairman of Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, which operates NBC and the Peacock platform. “We are able to move our audiences through our services.”
Walt Disney Co.’s ABC points to the success of its new, Emmy-nominated comedy “Abbott Elementary” as an example of the role of broadcast networks in 2022. “We were able to use the reach of ABC to launch a show like ‘Abbott,’ then it went to Hulu, where it picked up a sizable group of different viewers and doubled its audience,” said Dana Walden, chairman of Disney General Entertainment Content, which includes ABC, Hulu and the company’s television-production studios.
Both ABC and NBC went one step further: Moving some of their best-known shows to streaming platforms to give them a boost.
NBC is moving its daytime soap opera “Days of Our Lives” exclusively to Peacock starting Monday, while Disney is putting ABC’s long-running hit “Dancing with the Stars” on Disney+.
“The relevancy of broadcast TV has been declining for years,” said Jeff Gaspin, a former top executive at NBC who is now a producer. “I suspect nobody is making money in prime time.”
Traditional TV, says former Disney Chairman and CEO Robert Iger, is ‘marching to a great precipice, and it will be pushed off.’
Part of the reason for all the cookie-cutter content is that much of networks’ loyal audience—viewers over the age of 50—favors more traditional crime and legal dramas. Such shows also tend to repeat better than the more complex serialized shows that fill cable networks and streaming services.
The ground has shifted so much that NBC is considering no longer programming the 10 p.m. hour, once home to prestige dramas such as “ER” and “Hill Street Blues.” Its affiliates would instead carry local programming, most likely news. NBC would also then start late-night programming like “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” earlier, people familiar with the matter said.
Broadcast networks’ second-class status will likely be particularly apparent during the Emmy Awards, which are this Monday on NBC. Once a showcase for ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, the show now usually showers its biggest prizes on HBO, Netflix, Apple and Hulu.
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