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

[Soapsuds]

Three's Company got stale towards the end. It was repeating stories already told during the Roper years. The writers ran out of ideas.

Three's A Crowd was a failure because of the awful cast and the first episode was again about Jack hiding his relationship from a relative we had never heard of before. Even though the numbers for the show were average....ABC was going to renew it for 13 episodes the following season and depending on how those numbers went the show could get a full renewal. John Ritter didn't like it and he walked. 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Soapsuds

[Paul Raven]

1987-88 Season

New to Top 20

Different World new

ALF up from #28

The Wonder Years new

LA Law up from #21

In The Heat of the Night new

My Two Dads new

Valeries Family up from below #30

Out of Top 20

Dallas down to #22

Newhart down to #25

Kate & Allie out of Top 30

NBC Sunday Movie down to #23

NBC Monday Movie down to #26

227 down to #27

1	The Cosby Show
2	A Different World
3	Cheers
4	The Golden Girls
5	Growing Pains
6	Who's the Boss?
7	Night Court
8	60 Minutes
9	Murder, She Wrote
10	(Tie) ALF
10	(Tie) The Wonder Years
10	(Tie) Moonlighting
10	(Tie) L.A. Law
11	Matlock
12	Amen
13	NFL Monday Night Football
14	Family Ties
15	CBS Sunday Night Movie
16	In the Heat of the Night
17	(Tie) My Two Dads
17	(Tie) Valerie's Family

Edited March 1, 2023 by Paul Raven

[kalbir]

1987/88 the peak of sitcoms, taking up the bulk of the Top 10. NBC sitcom dominance was at its height, taking 6 of the Top 10 spots. This season would be the highest finishes for A Different World, The Golden Girls, Growing Pains, Who's the Boss, ALF. 

The Cosby Show third consecutive #1 season and it was still a killer show. 18 out 23 episodes finished #1 in the week of their original broadcast, three episodes finished 2nd, and two episodes finished 3rd.

Murder, She Wrote dropped from 4th to 9th. This season they faced time slot competition from Family Ties, which itself dropped from 2nd to 17th after the move to Sunday 8 pm.

No primetime soaps in the Top 20. This was the season they all started going off the rails and were creatively exhausted by the end of the season. 1987/88 just feels like the natural end point of primetime soaps as a genre.

CBS primetime lineup tanked this season and they dropped to 3rd. I feel ABC having  three big sports events (World Series, Super Bowl, Winter Olympics) had a lot to do with their finishing 2nd this season.

Edited March 3, 2023 by kalbir

[Paul Raven]

Week 1 of 87/88 season

1.  Cosby Show NBC 31.5/51

 2. A Different World NBC 31.3/49 

3. Cheers NBC 28.4/44 

4. Night Court NBC 24.9/40 

5. Dolly Show ABC 24.7/38

6. Who's the Boss? ABC 23.

7. Growing Pains ABC 23.3/36 Tues @9

8. Golden Girls NBC 22.3/40

9. Full House Special ABC 21.7/34 Tues @8.30 

10. Hooperman NBC 21.5/35

11. Family Ties NBC 21.0/34 

12. Murder, She Wrote CBS 20.4/32 

13. I Married Dora Special ABC 20.3/33 Tues @9.30

14. 60 Minutes CBS 20.0/37 

15. Newhart CBS 19.1/30 

16. Monday Night Football ABC 18.7/34

17. Moonlighting ABC 18.3/32  repeat special @10pm

18. Slap Maxwell ABC 18.2/31

19. My Two Dads NBC 18.1/28 

20. Unsolved Mysteries Special NBC 17.9/32 Thurs @10

21. Alf NBC 17.9/29 46. 

22. Designing Women 17.6/28

23. Head of the Class CBS ABC 17.6/28

24. 227 NBC 17.3/32

25. Matlock NBC 17.0/27

26. Dallas CBS 16.9/31 2hr episode Fri@8

27. Buck James ABC 16.6/30

28. Special Movie Presentation CBS 16.6/31 ??

29. Dynasty ABC 16.5/28

30. NBC Sunday Night Movie  'The Terminator' NBC 16.5/27 

31. Cagney & Lacey CBS 16.4/28 

32. Valerie's Family NBC 16.3/26

33. Miami Vice NBC 16.2/29

34. J.J. Starbuck Special NBC 15.8/30 

35. Kate & Allie CBS 15.6/24

36. Highway to Heaven NBC 15.6/27

37. Perfect Strangers ABC 15.2/27 

38. Knots Landing CBS 15.2/27

39. Facts of Life NBC 14.8/29 

40. 20/20 ABC 14.7/28 

41. Equalizer CBS 14.4/24

42. Frank's Place Special CBS 13.9/23 

43. A Year in the Life NBC 13.8/23 

44. Beauty & the Beast Special CBS 13.5/26 Fri @10

45. St. Elsewhere NBC 13.4/23

46.. NBC Monday Night Movies 'If It's Tuesday,It Still Must be Belgium'' NBC 13.4/22

47. Special Movie Presentation CBS 13.1/22 Tues @9?

48. Special Movie - Sun. The Law and Harry McGraw' 2 hr pilot CBS CBS 12.6/21

49. Jake and the Fatman Special CBS 12.5/24 Sat @10 preempting West 57th

50. Crime Story NBC 12.3/21 

51. ABC Thursday Night Movie 'Ghostbusters' ABC 12.2/20 

52. Wiseguy CBS 12.1/19 

53. MacGyver ABC 11.9/20 

54. Private Eye NBC 11.5/22 

55. Rags to Riches NBC 11.2/21

56. Tour of Duty CBS 10.6/17 

57. Disney Sunday Movie ABC 10.4/19

58. Oldest Rookie CBS 10.4/18

59. Our House NBC 10.2/19

60. Spenser: For Hire ABC 10.1/16 37.

61. I Married Dora ABC 10.1/18

62. Houston Knights CBS 9.6/16 

63. Full House ABC 9.3/18

64. Sledge Hammer ABC 7.9/13 

65. ABC Sat. Night Movie Special  ???ABC 7.3/14

66. Max Headroom ABC 6.9/13

67. Charmings ABC 6.7/11 

68. Once a Hero ABC 3.7/7

Edited March 1, 2023 by Paul Raven

[Soapsuds]

Week of October 18-24, 1982

 

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[soapfan770]

The 1987-88 season wasn’t too kind to primetime soaps was it? I can see why. Dallas became directionless disaster and some really bad acting thrown in. Dynasty was pointless, exactly how SOD called it, and following up on The Colby’s UFO cliffhanger made it worse. Knots had its ups and downs that season with Laura’s death being a detriment as well as the Jill stuff. Falcon Crest was fun and fast paced but went off the rails with the Thirteen plot. Hotel was DOA in their new Saturday night slot. 

[Paul Raven]

[Paul Raven]

My computer is playing up and I couldn't add to the quote above.

Anyway...

The soaps had been enormously successful and had runs beyond most primetime hits.

By 87/88 the decline had set in. Creatively it was harder each year to come up with compelling stories as viewers expected to see JR scheming, Blake/Krystal/Alexis etc .Unlike daytime, where there was more flexibility in making casting/story changes, the primetime shows were more restricted.JR couldn't be backburnered for 6 episodes for example. FC/KL had a little more flexibilty in that regard.

Ratings wise the numbers were falling but they were all performing OK. ABC saw the writing on the wall and moved Dynasty back to 10pm, where it won its timeslot. However it was an expensive show and I'm sure ABC realized they could probably get similar numbers from a cheaper show.

CBS kept Dallas/FC in the same slots and they were winning their timeslots. CBS had other nights to worry about but I wonder if they should have bitten the bullet and moved Dallas back to 10pm with maybe Simon& Simon/Magnum as leadins? Or something else at 9pm. Freshening up 9pm while viewers were still accustomed to watching CBS at that time rather than waiting for a new  show to come along on ABC or NBC that might crush Dallas.

Falcon Crest could be used as a 10 pm show on Tues for example to provide some familiarity as the rebuilt that night.

Knots was the only Thurs show on CBS providing any competition so it earned its keep.

As for Hotel ABC seemed to want to be rid of it. I think in that final year the big name guest stars were out. I would have slotted it Thurs at 9 and kept 20/20 at 10 . Placing/wasting movies there seemed foolish.

Both ABC/CBS made some weird scheduling moves that season.But that's for another post.

[Soapsuds]

Watched an episode of Alice season 5 which had a 31.2 rating ...two years later the episode I'm watching had a 15.3 ranking #37 from #5 two years ago. Thats half the viewers. What a steep fall. I had forgotten though that the show was moved from its Sunday timeslot to Wednesday. Gloria got ODAT timeslot and ODAT got Alice timeslot.

[kalbir]

The primetime soaps in the context of drama series history on their respective networks:

Dallas and Knots Landing 14 season runs tie them w/ NCIS: Los Angeles, and places them behind Gunsmoke, NCIS, Lassie, CSI, Criminal Minds.

Falcon Crest 9 season run ties it w/ Perry Mason, The Waltons; Walker, Texas Ranger; Touched by an Angel, JAG, CSI: NY, and places it behind Gunsmoke, NCIS, Lassie, CSI, Criminal Minds, Dallas, Knots Landing, NCIS: Los Angeles, Blue Bloods, original Hawaii Five-O; Murder, She Wrote; CSI: Miami, Hawaii Five-0 reboot.

Dynasty 9 season run ties it w/ The F.B.I and The Love Boat, and places it behind Grey's Anatomy and NYPD Blue.

Edited March 2, 2023 by kalbir

[Paul Raven]

That Sunday line up was invincible for several seasons. But anytime they moved a show  eg Alice to Wed or Archie Bunker to Mon they tanked. Those shows worked together as they were all products of the same era.

When CBS tried freshening things up eg Goodnight Beantown, it didn't work as it just seemed an odd fit.

[soapfan770]

Goodnight Beantown was a bit ahead of its time I suppose with elements of Moonlighting and Murphy Brown in it from what I remember seeing. Maybe it should have been paired up with Kate & Allie instead?

Mariette Hartley had a very healthy working yet strange career of appearing on everything in the 70’s and 80’s including that Emmy win for lead actress for a guest role on The Hulk (Emmy rules were different then) but then in obscurity by the 90’s.

[Paul Raven]

In addition to Beantown, CBS tried The Four Seasons and Suzanne Pleshette as Maggie Briggs on Sun to no avail. They decided to drop comedy 8-9 for Murder She Wrote.

Moving back to 87/88 ABC poured a lot of money into Dolly only to see it fail pretty quickly. Has there ever been a post mortem on the show from Dolly herself or anyone else?  The show opened big so people were interested. I think the content was a problem. They tried to present Dolly in a way that didn't seem genuine .

To me another  problem was the timeslot.

Going up against movies on the other 2 networks was a big ask for Dolly. Inevitably CBS and NBC would be scheduling big theatrical premieres, mini series debuts and their best TV movies.

Maybe 8pm would have been better with movies @9? Although Dolly would have to face MSW and Family Ties. ABC wasted their movies on Thurs night where they got thrashed by Cheers/Night Court/LA Law.

And the lead in was Spencer for Hire, a low rated show that didn't warrant being placed in the important Sun @8 slot. It provided no lead in for Dolly and didn't seem compatible.

And then to place Buck James @10 as lead out. If Dolly was to play at 9pm maybe Hotel would have worked better instead of being dumped on Saturday night.

So either

Disney 7pm Dolly 8pm Sunday Movie 9pm

or

Disney 7pm (2 hr as in previous seasons) Dolly 9pm Hotel 10pm 

[soapfan770]

It was overall a rough time for Dolly as her heavily pop themed album flopped that fall of ‘87 as well. If I recall right a lot of music from that failed pop album was used on the show. Maybe Dolly should have tried a traditional sitcom instead of a variety show? 
 

Disney Sunday had flopped against CBS’ lineup so they cut it from two hours to one hour for the 1987-88 season before ABC ironically let go of the ABC rights to NBC. Throwing Spenser on the Sunday night lineup seems insane. The show had a loyal cult following but overall ratings were low. ABC’s hope that ratings would rise at 8PM ET or a way to kill the show off? 

I do see how the primetime soaps failed to evolve in their restricted environments though. For Dallas and Falcon Crest there was not much care for the mediocre writing and the second generation of of characters after the originals left. Dynasty reinvigorated itself its final season, but no one cared about Dynasty by that point. 

 

[kalbir]

1987/88 I feel was the start of the decline of drama series. It seems very few hit dramas were left at this point.

CBS: Murder, She Wrote was a hit but Cagney & Lacey, Dallas, Falcon Crest, Knots Landing; Magnum, P.I.; Simon & Simon were aging, and The Equalizer was not showing growth. Spring 1988 saw the end of Cagney & Lacey and Magnum, P.I. and one newer drama that showed no growth during its short run (Houston Knights). The new dramas from 1987/88 that would return were Beauty and the Beast, Jake and the Fatman, Tour of Duty, Wiseguy.

ABC: Moonlighting was a hit but Dynasty was aging, Hotel was fading, and MacGyver and Spenser: For Hire were not showing growth. Spring 1988 saw the end of Hotel and Spenser: For Hire and two newer dramas that showed no growth during their short runs (Max Headroom, Ohara). The new dramas from 1987/88 that would return were Thirtysomething, China Beach, HeartBeat.

NBC: Matlock and L.A. Law were hits and Hunter was showing signs of growth but Miami Vice and Highway to Heaven were fading and St. Elsewhere was aging. Spring 1988 saw the end of St. Elsewhere and four newer dramas that showed no growth during their short runs (Our House, Crime Story, Rags to Riches, The Bronx Zoo). The new dramas from 1987/88 that would return were In the Heat of the Night and Sonny Spoon.