Networks cutting back on TV repeats

It’s taken more than 50 years of TV evolution, but the prime-time rerun is rapidly becoming an endangered species.

With the six broadcast networks unveiling their 2004-05 schedules to advertisers this week, it’s become clearer than ever that TV bosses are taking sledgehammers to the templates that ruled nightly household viewing since the waning years of the Truman administration.

As they try to stave off fierce cable competition and chase the young adults prized by advertisers, networks are loading up on high-concept “reality” shows and rejiggering lineups at the last minute. As a result, they’re using reruns more sparingly than ever or, in many cases, banishing them entirely.

Admittedly, this is one funeral that might not attract many mourners. Indeed, viewers grew so averse to repeats that a few years back NBC tried to reposition the encores with a chirpy marketing slogan: “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!”

Now the networks are admitting that, if anything, they’ve waited too long to nix the stale stuff in their schedules.

During the 1993-94 season, the major broadcast networks controlled a 60 percent share of TV viewership. For the 2002-03 season, that figure was barely 50 percent — thanks in large part, executives say, to too many network reruns.

“It’s why cable has made its headway and why we (broadcasters) have had significant audience erosion,” says Fox’s entertainment president, Gail Berman. “If you’re not giving the audience what they want, they’re going to go somewhere else to get it.”

NBC and Fox are casting aside the traditional September-May season and aggressively touting year-round schedules. Fox went so far as to announce three separate schedules — starting in June, November and January — with new series debuting in each period.

There will be no repeats for such NBC series as “The West Wing.” Since the White House drama will produce only 22 episodes next season, the network will help fill up the remaining weeks of the 35-week TV season with specials and eight episodes of the new drama “Revelations.”

The ‘60s drama “American Dreams” will feature mostly, if not exclusively, original episodes next season, according to the NBC series’ creator and executive producer, Jonathan Price.

“When you write a serial drama and you want people to tune in every week, it’s hard to achieve that when … it goes into repeats and then you come back,” Prince said. “This way, people always know when to expect the new episodes.”

ABC, mired in fourth place in the ratings, next season will show only first-run episodes of its cop show “NYPD Blue” and the spy drama “Alias.” The WB Network will do the same with its returning youth-oriented dramas “Everwood” and “One Tree Hill.”

Network bosses say they have little choice: When young viewers see reruns these days, they tune out and flee to cable, the Internet or who knows where else.

Double-digit percentage declines in the number of young male viewers watching TV last fall led to hand-wringing in executive suites. Many upscale viewers in their 20s and 30s are buying digital video recorders, such as TiVo, that can record and store episodes at the touch of a button, thus making repeats redundant. And with a growing number of series being rushed onto DVDs, the need to catch repeats diminishes.

When repeats do appear these days, it’s often for strategic reasons. For example, Fox last summer built awareness for its youth soap “The O.C.” by running new episodes twice in the same week, and NBC earlier this year built an audience for Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” by airing repeats the Wednesday after their initial Thursday airing. It’s a model that has long proved successful on cable networks such as HBO, which repeats its series at least once during the week.

NBC’s “Law & Order” franchise and CBS’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” still perform well in repeats and are routinely used to plug holes in their respective networks’ lineups, but those shows have broad appeal across age ranges and are not as dependent on fickle young viewers.

Ditching repeats means that some series will drop off schedules for months at a time as writers toil to prepare more original episodes. For example, “NYPD Blue” will appear only during the first half of next season, “Alias” only during the second. “Everwood” will air 10 or 11 new episodes in the fall and then return in the spring for another 10; in between, a reality series or a few episodes of another one-hour drama will fill the slot.

Reality plays a particularly crucial role, because such series typically cost around $1 million per hour to produce, compared to more than $2 million or more for a scripted drama

Over the decades, reruns have helped finance the ever-escalating cost of scripted shows. Paying the TV studio a license fee has traditionally given the network the right to air each episode not just once but two or three times. Because the repeats earned decent ad rates and required no additional payments to the studio, reruns were viewed as economically attractive.

If reruns fade away, that whole economic model is thrown into question. In announcing his network’s notably traditional fall schedule, CBS boss Leslie Moonves said he doesn’t understand how rival networks will be able to afford shunning repeats.

“I need to sit down with people who are smarter than us (to figure out the economics),” Moonves said. “It’s a very tough nut to crack.”

As for the traditional September-May season, he added: “We still believe in doing it this way.”

But Tim Spengler, executive vice president of ad firm Initiative Media, predicted the networks may actually do better financially by dumping summer reruns and launching original programs there.

“Maybe it is a better time to launch new shows, when the field is less crowded and there’s more chance of survival,” he said. “It’s worth trying.”