Say Good Night To Family Viewing Hour Networks Focus Attention Toward Adult Audiences

Once upon a prime time in the Land of Television, there was a place called the Family Viewing Hour.

It was a special place, that 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. hour - because that’s when children were known to be watching. So the networks refrained from airing shows with sex or violence. Instead they filled the time with friendly aliens, like ALF of “ALF”; with loving families, like the Huxtables of “The Cosby Show” and the Seavers of “Growing Pains”; and with lots of kids, like the Tanner twins of “Full House.”

Well, things are changing. This season, viewers will notice that the family viewing hour - which had a commitment to less adult fare - is little more than a memory. Innocent comic moments, such as Cliff Huxtable’s elaborate funeral for daughter Rudy’s dead goldfish, are going to seem like something from another planet. The new climate at the 8 p.m. hour is one of sexual punch lines, often told in the language of the locker room.

There are still lots of family sitcoms - even a few kid-safe 8 p.m. series, such as ABC’s “Family Matters” - but the center of gravity for most has shifted from the living room to the bedroom and what happens there between adults.

No one at the networks denies the change. Even ABC which calls itself the family network and just became the property of Disney, whose very brand identity is family entertainment - acknowledges it. But there is disagreement about the reasons for the shift and what it says about the texture of our culture and our lives - especially as it relates to media and raising children.

Is it another case of the coarsening of popular culture by mainstream media? Or is it a new and healthy realism - television accurately reflecting changes in social reality? The answers to such questions take us to the heart of the debate that’s come to be known as the culture wars.

“Well, you know, the word ‘coarsening,’ I don’t know if I quite buy that theory. But I think America is changing, and I think the programming is changing,” says Les Moonves, the new president of CBS Entertainment.

“There are a number of 8 o’clock shows that wouldn’t have been there before. There are a few that I find terribly objectionable for my children to watch. But my 10-year-old daughter watches ‘Friends,’ and I have no problem with that.”

NBC’s decision to move “Friends” into the 8 o’clock leadoff spot of its blockbuster Thursday night lineup starting in September is one of the developments often mentioned in connection with the impending death of the Family Viewing Hour. “Friends” is a smart and funny hit show. But it is also, in NBC’s words: “a sophisticated comedy … about love, sex, careers and a time in life when everything is possible (for) six friends living in New York.”

Should a sophisticated comedy about love and sex be shown when preteens are watching?

While Moonves acknowledges some qualms about what’s shown on network television at 8 p.m., NBC’s Don Ohlmeyer does not. As NBC West Coast president, Ohlmeyer is responsible for scheduling “Friends” at 8 p.m., along with other adult sitcoms, such as “Mad About You,” which moves from 8 p.m. Thursday to 8 p.m. Sunday this fall.

“It is not the role of network television to program for the children of America,” Ohlmeyer says. “I don’t think that you want your choices for what you can see on commercial broadcasting constrained by what’s appropriate for a 10-year-old to see.”

This does not make him or NBC irresponsible broadcasters, he says.

“Our whole society’s getting a little more coarse … and I don’t think that’s television. I think that’s television reflecting society,” he notes.

“I think we basically take our role as broadcasters very seriously,” he adds. “And maybe we need to review history a little here. The family hour was drawn up by the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) and was then declared by the courts to be unconstitutional and restraint of trade. So, maybe the concept of a family hour that exists in people’s memories never really existed.”

There are differences among the networks when it comes to the family hour, with ABC at one end of the scale and Fox at the other. Fox is the first station to offer young adults an alternative to kid-driven programs at 8 p.m. But the networks are all moving toward more adult fare now.

“Yes, clearly there aren’t shows like ‘Full House’ and even ‘Growing Pains’ (on ABC this season),” ABC Entertainment President Ted Harbert said. “But it was proving extremely difficult to get the parents to sit down with their kids, because there were alternatives (on other networks) that were designed more for those adults.

“We are a victim of the multi-set household, where if mom and dad want to let little Jimmy stay in the living room and watch ‘Full House,’ they can go in their bedroom and watch ‘Wings’ (on NBC). Well, we just don’t have much of an intention of allowing that to continue - where we become an electronic baby sitter, while (losing) the adults, who we need to deliver to our advertising people to pay all of our salaries. … We simply have to get that adult audience.”

And, then, one day, the big, bad bottom line came to that place called the Family Viewing Hour in the Land of Television. And never more were the likes of ALF, Cousin Balki and Uncle Jesse, Mrs. Garrett, Blossom, the Huxtables or the Keatons to be seen.