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

[Paul Raven]

It all came down to canny scheduling and lots of luck.

If you had a winning night, inevitably the shows would get tired and the opposition would jump in.

Look at ABC Tuesday. At the beginning of the decade they were unstoppable. Happy Days, Laverne& Shirley, 3's Company,  Taxi, Hart to Hart.

But apart from successfully inserting 2 Close for Comfort they left things as they were.

NBC pounced with the A Team and took over 8pm. ABC were still OK 9-11 but those shows were weakening. Then NBC took over with Riptide and Remington Steele. The new sitcoms ABC introduced like 9to 5 and Joanie Loves Chachi were moved to prop up other nights and ABC was on the defensive.

But they rebuilt thanks to Who's the Boss and Moonlighting and regained the lead on that night. 

But NBC wisely counterprogrammed with Matlock and In the Heat of the Night and stayed competitive.

CBS lost Friday by complacency and ABc allowed Saturday to slip away due to over reliance on Love Boat.

[Khan]

One trend that I've noticed is how NBC became a sort of destination for innovative one-hour dramas like "Hill Street Blues" and "St. Elsewhere" in the early '80's, but as the decade wore on, ABC became a destination as well for quality one-hours and dramedies like "The Wonder Years," while CBS more-or-less contented themselves to being a destination for one-hour shows that were more like "comfort food" for audiences and, on the whole, not challenging or risky.

[kalbir]

Taking @Khan descriptions above and seeing how they apply to each network's line up of dramas that premiered in the 1980s which had runs of 5 or more seasons.

Murder, She Wrote (12); Falcon Crest (9); Magnum, P.I. (8); Simon & Simon (8), Cagney & Lacey (7), Jake and the Fatman (5). I think that description fits this list.

Dynasty (9), MacGyver (7), The Fall Guy (5), Hotel (5), Moonlighting (5). Moonlighting seems like the only one that fits this description. Thirtysomething and China Beach fit this description but they got four seasons each.

L.A. Law (8), Hill Street Blues (7), Hunter (7), St. Elsewhere (6), Matlock (6), Remington Steele (5), The A-Team (5), Miami Vice (5), Highway to Heaven (5), In the Heat of the Night (5), Quantum Leap (5). I would consider L.A. Law innovative as well.

Edited September 3, 2024 by kalbir

[Soapsuds]

Fall 1984 TV Schedule

 

Please register in order to view this content

[kalbir]

@Soapsuds I can't believe its been 40 years since the 1984/85 season. To me it was the best and most pivotal television season of the 1980s.

[Soapsuds]

I hadn't realized it has been 40 years. It doesn't seem like it's been 40 years.

[Wendy]

I'd forgotten Hunter had started out on Friday nights. Looking it up, the premiere was actually on a Tuesday, September 18, 1984. My 12th birthday!

I read it was getting clobbered by Dallas and was close to getting the axe, but Stephen Cannell or someone else connected to the show gave Brandon Tartikoff a sneak preview of the two-part episode, "The Snow Queen" (which featured the two Dennis actors of the era, Franz and Farina!), and he was convinced to instead put the show on hiatus until another slot could be tried.

That obviously became Saturday nights at 10:00 p.m. ET, it grew, and the rest was history. Cheers, when it first started, also didn't do great but was given time to grow.

Too bad the networks don't really have the time or patience to do that anymore.

 

[Paul Raven]

Street Hawk never aired Monday. ABC aired Call to Glory so Street Hawk became a back up show, eventually airing Fri @ 9.

ABCs schedule needed a complete revamp. Way too many soapy formats.

 

 

 

[Khan]

Of course, there was a lot of junk airing on all three networks back then, but looking at that schedule, I'd say CBS's lineup probably was the least embarrassing, followed by NBC's. 

CBS, of course, was still giving its' mostly older, mostly conservative viewership what it wanted; while NBC was laying the final pieces of what would become the biggest night in TV (Thursdays); but ABC still appeared to be operating under the Fred Silverman mindset of giving audiences the least objectionable programming, regardless of quality.  But that, too, would change a little bit in the latter half of the season, with the premiere of "Moonlighting," the first series on ABC - before "thirtysomething," "The Wonder Years" and "China Beach" - that could go toe-to-toe with NBC's more quality shows ("Hill Street Blues," "St. Elsewhere," etc).

In retrospect, it probably hurt CBS not to have a prestigious, quality drama or comedy on their lineup at that time like the other two networks had.  Their highest-rated show was MSW, which audiences loved from the start, but didn't exactly wow Madison Avenue or the critics.

[kalbir]

Looking at the above Fall 1984 line up of new scripted shows.

CBS had only one return: Murder, She Wrote.

ABC had only one return: Who's the Boss.

NBC had five returns: The Cosby Show, Highway to Heaven, Miami Vice, Hunter, Punky Brewster.

Looking at the returning scripted shows on the above Fall 1984 line up that ended by Spring 1985.

CBS ended five shows: AfterMASH, The Jeffersons, Alice, The Dukes of Hazzard, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer.

ABC ended two shows: T.J. Hooker and Matt Houston.

NBC ended Diff'rent Strokes.

CBS lack of fall success and spring house cleaning left a lot of space in the schedule to fill.

ABC also had a lack of fall success which left them a good amount of space to fill.

NBC had the most fall success, and little did we know that it was the start of their dominating primetime for the better part of the next 20 years.

[kalbir]

TV One Celebrates the 40th Anniversary of The Cosby Show

Tomorrow (September 20) is the 40th anniversary of The Cosby Show premiere. It was such a big part of my childhood but its conflicting to celebrate the anniversary when considering what we know about it. Despite everything, the impact The Cosby Show had in both television history and popular culture is still being felt today.

[BetterForgotten]

Whether we like it or not, The Cosby Show created “Must See TV” on Thursday nights, which NBC ended up living off of for a good 20 years. 

[kalbir]

Yes, it did.

If it wasn't for the breakout success of The Cosby Show, who knows if Family Ties, Cheers, and Night Court would have found the audiences that they eventually did.

NBC Thursday dominated primetime for the better part of 20 years, from the start of The Cosby Show until the end of Friends.

[Paul Raven]

Family Ties and Cheers had been on the schedule for a couple of seasons to middling success. So yes it really was the Cosby flow on effect that catapulted them into Top 5 shows.

[soapfan770]

I do feel bad for the rest of the cast as the whole show’s legacy has been tarnished and can be hard to watch.

That said, anyone else vividly remember this opening credits for the show? I remember as a kid seeing this and thinking “What in the world…”

Please register in order to view this content

I think ended up being Cosby’s last season at #1.