Tank Jobs and Sabotage

[kalbir]

@Paul Raven Re Simon & Simon, Cagney & Lacey

1981/82 Simon & Simon 13 episode first season was Tuesday 8 pm head-to-head w/ Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. Q.E.D. took over Tuesday 8 pm when Simon & Simon first season ended and it's run was 6 episodes. Cagney & Lacey 6 episode first season was Thursday 9 pm. 

1982/83 CBS moved Simon & Simon to Thursday 9 pm and Cagney & Lacey to Monday 10 pm.

[Paul Raven]

@kalbir Did some further digging re Simon /Cagney

Simon was #70 for the season

Cagney was #65

Cagney aired 3 of its 6 episodes Thurs@9 and CBS took it off and replaced it with a Simon& Simon repeats -as you stated all 13 of it's original order had played Tues @8. It hit #12 one week, so on the strength of that CBS decided to commit for the 82/83 season. 

Wonder who had the idea to place a repeat of a failed series in that slot? They were both from Universal so maybe there was a suggestion from them that the shows would work together? Who knows? But it sure was a canny move.

Meanwhile a new episode of Cagney was placed in the Sun @10 slot and rated well so CBS ordered a new series for 82/83 in the Mon @10 slot.

So two examples of failed series that were given renewals on the strength of  good showing in a new timeslot.

Meanwhile other shows weren't given that chance and much higher rated series were cancelled.

[soapfan770]

This reminds me of some of the alleged  conspiracy that Ed Asner had that season about CBS cancelling Lou Grant because the network was out against his political views. 

CBS stated it was because the show’s falling ratings they axed the show. Certainly the ratings were down a bit but still decent enough for a middle pack show. But I don’t know if there is any credence to Asner’s theory about why Lou Grant was canned.

My best uneducated guess is the reality is CBS probably wanted something new instead of trying to save a older show that was starting to flail, and there was at least one exec who was more than happy to say good riddance.

[kalbir]

@Paul Raven Thank you for the additional info re Simon & Simon/Cagney & Lacey.

1979-1982 CBS was successful in replacing a good number of aging and fading shows. Hawaii Five-O, Barnaby Jones, The White Shadow, The Waltons, The Incredible Hulk, Lou Grant gave way to Trapper John, M.D.; Knots Landing; Magnum, P.I.; Simon & Simon, Falcon Crest, Cagney & Lacey. Unfortunately when the new shows of 1979-1982 started to age and fade, many of the new offerings weren't as successful: The Equalizer, The Twilight Zone, Houston Knights, Beauty and the Beast, Jake and the Fatman, Tour of Duty, Wiseguy, Paradise.

 

[soapfan770]

 Some of those late 80’s shows were very good (Equalizer, Paradise), while some decent but lacked the quality of what it was replacing etc. I’m still puzzled on why out of all those late 80s shows it was Jake and the Fatman that lasted the longest

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.

CBS kind of fell into a complacency overall between 1982-85, but for the bigger shows there was nothing to fix as it wasn’t broken.

Seems to me one of the biggest issues CBS had was programming new blocks of shows on what had been traditionally movie nights like Wednesdays and Saturdays and expecting it work right off the bat without having some type of anchorage of an established show and with tight competition at work. 

[Paul Raven]

@soapfan770 re Lou Grant cancellation. I'm sure Ed Asner's politics was a factor but there were other factors at play.

CBS 9-11 Monday-MASH, House Calls,Lou Grant traditionally was strong in the second half of the season when Monday football finished and ABC programmed series that usually flopped. That season they went with movies that did very well and CBS didn't dominate.

MASH was finishing and CBS attempts to refresh the night with Flo and Private Benjamin hadn't worked. House Calls was regarded as a success due to following MASH and another season of Lou Grant would have fallen further. So a revamped Cagney and Lacey was placed there behind the new Bob Newhart series to freshen the night before MASH departed

You're right about CBS trying to program those movie nights. For 81/82 the moved Nurse to 9pm Wed after it performed well as a short flight  show Thurs @10. To expect it to perform up against Facts of Life and Fall Guy was a big ask and it was off the air after a few weeks.

Nest season they tried Alice 9pm Wed and that flopped also so for 83/84 they threw in the towel and programmed movies Tues, Wed and Sat admitting that trying to launch new series in those timeslots at the start of the season was doomed. They waited to see how the opposition was performing and then placed Airwolf/Mike Hammer Sat 9-11 with some success.

[te.]

Well, as you said - it was a middle-of-the-pack show. It was the definition of a reliable player, but also something that they could do away with if they needed the space. And with Dallas and Falcon Crest flying high, I imagine the decision might've been between Knots and Lou Grant, and Knots won out (it was actually in real danger of getting cancelled that season per producers). 

Similar thing happened with NCIS: Hawaii this season - it was performing well enough for renewal, but CBS essentially had to do away with something for new shows.

Edited July 26, 2024 by te.

[kalbir]

That came back to bite them, and that's how we got the third place primetime mess era 1987/88 to 1990/91.

CBS struggled w/ sitcoms from 1982/83 (the end of M*A*S*H and the Top 10 fallouts of The Jeffersons, Alice, One Day at a Time) until 1989/90 (Designing Women and Murphy Brown started showing growth). The only bright spots among sitcoms in that era were Newhart and Kate & Allie, but they got lost in the shuffle when sitcoms made a comeback in 1985/86. Newhart was up-and-down in the ratings and got overshadowed by the big workplace/friendship sitcoms Cheers, The Golden Girls, Night Court. Kate & Allie started good but couldn't maintain its momentum and got overshadowed by the big family sitcoms The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Who's the Boss, Growing Pains.

On the drama side, Dallas, Knots Landing; Magnum, P.I.; Simon & Simon, Falcon Crest were at their peak, The Dukes of Hazzard was fading; Trapper John, M.D. was middle of the pack but about to fade; Cagney & Lacey took time to show growth but couldn't maintain its momentum. The new dramas launched in that era had varying degrees of success: The surprise success of Murder, She Wrote. Another surprise success Crazy Like a Fox but counter-programming killed its momentum. Middle of the pack Scarecrow and Mrs. King. The Mississippi started good but couldn't maintain it's momentum. Airwolf and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer showed no growth.

1985/86 was the turning point for the drama lineup as Dallas, Knots Landing, Falcon Crest tanked; Magnum, P.I. got slaughtered by The Cosby Show, and Simon & Simon got clobbered by Cheers. That's really when CBS should have looked at their drama line up and started making moves. 

Edited July 28, 2024 by kalbir

[Khan]

A shame, since I thought K&A was as good as Cosby and FT.

Also a shame that "Newhart," while not perfect, got overshadowed by "Night Court," which often confused weirdness with humor (IMO).

Edited July 28, 2024 by Khan

[DRW50]

I think K&A was better than Family Ties - I never thought the cast on that clicked. 

I preferred Night Court as a kid, but I agree Newhart is underrated.

[Paul Raven]

CBS launched The Mississippi following Dallas after Falcon Crest finished its run and in that timeslot it did well.

So the following season CBS moved it into one of their perennial dead zones Tues @8 where it limped along opposite The A Team, which was the hot new show.

Maybe the idea is that it would be good counterprogramming and be  a solid #2 in the timeslot.

But it seemed a waste of a promising show. 

Maybe Fri@8 leading into Dallas? Dukes of Hazzard was on its last legs and Mississippi may have freshened up the night.

Either cancel Dukes of Hazzard or move it to Sat @8.

Edited July 29, 2024 by Paul Raven

[kalbir]

@Paul Raven I remember it being posted in another thread that The Mississippi was a starring vehicle for Ralph Waite after The Waltons ended as CBS had some sort of deal with him they had to fulfill. I wonder if the move to a dead zone time slot was sabotage to get that deal to a quicker end.

Dukes of Hazzard, for whatever reason CBS chose not to tank job it, instead they left it at Friday 8 pm to limp along in its final two seasons. When Dukes of Hazzard ended, Friday 8 pm became another dead zone.

Edited July 29, 2024 by kalbir

[All My Shadows]

I think the thing with K&A is that it was a family sitcom that wasn't a family sitcom. It was about the two ladies, and the kids were always supporting characters and never leads. Even the kids problems were explored from the moms' perspectives. That definitely made it a unique show for the time, and I'm glad it ended up having a nice, healthy run, but with limited appeal to the teen/kid audience, it's no surprise that it rarely popped up in reruns.

[Paul Raven]

I agree that Ralph Waite had some deal with CBS along those lines- he also had some TV movies airing around that time.

I don't get why CBS would want to sabotage a show with ratings potential, however.

Although who knows what went on BTS?

I wonder if Michael Learned got a similar to deal to stay on The Waltons-that resulted in her series, Nurse.

I think Patrick Duffy and Larry Hagman got those deals also.

Re Dukes-CBS could see the writing on the wall but didn't develop a show that suited Fri @8, which neither ABC or NBC were dominating.

When Dukes finally was dropped they replaced it with Detective in the House with Judd Hirsch, which hardly had the same appeal as Dukes.

[BingCherry]

failed tank job:

1995/1996: NBC moves Mad About You from Thursday at 8 to Sunday at 8, much to Sony and Paul Reiser's chagrin as they'd just begun selling the show into syndication and the thinking was that moving it off Must See Thursday would devalue the show; NBC ended up giving it a two-season pickup to calm their nerves.  While it consistently won its timeslot on Sundays, it lost a third of its audience from when it was on Thursday and NBC moved it to Tuesday at 8 the following season, where ratings largely recovered opposite a flailing Roseanne.