Looking back...Primetime Ratings from the 80's

[Paul Raven]

Yes, I believe Cap Cities went on a big cost cutting spree and that was reflected in the paucity of big mini series, tv movies , specials and midseason replacements.

[soapfan770]

Despite ABC having a messy 1985-86 season, they were still just two years away from surpassing CBS to become the #2 network. 
 

85-86 was the peak of Miami Vice wasn’t it? Seems kind of short lived for a show that made such a cultural impact at the time:

1984-85: #40

1985-86: #9

1986-87: #26

1987-88: #45

1988-89: #58

[victoria foxton]

 

  

[Faulkner]

Funny how WEBSTER is the No. 1 comedy. Dark times for sitcoms until the fall of that year.

[soapfan770]

LOL! I recall the show had some cute and funny moments but it was essentially a Different Strokes clone. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Recently I had reason to do some research on Fred Silverman. Before getting into it I knew he'd done high level programming work with ABC, with CBS & with NBC before continuing with his own company. And, I knew that he had been the idea man & the network push behind the 90 minute expansion of ANOTHER WORLD. I am one of many fans who consider that exquisite failure to be the first nail in the coffin of AW's long descent toward cancellation. And that is because the affiliates hated the 90 minute show & thought it was the show's idea so they blamed the show & began to hate it instead of their prior favored status of it. And, NBC programmers said after the fact that they did it because they didn't have any better idea of something to do. 

I was surprised to learn that his tenure at NBC is generally considered a failure compared to his wild success at ABC & CBS. It's true that he launched some high profile shows that were very expensive & that they flopped. One is SUPERTRAIN, said to be the most expensive TV program to produce up to that time. I was not personally familiar with any of the flops. He was at NBC from 1978-1980 but his shows mostly had life in the 80s. He got the peacock back into the NBC logo & it was used that way until 1986.

What I was most interested in was that he launched CHEERS, HILL ST. BLUES, ST. ELSEWHERE, THE FACTS OF LIFE and THE DAVID LETTERMAN SHOW. Now, there were successes that I was very familiar with. CHEERS had 7 seasons where its ratings placed it in the top 5 shows. HILL ST. got critical raves but pretty dismal ratings. (And, I knew that it had been up against KNOTS LANDING.) ST. ELSEWHERE seemed to manage 13.x ratings pretty consistently. LETTERMAN, reports mostly called it a 'cult following' & didn't mention ratings. FACTS OF LIFE i failed to find info on. Then, the last thing he did was install Brandon Tartikoff in the NBC Programming corporate team & that has to be a feather in his cap since he went on to take NBC up to its #1 status. To sum up, I found him very interesting. 

Edited February 5, 2023 by Tonksadora

[kalbir]

ABC having the World Series and Winter Olympics in 1987/88 played a big part in them moving up to 2nd. 1987/88 was also the peak of Growing Pains and Who's the Boss, plus the premiere of The Wonder Years, and Moonlighting was still going strong.

That's why I refer to Miami Vice as the new hotness.

I pointed out earlier in the thread that NBC probably got too overconfident from Miami Vice Top 10 finish in 1985/86 that they moved it up 1 hour in Fall 1986 but Miami Vice did not do the job in 1986/87 that NBC wanted it to do (clobber Dallas).

Those February 1984 ratings were a month before Kate & Allie premiered and Kate & Allie was the only sitcom to finish in the Top 10 in 1983/84. Agree that Fall 1984 was the start of the sitcom revival.

[Franko]

Something I've notice about ABC during the miniseries era is that they seemed to have hung longest onto the idea that a miniseries should feel like a mini series. Stuff like The Winds of War/War and Remembrance, the first two North and South sagas and even Amerika were allowed to take up a week's worth of space. The Thorn Birds "only" ran for four straight days. ABC had been airing full-length minseries (not just two-parters) since the '70s with Rich Man, Poor Man and Roots, and I give them credit for sticking to their gimmick for as long as they could.

 

No on Cheers and St. Elsewhere. Silverman's time at NBC was the 1978-79 season through the 1980-81 season.

 

1987-88 and 1988-89 was also when ABC began increasing its sitcom footprint. There were eventually two-hour sitcom blocks on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, all of which were prominent well into the '90s.

[soapfan770]

I remember that now and definitely for sure, especially it was mentioned about L.A. Law originating on a Friday night.  If recall right for Season 4 a pre-L&O Dick Wolf took over the show and received a very chilly reception and the show went off the rails causing ratings to somewhat behind Falcon Crest when it returned to the the 10PM slot.

There was also something of a change of habit for Friday night viewership in the late 80’s and early 90’s as more people went out on Friday (and Saturday) nights. Oh sure ABC’s sitcoms and The X-Files achieved 18-49 demographic success as things moved around or aged out it gave rise to the Friday Night Death Slot until CBS found ratings success with Blue Bloods lol.

[Contessa Donatella]

Well, this is Wikipedia, which can be wrong, I know, but this is what it says:

Despite these failures, there were high points in Silverman's tenure at NBC, including the launch of the critically lauded Hill Street Blues (1981), the epic mini-series Shōgun, and The David Letterman Show (daytime, 1980), which would lead to Letterman's successful Late Night with David Letterman in 1982. Silverman had Letterman in a holding deal after the morning show which kept the unemployed Letterman from going to another network (NBC gave Letterman a $20,000 per week [$1,000,000 for a year] to sit out a year). 

Silverman also developed successful comedies such as Diff'rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, and Gimme a Break!, and made the series commitments that led to Cheers and St. Elsewhere.

[j swift]

And, of course, season 7 of LA Law was produced by John Tinker, father of Zach (Sonny DAYS, Fen Y&R), but he was fired mid-season

Edited February 5, 2023 by j swift

[Soapsuds]

They should've left it opposite Falcon Crest. It never beat Dallas in the ratings in head to head competition. The show never hit the 20 HH number again.

[kalbir]

Miami Vice weakened Falcon Crest in 1985/86 and if NBC left Miami Vice at Friday 10 pm in 1986/87 it might have finished off Falcon Crest.

Miami Vice may have been the new hotness, but it still got beat by Murder, She Wrote. It will never not be funny to me that Miami Vice was clean swept by Murder, She Wrote (in weeks where new episodes of both shows were broadcast, Murder, She Wrote finished ahead of Miami Vice in all those weeks). Angela Lansbury referred to Miami Vice as Miami Heat in a 1985 Los Angeles Times interview. It might have been an accident or she might have been throwing shade but in an elegant and classy way though. 

Edited February 5, 2023 by kalbir

[Soapsuds]

For some reason I thought Miami Vice was more successful than it was. I mean it's available on blu ray and sales were quite good. But the show was only in the top 10 for one year. The show was hyped a lot on TV and other platforms.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Soapsuds

[soapfan770]

Not surprised as that season was a hot mess with the season premiere trying to address the Rodney King riots while at the same time having a client played by Dan Castellaneta run around LA in a Homer Simpson costume. Tinker & Masius made good drama on other shows but were toxic together trying to follow up DEK.