Not too long ago, the summer season was a vast wasteland for
TV lovers. As recently as the 90’s you
would be hard pressed to find any new programming at all between June and September. Sure, you had a few new shows that
premiered over the years during the summer.
Seinfeld is one of the more celebrated shows to premiere over the
summer. It premiered on July 5th,
1989 as “The Seinfeld Chronicles.” It
was far from a hit. NBC had no plans on
picking the show up and even shopped it to FOX, who declined. NBC found money in the budget to film four
more episodes and the rest was television history.
As Cable TV became more widely available, the idea of summer
reruns steadily faded. Cable networks
realized that summer was a good time to put on their original shows. The
broadcast networks saw their audiences go to cable in the summer and, in many
cases, never come back.
Luckily, things began to change when the calendar flipped to
the year 2000. That summer, a little
show called “Survivor” premiered on May 31 and quickly became a ratings and
cultural phenomenon. Its premise was
simple. Strand a group of strangers on
an island forcing them to live together, each week casting off a member of
their “tribe.” The castaways would
compete in challenges for rewards and immunity from being voted off the
island. The last person standing would
be awarded $1 million dollars. No
actors, no scripts. The shows finale, on
August 23, 2000, drew 51.7 million viewers.
Nielsen determined that 125 million Americans watched at least part of
the finale. It would become the 2nd
highest rated television program of the decade, second only to the series
finale of “Friends.” The TV industry took notice. Summer could be the place for new
programming, and no longer a place for reruns.
In the years following Survivor’s massive ratings, other
programs continued to have success in the summer months. The genre of Reality Competition programming
has benefited the most. Shows such as
“American Idol,” “Dancing With The Stars,”
and “Big Brother” were all summer shows that were ratings juggernauts for their
respective networks.
In recent years, scripted programming has begun to have
summer success as well. Last year,
“Under The Dome” premiered on CBS on June 24 and became a hit. The show will return on June 30th
for its second season. ABC’s “Rookie
Blue” will return on June 19th for its 5th season, every
one of them being broadcast during the summer.
There was a time when if a pilot failed to get a slot on the
fall schedule that was the end of its chances.
Now there’s hope. Many pilots
that fail to get that coveted fall premiere now will get a chance to fill the
many slots of summer programming. The
networks are always looking for that diamond in the rough to give a second
chance, and hopefully find the next big hit.
One thing is for certain.
With all of the choices for TV viewers these days, there is never a
shortage of new programming for the TV lover during the summer months. Between Broadcast, Cable, and services like
Netflix, and Amazon, there will be hundreds of hours of shows to keep viewers
satisfied as the temperatures begin to rise.
