Network TV makeover
About time. Network TV is rethinking how they program (with NBC putting The Apprentice on Thursday nights at 9 pm rather than its Must-see TV line up of comedies) according to this New York Times story (registration required):
Network television — battered by years of audience defections to cable channels and fearing the devastation that personal video recording machines like TiVo could wreak on advertising, its only revenue source — is beginning to embrace tactics considered heretical just a few years ago as it struggles to keep viewers tuned in and attentive.
Network executives now say they are moving toward abolishing the traditional television season, that 35-week period from mid-September to mid-May that confers bragging rights on the network with the highest ratings. In a plan designed to reduce or do away with repeats, new shows will increasingly be introduced year-round rather than in the typical mid-September and midseason slots.