Sound Off: The TV Ratings Guide Contributors Go Down PBS Memory Lane

Sound Off! March 22, 2025: FOX Tells Dad Jokes and Could Expand Animation As TBS and Cable Sell Out

 

What is it with networks turning their backs on scripted programming?  Just yesterday, representatives from TBS announced they were declining additional episodes after the season 21 of American Dad finale which airs on Monday, March 24.  The leading cable network, known in past lifetimes as cable's super station, acquired American Dad in 2014 as FOX sought to shake up their Animation Domination block.  The series continued successfully for another 10 seasons on TBS, rating highly until recent seasons.  Ratings were not to blame per se but rather the network decided to do away with original scripted programming, because filler reality shows like Impractical Jokers are FAR superior.  Right....

15 years ago, cable networks had an embarrassment of riches with hit programming which paved the way for hits such as Bates Motel, Breaking Bad, American Horror Story and Walking Dead.  During this trend, American Dad found the perfect niche on TBS which invested in securing original comedies.  Flash forward to the end of the decade, and several cable networks decided to turn their backs on scripted programming following decreasing subscriptions from fed-up viewers tired of price increases and cutting the cord.  While alternative services such as DirectTV Now, YouTube and Sling displayed cable networks, price hikes hit all providers and cancellations continued to ensue.  First, networks such as A&E pulled their name out of the scripted runners instead shifting to unscripted.  It seemed like a small trickle of what was to come.  

Only 5 short years ago, original scripted series could be located on several channels from not only TBS and TNT, but also FX, USA, TV Land, Freeform, SyFy and too many worthy mentions.  After several scandalous mergers such as the Warner Bros./Discovery consolidated and caused divides, cable networks opted to cut costs and turned off the free-flowing faucet of creative scripted series.  And now, TBS, once the gold standard which helped found and drive cable, joins them and turned their backs on American Dad.

Out of this insulting dismissal, a beacon of hope has come for broadcast TV.  FOX, which is in ruins with aging animated series, underwhelming dramas and too many frivolous unscripted series to count, has a chance to enhance their sagging lineup.  True, majority of the "successful" animated series are all over 15 seasons and the newbies such as critically panned Krapopolis proliferating over the newer entries, it could lead to an expansion on other evenings or building a sturdier Sunday lineup throughout the season.  Given NBC is out of the ring with scripted programming on Tuesdays and CBS apparently needs to rebuild following discarding the FBI spinoffs, FOX may have a fertile ground to regrow the ruins of this evening.

FOX has opted against moving The Simpsons, despite years earlier they used it as the perfect weapon to take a bite out of Must-See-TV Thursdays and juxtaposed it against aging hit The Cosby Show.  Would moving Simpsons to Tuesday at 8pm for the earlier part of the season during NFL present a glowing opportunity to not only allow viewers to recommit to the aged series without games disrupting?  It has lost much of lead-in power in recent seasons to launch hits, but may be paired nicely during the earlier portions of the season with Family Guy in a power lineup.  And over on Sundays, let viewers fall in love with American Dad again on Sundays at 8pm, followed by a newer series sandwiched between Bob's Burgers at 9:00 and another filler after.  

This configuration would not only allow the weaker of the animated helpings enjoy the NFL-inflated numbers, but also call upon a strategy CBS used in the early 2010's when they were seeking to colonize a new Thursday Night evening of comedies and sent The Big Bang Theory on a train to a new evening where its audience amassed.  CBS moved sturdy hits Two and a Half Men and TBBT to 8:00 on Thursdays, branding it as America's best comedy hour.  The strategy worked as ABC struggled for years to locate a hit during that hour, and NBC lost its branding dominance of Must-See-TV.  As the block gained momentum, CBS split the comedies with TBBT anchoring 8:00 and Two and a Half Men holding down 9:00 during the 2013-14 season.  Results were mixed as Two and a Half Men aged, but it did allot CBS to hold a solid bed of two hours of comedies straight through to 2022.

The move of course would not be permanent for Simpsons, which could slide back to Sundays in February and allot another show to take their timeslot (or rotate American Dad).  CBS used rotation powers with The Big Bang Theory after acquiring Thursday Night Football for the first 5 weeks of the season starting in 2014, rotating TBBT to Mondays to lead the block and establish newer pilots on that evening.  While Simpsons doesn't quite possess the power to launch new series, it could present comfort food paired with fellow aging companion Family Guy in a Tuesday colony and help FOX give its series longer displays of episodes.

Can the animated series help bring FOX into a positive chapter and give it some clout again?  And would moving a worthy and strong show like The Simpsons to Tuesdays help re-energize not only FOX's tired lineup but get viewers to pay attention again?  Sound off and pick a bone with conversations in the comments below.

Sound Off! March 15, 2025: CBS Marries a Neighborhood, Screws Universal and Kills SWAT

 CBS has monopolized the Renew/Cancel action in recent weeks sparing the majority of its worthy shows while leaving a handful at the mercy of their knife ready to cull the schedule.  CBS played the classic drinking game of Marry One, Screw One, Kill One with four of its shows.  It married The Neighborhood for a final season, which was a smart, pragmatic decision.  While the series is increasing in expenses, it has remained a faithful utility player on Monday nights, which were destroyed to ruins the year it debuted in 2018.  When ratings held more relevance, The Neighborhood came in strong, often matching or besting fellow strong sitcom Young Sheldon and helped rebuild a ruined evening.  The series also holds potential for spinoffs, which appears to be the next direction and why CBS chose to invest.  A show which delivered so strongly deserved some title and a proper sendoff.

With a commitment in place to Neighborhood, CBS had the tougher choice of which of the six shows to be wicked and dastardly to in order to free up the schedule for new inventory.  FBI: Most Wanted showed signs it would meet the blade of the knife so when it met its demise, but the shocker rested in it met its ending along with its fellow spinoff FBI: International.  CBS didn't seek to kill off these shows, but rather screw NBC/Universal where they had roots.  Outsourced and Co-Productions are costly in today's stingy television climate, and the two for one ousting demonstrates CBS has a long history of cleaning house and removing multiple players despite solid performances.  Their earliest example was the Rural Purge in 1971 which took out The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Mayberry RFD and Hee Haw in one shocking massacre.  The phrase CBS may have used to end its awkward Universal relationship was "It's not you, it's me."

Finally, CBS had to kill off a show.  Not in the manner a soap would as a character comes back from the dead when the ratings flatten.  No, this time, it gave SWAT a permanent wound after trying to kill it off the last two seasons.  In truth, a renewal for SWAT seemed to be a longshot as it concludes it's 8th season, which is considered an extremely long run in today's television climate.  And CBS secured its Blue Bloods Spinoff, Boston Blue Monster for Fridays at 10:00.  This left few to no options for CBS to continue to invest in SWAT despite having a working relationship with Shemar Moore which is now in its 4th decade.  Fans and Moore are understandably upset by this series ending, but ought to take some solace in the series defied cancellation not twice, but as early as the 4th season.  And that 8th season also derived from CBS was left in tatters following the disastrous 2023 strikes which left fewer options and gave higher priority to keeping SWAT and Blue Bloods a little longer.  Moore has been understandably vocal as no one wishes to be out of work, especially as he delivered 11-year runs on daytime soap Young and the Restless and on Criminal Minds. The best fans can hope for is CBS wisely keeps the dialogue moving with Moore and perhaps they could craft another successful series for him to headline.

CBS' tough decisions have led to some bitterness with fans.  However, they have proven to be the kindest and offer more opportunities for scripted series than their competitors.  And they have the embarrassment of riches to show for it over six evenings of programming.  Unlike FOX, which has delivered underwhelmingly and leaned on unscripted series, CBS commits to classic television with scripted content taking priority.  To keep the classic feel going, they need to result to classic housekeeping, which means sharpening their blades and cutting shows off the schedule to leave life for fresh programming.  Their model is more desirable than other networks which clog up opportune nights with aging franchise (this means you NBC), bastardizing its hit shows behind inferior reality TV (looking at you ABC and your Bachelor knockoffs) or regressing to becoming a joke of a network like their earlier years (nothing like a classic FOX dunking like folks delivered in the early 1990's.

Is CBS the most put together network among the players?  Sound off and let it rip!

Sound Off! March 2025 (And Plenty of Opinions to Go Around)

 

Welcome to Sound Off!, TVRG's newest interactive feature where community members talk TV in the comments about ANYTHING relating to television or streaming shows.  Feel free to talk about TV from now, from the past or how you wish these dunderheads running the networks would schedule some entertaining shows.  Hell, if you know of a good film as they are rare to find nowadays, drop a line about that too.

Face it, TV in the 2020's sucks ass compared to past decades!  We poor viewers were forced to suffer through a thin Pandemic-induced 2020-21 season gave us thin episode counts and schedules chock full of Reality TV and Gameshow froth.  We hoped things would improve the next season, but suddenly sitcoms became an endangered species by the end of the 2021-22 season.  The next culled CW's scripted lineup in 2023, leaving behind second hand thrift only suitable for daytime television or late night drunks.  Because apparently, most viewers are not savvy enough to stream these shows online?  As if that wasn't insulting enough, why not shake it up with concurrent Actors' and Writers' Strikes, brought to you by the lovely letters of A-I?  If viewers thought they were cheated during the 2020-21 season, networks doubled down with even more Reality TV and gameshows invading like silverfish, ultra-reduced episode orders for scripted series and cancelled longstanding shows and shows produced by other production companies.  Because we'd rather watch such quality shows such as Golden Bachelor, Raid the Cage, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and Farmer Wants a Wife.

Flash Forward to 2025, and it appears there is something to talk about again.  Yes, CW is still a walking corpse, and FOX is on track to become one in two seasons with scripted series becoming rarer and with diminished quality.  NBC has little to nothing to write home about, and sitcoms remain fleeting on most networks.  However, there are some bright spots broadcast has to write home about.  

After a spotty fall which it battered its prized sitcom Abbott Elementary in a 9:30 timeslot in favor of the dreadful Bachelor delight Golden Bachelorette, ABC gave Abbott a worthy companion with Shifting Gears.  Yes, this series is not mammoth, but it indicates positive signs that ABC is working to repair its tarnished sitcom brand.  And selecting Kat Dennings as a flagship star was a stroke of genius as she delivered sarcasm at its finest years ago on 2 Broke Girls.  9-1-1 is helping rebuild Thursday nights with a Nashville spinoff in order (they seem to love that city as they aired a soap about it for 4 seasons), and Tuesdays are showing promise with solid compatible dramas.

Most grand of all, CBS seems to be operating as though it is 1999.  They have the most scripted shows among the networks, regularly schedule 2 nights of sitcoms, and most baffling of all, they just released a daytime soap!  For an industry actively trying to kill off the genre for decades, it was shocking and welcome they launched Beyond the Gates, a soap which pioneered a predominantly Black American cast to great fanfare.  And they even registered an impressive 0.25 demo average for their first week, easily beating most of FOX's lineup and half of the shows on NBC including their mammoth hit, Grosse Pointe Garden Club which delivered laughs with a 0.09 rating on March 2.  Now all CBS needs to complete the 1999 nostalgia is a Tuesday Night Movie of the week, soon to be sold to Lifetime's women in peril and bruised branding of entertainment.

Weeks earlier, CBS did their annual mass renewal of several worthy shows, allowing us viewers to be excited they shall be back starting in September and can feel free to invest in them.  However, they left a shallow pool of scripted series now fending for survival.  Just today, they dropped a TV into the pool (likely a giant box TV keeping with the 1999 theme), electrocuting FBI: International and FBI: Most Wanted into cancel culture.  Most Wanted getting fried like a catfish was hardly a shock as it is 6 seasons old, but International shocked viewers as it only registered 4 seasons, one of which was the insultingly short 2023-24 thanks to strikes.  Taking out two shows within a franchise was bold for CBS, and leaves scrambling viewers wondering which of the remaining shows on the bench will survive as CBS is cleaning house like an 80's slasher movie.

Diehard fans hope shows such as Equalizer, Watson, The Neighborhood, Poppa's House or SWAT will survive.  But the truth is likely only one (if any) will see the 2025-26 season as CBS needs the shelf space.  Which shows do you believe will make it or face CBS' ax?  And how will the other networks fare with sparing or dispensing of shows, even ones as embarrassing as FOX who can barely scrape together enough scripted programming for a Renew/Cancel article?

Sound off, and let the opinions rip!  TVRG wants to hear your thoughts.  Talk ratings, talk characters, hell even talk historical TV as the site has those ratings posts in the banner of the site.  Let's discuss TV as though it's 1999...