Roush on My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad and American Gladiators
Question: In a recent column,
Robert R.
wrote that when he sees "the once-great NBC stocking its schedule with schlock," he worries about the future of television. I have seen this NBC-bashing sentiment a lot lately (even by you) as people wail about harmless new shows like
My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad (which my little nephew loves) or
American Gladiators. But really, what is NBC supposed to do? Every time it's tried to program "quality" shows recently —
Friday Night Lights,
Life,
Chuck,
30 Rock, etc. — the ratings have been pathetic. Even
The Office, which is considered a "hit," gets half the audience of CBS'
Two and a Half Men. If no one watches
those shows, what incentive does NBC have to create better programming? I love all the series mentioned above, plus
Journeyman,
Heroes and
Scrubs; most of my faves are on the bubble or already canceled. If you were "fixing" NBC, what would you do?
— Roy D., New York
Matt Roush: Thankfully, it's not my job to "fix" any network, nor would I be so presumptuous. It has rarely been a more challenging time to be in the programming game, to be sure, and NBC has been in a bind ever since it failed to find the next mainstream sitcom to replace Friends or, for that matter, a smash drama to inherit ER's diminished crown. "Quality" doesn't have to mean "elite" or "marginal." At NBC's peak, many of its shows were both terrific and terrifically popular. I'm not sure that the network can dig itself out of its hole by peppering the schedule with night after night of cheap reality shows (some of them bloated beyond belief, as in the two-hour format of The Biggest Loser, which isn't such a bad show if it didn't eat up so much time). Remaking goofs like Knight Rider is also the short-term road to nowhere and reflects back to one of NBC's darkest periods in the early '80s, before The Cosby Show, L.A. Law and the like began to reverse the network's fortunes. All it takes is a couple of bona fide mass-appeal (and one would hope well-made) hits to turn a network around. Look at ABC (though not, obviously, for half-hour comedy).
