Nobody is saying the sitcom is dead yet, but the half-hour comedy is beginning to look a little bit worse for wear on network television.
In sheer numbers, the sitcom has dropped dramatically on the six networks' schedules in the past few years. Three years ago, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN and the WB scheduled a total of 64 sitcoms -- an all-time high. NBC alone had 18.Two years ago, that number dropped slightly to 62. This past fall, it was 53. And come this fall, it will be down to 50.
And a half-dozen of those are animated, meaning that the number of live-action sitcoms has fallen from 63 to 50 in three seasons -- a drop of more than 20 percent.
There are a variety of theories as to why comedy is no longer king on TV, but they break down into four categories:
IT'S CYCLICAL: Basically, television is an industry that goes through cycles. Whatever is in, is probably on its way out, and whatever is out, is probably on its way in.
"There's certainly a cycle that goes on," said new NBC Entertainment President Garth Ancier. "I remember the last time I was at NBC (in the early 1980s), everyone said the sitcom was dead because most of the shows that were in the top 20 were not comedies."
Indeed, during 1983-84, there was only one sitcom among the 10 highest-rated shows on TV, and only three in the top 20. But that was B.C. -- before "Cosby." And the 1984 debut of "The Cosby Show" changed all of that.
That sitcom was No. 3 during the 1984-85 season, then spent the next five years at No. 1. By 1987, nine of the top 10 shows were comedies.
We've been riding a sitcom wave since then -- that is, until a couple of years ago when the tide began to turn. But, this time around, no one is writing obituaries for the half-hour comedy.
"I think, generally speaking, if you look at the history of network television, it always goes through cycles," said CBS President Leslie Moonves. "I remember a few years back, the sitcom was dead. And then 'Cosby' came, and that came back. And then the miniseries was dead, and then 'Lonesome Dove' happened, and that came back. Television has a tendency that something hits and everybody tries to imitate it. There really hasn't been a breakout sitcom in a number of years while there have been some more interesting dramas.
"I think it's only the natural evolution that there should be more dramas on the schedules than there have been for a long time."
SEND IN THE CLONES: While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, it's not necessarily a good thing for network television. The success that NBC had with "Friends" is a case in point.
In 1994, "Friends" was a break-out hit -- a huge phenomenon that shot to the top of the ratings. The following fall, the networks debuted a total of 13 new comedies that could, in one way or another, be termed clones of "Friends."
The worst offender was NBC. Two years ago, that network tried to clone its own "Must-see TV" lineup on Thursday nights by scheduling an unprecedented 18 half-hour comedies.
"I think we suffered as a business," Moonves said. "It was the copycat sitcom era. There would be a hit show, and then there would be seven clones of that show and very little originality."
TOO MANY SHOWS, TOO LITTLE TALENT: The problem with scheduling 62 sitcoms is finding literally hundreds of writers to turn out funny scripts.
It just didn't happen.
Gone are the days when a show like "Mary Tyler Moore" could keep its original writing staff together for seven seasons. Writers -- even junior writers -- on hot shows were picked off by studios and networks and given lucrative production deals. Writers who should have spent years learning their craft were suddenly expected to be experts at it, and the quality suffered. Badly.
"There's also no question that with the addition of two new networks, plus three or four of our cable channels putting on original series programming, that there just was a dilution," Moonves said. "To use the baseball reference, players who should have been in Double A are now playing in the majors."
LOOKING TO THE STARS: While executives at all the networks -- from CBS to ABC to Fox to UPN to the WB -- have bemoaned the lack of great writing talent, Ancier (who recently joined NBC after leaving his job as the WB's top programmer), sees it another way.
"What I think the sitcom is waiting for is a piece of talent like a Tim Allen, like a Bill Cosby 20 years ago who just totally comes on screen and dominates," Ancier said. "It's not really a writing issue as much as it's a personality issue in comedy. And I think one of the reasons (NBC) focused so heavily on getting a terrific head of casting who had a particularly strong comedy background was to find the next generation of people who really have specific comedy voices we could build shows around.
"It's much harder to do it the other way -- to take really great writers and then cast into these comedies, versus finding a Roseanne or finding a Tim Allen and building a show around them."
Which is certainly an interesting -- if debatable -- take on the current situation with situation comedies. Even the most talented actor (or the funniest standup comedian) can't carry a show simply by the force of his or her personality. Without good writing, a show is an iffy proposition at best.
Still, Ancier is out there looking for the next breakout star. Not that he thinks we ought to expect to see that person real soon.
"No one has found that comedy voice to build a show around that anyone's really all that excited about," he said. "I don't know if you saw any this fall that were tremendously exciting."