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

[Khan]

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[Paul Raven]

@Khan Those credits- Ann Jillian gets's a sketch and John P Navin (who?) then the rest of the cast are credited with pics of Ann...huh?

[kalbir]

I don't believe that Hotel was a better show than Knots Landing in 1983/84. I know we disproved Hotel as a time slot hit, but I can't help but feel that it was one.

[Paul Raven]

Did we? It always followed Dynasty and when it finally moved to Saturdays (sabotage) it bombed.

82-83 season. Wk 1

Monday

ABC That's  Incredible #34 16.0/24                                 Outlaw Josey Wales #32 16.1/26
CBS Square Pegs #20 18.7/29 Benjamin #23 18.1/27     Drop Out Father #2 23.8/37
NBC Little House #15 19.2/29                                           On The Road Again 13.4/21

Square Pegs, another CBS sitcom that started fairly strong but didn't follow through.

Tuesday

ABC Happy 19.7/31 Laverne 21.4/33 3's Company #1 24.2/36 9 to 5 #6 22.4/34 Hart 19.2/32
CBS Bring Em Back #49 12.9/20             Shadow Riders #17 19.1/30
NBC Father Murphy #46 13.4/21             Seems Like Old times #50 12.9/20

Another CBS 8pm flop. Father Murphy unable to build on middling success of S1.

Wednesday

ABC Tales of Gold Monkey  #31 16.4/26                          Money on the Side #10 21.0/33
CBS 7 Brides for 7 Brothers #40 14.4 /23                        Life of the Party Beatrice #35 15.7/25
NBC Real People #24 18.0/29 Facts of Life #19 19.0/29 Family Ties#26 17.2/26 Quincy#39 14.5/23

Facts of Life hanging in there!

Thursday

ABC Joanie Loves Chachi  #45 13.5/23 Star of Family #43 15.7/22 Too Close #8 21.5/33 20/20#25 17.7/30
CBS Magnum 2 hr #3 23.1/37                                                             Knots Landing #33 16.1/27
NBC Fame #51 12.8/21              Cheers 9.6/15 #60 Taxi #56 10.1/16    Hill St Blues #21 18.2/31

ABC immediately in trouble @8pm. NBC's much publicized Emmy award winning night bombs.

Friday

ABC Greatest Escape Artist #61 9.5/17                   Battle of Network Stars #58 10.8/19
CBS Dukes#27 16.7/30                      Dallas #5 22.5/36                 Falcon Crest #14 19.3/34
NBC Matthew Star #55 11.7/21        Knight Rider #38 15.4/26     Remington Steele #52 12.5/22

Dukes off to a poor start. Sign of things to come. Knight Rider doing way better against Dallas than anything else for years.

Saturday

ABC TJ Hooker #44 13.6/26                                           Love Boat 2hr #7 21.7/39
CBS Apple Dumpling Gang  #54 11.9/22                        Not Just Another Affair #48 12.9/23
NBC Diffrent Strokes  #41 14.1/27 Spoons #42 13.7/25 Gimme 12.2 /21 #53 Love Sydney #59 10.6/19 Devlin #62 8.3/15

NBC chancing on a Saturday comedy block, not happening.

Sunday

ABC Ripleys #57 10.8/20        Matt Houston #17 19.1/30               Smokey 2 #12 20.1/31
CBS 60 Minutes #4 22.7/42    Bunker 16.4/26 Gloria #36 16.7/25  Jeffersons #29 16.7/25 One day #22 18.2/27 Trapper #37 15.5/25
NBC Voyagers #63 7.5/14         Bob Hope #28 16.7/26             Carson Anniversary  #11 20.9/32

Promising for Matt Houston. First signs of weakness for CBS Sunday comedy block.

Poor start for NBC as their movies, new shows and even returning shows not firing.

 

 

 

 

 

[kalbir]

In the first page of the Time Slot Hits thread.

 

[soapfan770]

One interesting thing I never realized but we’ve hinted at is that fact that Wednesday nights at 10PM became a low rated dead zone for the Big 3 starting with the 86-87 season with Hotel’s decline and lasting into the early 90’s until the rise of Primetime Live and Law & Order in that timeslot.

The nadir for that timeslot probably had to be the 1990-91 season where the notorious Cop Rock on ABC along with Gabriel’s Fire, Hunter’s final season on NBC (moved from Saturdays) and the John Shea freshman drama WIOU each failed abysmally in that slot.

The 8-10 hours seemed to do okay enough for ABC and moderately for NBC though.

[kalbir]

A look back at 1989/90, the last television season of the 1980s, as we approach its 35th anniversary.

#1 NBC (1988/89 #1)

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Top 10: 1. The Cosby Show (1988/89 #1), 3. Cheers (1988/89 4th), 4. A Different World (1988/89 3rd), 6. The Golden Girls (1988/89 6th), 9. Empty Nest (1988/89 9th)

Top 30: 11. Unsolved Mysteries (1988/89 17th), 15. Grand (first season), 16. L.A. Law (1988/89 13th), 17. Dear John (1988/89 11th), 19. In the Heat of the Night (1988/89 18th), 20. Matlock (1988/89 12th), 24. Hunter (1988/89 19th), 28. Night Court (1988/89 21st)

Top 30 fallouts: NBC Sunday movie (1988/89 22nd), Amen (1988/89 25th), NBC Monday movie (1988/89 25th)

Below the Top 30: Midnight Caller, Quantum Leap

Final season: ALF (1988/89 15th), The Hogan Family (1988/89 22nd), My Two Dads, 227, The Magical World of Disney, 13 East

No new fall shows returned in 1990/91.

New midseason/summer shows returning in 1990/91: Grand, Down Home, Real Life with Jane Pauley, Seinfeld, Shannon's Deal, Wings

2nd ABC (1988/89 2nd)

Top 10: 1. Roseanne (1988/89 2nd), 5. America's Funniest Home Videos (first season), 8. The Wonder Years (1988/89 22nd), 10. Monday Night Football (1988/89 15th)

Top 30: 12. Who's the Boss? (1988/89 7th), 13. Chicken Soup (first and only season), 18. Coach (1988/89 below the Top 30), 21. Growing Pains (1988/89 13th), 22. Full House (1988/89 below the Top 30), 26. Head of the Class (1988/89 20th), 28. Doogie Howser, M.D. (first season)

Top 30 fallout: Anything but Love (1988/89 10th)

Below the Top 30: ABC Sunday movie, 20/20, MacGyver, Perfect Strangers, thirtysomething, China Beach

Final season: ABC Mystery Movie (1988/89 29th), Mr. Belvedere, Just the Ten of Us, Mission: Impossible

New fall shows returning in 1990/91: Doogie Howser, M.D.; Father Dowling Mysteries, Family Matters, Life Goes On, Primetime Live, The Young Riders

New midseason/summer shows returning 1990/91: America's Funniest Home Videos, Equal Justice, Twin Peaks

3rd CBS (1988/89 3rd)

Top 10: 7. 60 Minutes (1988/89 5th)

Top 30: 13. Murder, She Wrote (1988/89 8th); 22. Designing Women (1988/89 below the Top 30), 24. CBS Sunday movie (1988/89 27th), 27. Murphy Brown (1988/89 below the Top 30)

Top 30 fallouts: Knots Landing (1988/89 27th), Dallas (1988/89 29th)

Below the Top 30: 48 Hours, Wiseguy, Jake and the Fatman, Paradise, Doctor Doctor

Final season: Newhart, Falcon Crest, Beauty and the Beast, Tour of Duty

New fall shows returning in 1990/91: Major Dad, Rescue 911

New midseason/summer shows returning in 1990/91: Bagdad Cafe, Northern Exposure, Top Cops

1989/90 is best remembered for The Cosby Show and Roseanne battling for #1 and they ended up tying. This season is also notable in that no Aaron Spelling shows were on the broadcast networks.

NBC showing signs of getting a little complacent. Thursday and Saturday still carrying them but no new fall shows took hold.

ABC launched their TGIF comedy block on Fridays and the first line up was Full House, Family Matters, Perfect Strangers, Just the Ten of Us. As we all know, TGIF would become a 1990s staple.

Poor CBS, 1989/90 was their primetime nadir, with no scripted shows in the Top 10. CBS primetime started the 1980s riding high but ended the 1980s an absolute mess.

1989/90 Fox had their first Top 30 show with The Simpsons first season at 28th.

Edited August 25, 2024 by kalbir

[soapfan770]

Re: Anything But Love was doomed by constant schedule moving around once moved out it it’s time slot and network meddling. A similar fate met by NBC’s Dear John.

Chicken Soup was an initial hit but doomed by star Jackie Mason running his mouth off (not the first nor the last time that would happen to him).

The 10/7/89 issue of TV Guide commented on Dallas’ dismal 2-hours season premiere on 9/22/89, specifically at the weak ratings charting at a laughably bad #46! The following week Dallas was up a bit at #43 while Falcon Crest premiered at #57. Clearly the audiences were gone and weren’t back at all. 

[te.]

Funny to think that the revival of its lead-in would encounter the same issues almost three decades later.

[Paul Raven]

Wk 2 of the 89/90 season

Fri

8pm

ABC Full House #30 15.0/29 Family Matters #41 13.8/23

CBS Snoops # 67 9.1/17

NBC Baywatch #57 10.7/20

9pm

ABC Perfect Strangers #41 12.8/23 Just the Ten of Us #47 12.5/22

CBS Dallas #49 12.3/22

NBC Friday Movie#45 12.6/23

10pm

ABC 20/20 #38 13.3/25

CBS Falcon Crest #57 12.7/20

NBC Movie as above

So by this season Friday nights had become like Saturdays with a bunch of low rated shows.

But CBS letting Dallas/Falcon Crest wither away like that was sad.

ABC must have got all the kids/young adult demos, while the more expensive CBS soaps were lagging.

CBS' failure to regenerate Fridays is a textbook programming mistake. Falcon Crest should have been moved at some point while Dallas was still strong enough to boost a new 10pm show.

They should have found a strong 8pm show to boost he night. At some point Dallas would have moved back to 10 with fresh shows providing stronger lead ins.

All theory of course. CBS has other woes to deal with at that time.

[te.]

Obviously, this was 10.7/20 since it tied with Baywatch. 

And yeah, Falcon Crest probably should've been moved off the night a few seasons before this, but then again, who knows if it would've survived such a move? I'm not sure if it would've made it to nine seasons without favourable programming (but then again, would that have been a bad thing?). 

Interesting to see Baywatch debuting. The pilot movie did well on Sunday in the spring, but clearly the target audience wasn't at home on Friday nights. Surprised it made it to a full season on NBC before getting cancelled.

[soapfan770]

Here’s the story of Chicken Soup:

Canned Soup: Jackie Mason gets the hook

TIME Magazine NOVEMBER 20, 1989

With such a proposition, who could lose? Take Jackie Mason, the veteran Borscht Belt comic. Put him in a sitcom produced by the same people who created hits for Bill Cosby and Roseanne Barr. Give it the surefire time period following No. 1-rated Roseanne. Almost every TV prognosticator in the business picked Chicken Soup as the season’s big hit. But Mason had a troubled autumn. He got bad reviews, both for his acting and for making racially inflammatory remarks during the New York City mayoral race. More dismaying to ABC, Chicken Soup — though the highest-rated of any new show this fall — regularly lost nearly one-third of the huge Roseanne audience. Last week the network abruptly canceled its can’t-miss hit. Moral: when it comes to TV programming, nobody knows borscht.

 

Re: Falcon Crest. Seems to me the Big 3 also had a dead zone problem aside from Remington Steele having moderate success with the 10PM Tuesday slot for much of the decade so no telling if that would’ve worked out or not. It probably was better left on Friday nights.

It’s a bit strange that suddenly in 1987 everyone gave up on Friday nights and then NBC Saturday nights became a thing lol. Friday nights wouldn’t become relevant again outside of “TGIF” on ABC until The X-Files and Saturday nights with Dr. Quinn and Walker lol. 

[te.]

It's fascinated me how the US networks seemingly just gave up on programming Saturdays and just made Fridays into a niche night - in Europe, both days are where networks here tend to put their most family friendly shows which seems like a no-brainer. US networks seem resistant to the idea though. 

[soapfan770]

It all came down to the economic times as I recall Linda Gray talking about Dallas’s rise and success many many years ago.

Early 70’s CBS’ Saturday night lineup had massive success partly due to the sitcoms being very relevant and well partly due to very it was cheaper if everyone stayed home on a Saturday evening.

1979-1983 was the same way for Friday nights on CBS and Saturday nights on ABC.

In healthier economic times, post late 80’s, everyone seem to go out on Fridays and Saturdays thus the networks eventually gave up but then with in the past decade we have one major network, CBS see its biggest hits air on Friday nights while other broadcast and cable networks (especially both family friendly networks like Nickelodeon and Disney) have had success with various fare on Friday and Saturday nights.

Of course in 2024 in the majority of folks will probably have a nice dinner and/or grab drinks before heading home to stream/catch up on they’re binging as of late on Friday and Saturday nights before calling it a night and what not. Saturday nights in the fall usually comprise of college football games and folks trying to watch SNL. 

[kalbir]

Look at the big 1980s family sitcoms in 1989/90. The Cosby Show was losing its grip on #1 to Roseanne. Who's the Boss? and Growing Pains were starting to fade. It was a sign that times were changing, that Reagan-era ideals were out.