Television WI: NBC goes under in the early '80s

In the mid-late 1970s, NBC was in dire straits. It was struggling to find a new hit, as big shows like Hello, Larry and Supertrain, as well as every new series that premiered during the 1975-76 season, flopped spectacularly. Its expensive TV movies, miniseries and specials were nothing more than wastes of money, as they failed to attract new audiences. ABC and CBS were creaming it in the ratings. It was losing longtime affiliates in key markets like Atlanta, the Twin Cities, and San Diego. And to top it all off, the American boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow meant that NBC had wasted $87 million on the rights to the Games. The acronym NBC was said to stand for Nothing But Crap, Nobody's Watching Network (its slogan at the time was America's Watching Network), and Nobody Cares. Of course, in 1981, NBC was rescued by the team of Grant Tinker as network president and Brandon Tartikoff as chief of programming, bringing us such classics as The A-Team, The Cosby Show, and Miami Vice.

But what if they couldn't save the network? What if, for example, Tartikoff stayed at ABC, or died young (he had battled Hodgkin's Disease three times during his adult life)? Can NBC stay afloat without them, and if not, then how long does it have before it folds? How would the evolution of television (Fox, the WB, UPN, cable, various shows) be affected by this change?

Feel free to discuss.
 
Somebody buys them.

A network in a dire financial situation in an era where it was a license to print money (if you had the shows)? Somebody buys them.

Who is an interesting question, though.
 
Somebody buys them.

A network in a dire financial situation in an era where it was a license to print money (if you had the shows)? Somebody buys them.

Who is an interesting question, though.

Rupert Murdoch, perhaps? This would butterfly Fox away, with NBC becoming its equivalent (low-brow, trashy, and lowest-common-denominator, things that typified Fox in the '80s and are trademarks of Murdoch properties). I'd imagine Murdoch's NBC having success much earlier than OTL's Fox, since a) Murdoch has a pre-existing shell of a network to build from, and b) the NBC name still has some respect even after its collapse. (In OTL, Fox really only took off after it signed deals with the NFL and Chris-Craft in '93 and '94.)
 
Somebody buys them.

A network in a dire financial situation in an era where it was a license to print money (if you had the shows)? Somebody buys them.

Who is an interesting question, though.

That's possible. Somebody buy NBC, remembers the popularity of Star Trek, and more recent mindboggling success of Star Wars, Superman and Alien and decides to recreate NBC as network willing to invest in serious science fiction. The result is a network willing to take risks and produce shows that would not be greenlit by the other networks.
 
Star Trek wasn't a success ratings-wise, and Next Generation hadn't come out yet to prove that it could be otherwise.

Murdoch would be an interesting purchaser. I can see him as a cheerleader for the Reagan administration, with NBC News sliding more and more to a right-leaning perspective as time goes on. We'd essentially see a right-wing and blue collar populism, with somewhat raunchy shows and an appeal to the lowest common denominator.
 
That's possible. Somebody buy NBC, remembers the popularity of Star Trek, and more recent mindboggling success of Star Wars, Superman and Alien and decides to recreate NBC as network willing to invest in serious science fiction. The result is a network willing to take risks and produce shows that would not be greenlit by the other networks.

So Fox, in other words. After all Fox is easily the network most committed to unlikely shows IOTL…*they just have a bad tendency to kill them after five episodes (see their entire Friday line-up since the X-Files, Firefly, etc…).

And it's the 1980s, science fiction is bloody expensive. Although the potential of a Star Wars or Terminator TV show is limitless, the cost might be prohibitive.

What TV shows were big in the mid '80s? If ATL-NBC can grab one, that's a network building event (I was thinking Twin Peaks, but that was later).
 
So Fox, in other words. After all Fox is easily the network most committed to unlikely shows IOTL…*they just have a bad tendency to kill them after five episodes (see their entire Friday line-up since the X-Files, Firefly, etc…).

And it's the 1980s, science fiction is bloody expensive. Although the potential of a Star Wars or Terminator TV show is limitless, the cost might be prohibitive.

So true, unfortunately. Can I get a "Fox sucks," anyone? And NBC did have a few big-budget sci-fi/action shows like Knight Rider and The A-Team, but they were the exception, not the rule.

What TV shows were big in the mid '80s? If ATL-NBC can grab one, that's a network building event (I was thinking Twin Peaks, but that was later).

To answer your last question: just look at NBC's schedule. They were the number one network in the '80s. Most of the shows that made the '80s so successful for NBC were sitcoms (Cheers, The Cosby Show, Night Court, Family Ties, and The Golden Girls) and police and legal dramas (Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, L.A. Law, and St. Elsewhere (a medical drama, but close enough)). And on other networks, there's primetime soaps like CBS' Dallas and ABC's Dynasty.

ITTL, some of those shows are likely to have never been made, or to have aired on CBS or ABC. This means that NBC's '80s run isn't likely to be as wildly successful as it was in OTL. However, if it can snag even a few of those shows, or create ATL analogues of some of them, it's set for the future.

Edit: I wouldn't use Twin Peaks as an example of a network-building event. That show was cancelled after two seasons due to ratings troubles (that, and the fact that David Lynch was making it all up as he went along)
 
If the early days of Fox are any indication, here's what we can expect: A Three's Company knockoff or two for the jiggle factor, some low-budget action/adventure with a science fiction twist, and some type of sketch comedy show in prime time, probably using SNL vets. Lorne Michaels had just left Saturday Night Live, so he might be available to throw something together.
 
So true, unfortunately. Can I get a "Fox sucks," anyone? And NBC did have a few big-budget sci-fi/action shows like Knight Rider and The A-Team, but they were the exception, not the rule.

Fox sucks. They make shows that I love, and promptly kill them.

To answer your last question: just look at NBC's schedule. They were the number one network in the '80s. Most of the shows that made the '80s so successful for NBC were sitcoms (Cheers, The Cosby Show, Night Court, Family Ties, and The Golden Girls) and police and legal dramas (Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, L.A. Law, and St. Elsewhere (a medical drama, but close enough)). And on other networks, there's primetime soaps like CBS' Dallas and ABC's Dynasty.

Indeed. But we need something in 1982-3 or so that other networks would pass on. And it needs to be a network defining show. Cheers is a strong possibility, I imagine.

Edit: I wouldn't use Twin Peaks as an example of a network-building event. That show was cancelled after two seasons due to ratings troubles (that, and the fact that David Lynch was making it all up as he went along)

In the first season Twin Peaks consumed the nation both in ratings and in popular culture. That's what I meant. The second season, obviously, was a trainwreck.
 
This could have devastating effects on the last thirty years. By this point, the mass media influences so many people that we're likely to look at an alternate 2009 that's very different from our own 2009.

I can't even begin to imagine just how much would change. We'd certainly see a different dynamic when it comes to possible media political perspectives, for one. Probably not much of an accusation of liberal media. We may not see a Fox News, for instance.
 
The top shows of 1982 by Nielsen Ratings:
RANK PROGRAM NETWORK RATING
SHARE
1 Dallas CBS 28.4
45​
2 Dallas\10:00 CBS 28.3
47​
3 60 Minutes CBS 27.4
43​
4 Three’s Company ABC 23.7
35​
4 CBS NFL Football Post 2 CBS 23.7
40​
6 The Jefferson’s CBS 23.4
35​
7 Joannie Loves Chachi ABC 23.3
35​
8 Dukes of Hazzard\9:00 CBS 22.8
37​
9​
Alice
CBS​
22.7​
34​
9​
Dukes of Hazzard
CBS​
22.7​
37​
11​
ABC Monday Night Movie
ABC​
22.6​
34​
11​
Too Close For Comfort
ABC​
22.6​
34​
13​
M*A*S*H
CBS​
22.2​
32​
14​
One Day At A Time
CBS​
22.0​
33​
15​
NFL Monday Night Football
ABC​
21.8​
36​
16​
Falcon Crest
CBS​
21.4​
37​
17​
Archie Bunker’s Place
CBS​
21.3​
32​
17​
Love Boat
ABC​
21.3​
36​
19​
Hart To Hart
ABC​
21.2​
35​
20​
Trapper John, MD
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/04/04/we-look-back-at-the-top-tv-shows-of-1982/3203


For 1983:


1 Dallas
2 60 Minutes
3 Dynasty
4 The A-Team
5 Simon & Simon
6 Magnum, P.I.
7 Falcon Crest
8 Kate & Allie
9 Hotel
10 Cagney & Lacey
11 Knots Landing 1
12 (Tie) ABC Sunday Movie
12 (Tie) ABC Monday Movie
13 TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes
14 AfterMASH
15 The Fall Guy
16 The Love Boat
17 Riptide
18 The Jeffersons
19 Scarecrow & Mrs. King

http://oberon.ups.edu/mediawiki-1.5...lsen_Ratings_for_1983-1984_Season&redirect=no
 
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Somebody buys them.

A network in a dire financial situation in an era where it was a license to print money (if you had the shows)? Somebody buys them.

Who is an interesting question, though.
NBC was not a standalone company- it was owned by Radio Corporation of America, which had other businesses as well... So one wonders how long it would really take before RCA would give up on the network...

But I have to agree that someone would be interested in buying it if RCA drops it- building a television network from the ground up is far too expensive, FOX is pretty much the only example amid many, many failures.
 
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