KNOTS LANDING

[Forever8]

Would you have brought in a new family or possibly a house of youngish housemates inspired by Melrose Place? 

[Chris 2]

What did he purge?

[titan1978]

Cybil Shepherd has publicly stated Moonves cancelled her sitcom because she declined a romantic relationship.  Her show was less expensive and had higher ratings than shows he didn’t cancel airing at the same time.

Edited July 31, 2022 by titan1978

[Chris 2]

I’ve seen Cybill Shepherd make that claim before, and I call BS (and I do think Les Moonves is a dirtbag). Her TV series declined from 30th place in the ratings in its third season to 50th place in its fourth season, after which it was cancelled. I saw the claim on wiki that “at the time it was cancelled that its ratings were higher than Chicago Hope and Nash Bridges” on the wiki page. Chicago Hope was actually higher rated than Cybil at the time. And you can always find examples like that anyway. Renewals and cancellations are based not just on absolute ratings but ratings trajectory, cost, and difficulty of time slot. 48 Hours was lower rated but renewed because it was cheaper.

George and Leo, the Bob Newhart show which aired after Cybill, was also cancelled with similar ratings. Did Bob Newhart decline a romantic relationship with Les Moonves, too? LOL.

Everybody Loves Raymond replaced Cybill in that Monday night time slot the following season, and it ranked 11th. It’s hard to argue that was a bad decision.

I’m curious to understand what else was considered part of the female-centric purge during the 1990s, because I’d never heard of this before.

Edited August 1, 2022 by Chris 2

[te.]

I'm guessing Murphy Brown and Dr Quinn? Though MB had declined massively in its final season (going from #34 to #86) - Dr Quinn is probably the one show that got cancelled despite not declining in ratings (in fact it increased in its final season); I'm guessing though that since that show was in its sixth season cast contract might've been up for renewals and another season would increase costs.

[yrfan1983]

^ hope we’re not too off-topic but The Nanny was canceled in ‘99 and FranD felt the show had more life yet

[te.]

Again, The Nanny had fallen hard in the ratings, all the way down to #84, when it was cancelled.

 

Les Moonves is a jerk, but he also turned CBS's fortunes around with stuff like CSI and Everybody Loves Raymond etc. The only show that were slightly shocking among those listed was Dr Quinn because it was actually rising in the ratings (but it was on Saturday nights, which in itself was dying when it came to original programming).

[DRW50]

He also went out of his way to kill Murder She Wrote. I would count that, and Dr. Quinn, more than Murphy Brown, which had been running on fumes creatively (although as you mentioned the last season, which was pretty much always meant to be the last season, was when they tanked).

There's also this:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/designing-women-creator-les-moonves-not-all-harassment-is-sexual-1142448/

Edited August 1, 2022 by DRW50

[kalbir]

That was Les Moonves first order of business when he arrived at CBS in 1995. Personally I think Les Moonves had it out for Murder, She Wrote for years. Remember he was moving up the ranks at Lorimar/Warner Bros from 1985-1995 and that overlaps with Murder, She Wrote's first season finishing ahead of both Knots Landing and Falcon Crest, and Murder, She Wrote's second season finishing ahead of Dallas to become CBS's highest rated scripted program (which it remained until 1989/90. Murphy Brown became CBS's highest rated scripted program from 1990/91 to 1993/94, then 1994/95 Murder, She Wrote would once again be CBS's highest rated scripted program.) and also the highest rated drama across the broadcast networks (even beating both Dynasty and Miami Vice. Murder, She Wrote would remain the highest rated drama across the broadcast networks until 1993/94, then ER and NYPD Blue finished ahead of it in 1994/95.).

Not to beat a dead horse, but when you factor in everything we know today about Les Moonves and that his time at Lorimar/Warner Bros also overlaps with the timing of the CBS primetime soaps going into budget mode, I don't find it a coincidence that it was the long-time female cast members of the CBS primetime soaps that were mostly affected when the shows went into budget mode. AFAIK none of the CBS primetime soap female cast members have come forward about Les Moonves but we may never know what went down during his time at Lorimar/Warner Bros.

Edited August 1, 2022 by kalbir

[Chris 2]

I can’t fault Moonves too much for Murder, She Wrote’s death. It was an aging, expensive show with an older audience in the plum, post-60 Minutes timeslot. Smart programmers don’t wait until top shows completely tank before shaking things up. He put Cybill in that slot, and when that didn’t work, he put Touched By An Angel in there, which became a top 10 hit and thrived in that slot for years. Note that both of these were female-centric shows, btw. I do think MSW deserved a softer landing than the death slot against Friends.

 

I think there’s a strong case to be made for Moonves and his management team not valuing the female cast members as much as the males in the declining days of the 80s Lorimar soaps. Victoria Principal said she was disrespected going out the door as she left Dallas - they took away her parking space and tried to claim that she was let go (which she forced them to retract it. Every time Dallas had to cut the budget, it was generally the longtime women cast members - Susan Howard, Linda Gray, Barbara Bel Geddes - who departed, while the men stuck around.

[Vee]

Moonves' purge of female shows from CBS was well documented several years ago when the allegations about him first came out. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and a variety of other people came forward and discussed how he blackballed female creators, stars and female-driven shows. It was across the board, it was not a question of one show. He remade the entire network in the image of what came not long after: NCIS, CSI. We discussed the sea change at CBS and these women's public comments at length in the Hollywood Sexual Harassment thread at that time.

Edited August 2, 2022 by Vee

[Chris 2]

You posted earlier that this purge happened not long after Knots Landing ended. If it’s well documented, then which shows were purged? CBS’ hits during the 1990s included included “The Nanny”, “Touched By an Angel”, and “Dr Quinn”. All of them had female creators and all had healthy runs.

It wasn’t until CSI became a huge hit in 2001 that CBS became a crime-oriented network. That’s when we saw the CSI spinoffs and later the NCIS spinoffs dominate the network. Same thing has happened on NBC with Dick Wolf’s crime shows, BTW. It’s also worth pointing out that the three CSI spinoffs each have two female co-creators, Ann Donohue and Carol Mendelsohn. 

As for Linda Bloodworth Thomason: her claims of being blackballed are questionable at best. All of her shows were off CBS prior to Les Moonves joining the network. And look at her track record. She had one successful show (“Designing Women”) that she badly mishandled during its last two seasons; one modest time slot hit success (“Evening Shade”) that has rarely been rerun; a John Ritter/Markie Post star vehicle (“Hearts Afire”) that CBS desperately tried to make into a hit but couldn’t; and a “Designing Women spinoff (“Women of the House”) that was a creative and commercial flop. Later on, her “Emeril” NBC sitcom also flopped, and her HBO show, “12 Miles of Bad Road,” was apparently so bad that the network stopped production after six episodes and never aired them. I can’t blame any network executive for being reluctant to green light any more of her shows, given her track record.

I’m not defending Moonves as a person; it sounds like he’s reprehensible. But as a network exec, looks to me like he was just chasing the best ratings possible. I don’t see evidence that there was some massive purge of female shows.

[Vee]

And all were gone not long after Moonves became fully ascendant at CBS. (Though I'm not counting The Nanny.) Yes, Moonves was looking for success. He also had a clear focus on undoing a female-centric image at the network.

i'm not going to rehash the entire discussion many of us had about CBS history while I'm recovering from COVID, lol. You can look it up yourself in that thread. It's not hard to search those names in there.

[titan1978]

I’m just going to chime in and also say at most of those CBS procedurals, almost all the female characters, while given camera and story time, often were hard balled at contract time and considered replaceable and paid less than the men.  And the decade prior that wasn’t always the case.  Or on other networks.

It mirrors what happened across all of daytime television in the late 1990’s-2000’s- except for DAYS the last four soaps all had significantly skewed their storytelling towards the male leads and settled on often misogynistic tones.  Y&R fully became the Victor/Jack show, many female characters were weakened and sacrificed or sidelined.  GH was fully the Sonny/Jason/Carly hour, and Carly was of replaced three times (twice we know the talent would have stayed if they had the same input and a comparable salary to the other two).  DAYS unquestionably belonged to Sami at that time.  Again, learning none of the lessons of how Sex and the City became such a cultural flashpoint and maligning the female characters on their shows.

This was only really apparent in daytime and at CBS primetime.

[Soapsuds]