THIRD ANNUAL SCREENS ISSUE - MediaPost

ment. How could it top Emmymagnet
The Daily Show with
Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report
and South Park, among other
shows? With Key & Peele — the
network’s latest sketch comedy
starring Keegan-Michael
Key and Jordan Peele, which
brought in the highest premiere
ratings for a Comedy Central
series since 2009, with the debut
of The Jeff Dunham Show.
Heading into its third season,
meanwhile, Tosh.0 continues
to defy all expectations
for a viral-video-dependent
series. As of early February,
Key & Peele and Tosh.0 were
both finishing first for their
timeslots across all networks.
“Given the current resurgence
in comedy — particularly
on the broadcast networks
— clearly it stands higher than
it has in a while,” Scardino
says. “I would guess the success
of [Fox’s] New Girl and
[CBS’s] 2 Broke Girls — plus
the resurrection of [CBS’s]
Two and a Half Men — has
probably taken the standing a
bit higher.”
According to Carroll: “As
was historically the case with
Cosby or All in the Family and
The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
among genres comedy is critical
to network success.”
And there’s no doubt comedy
has made some kind of a
comeback. “If you look at the
history of the top 25 shows
on broadcast, five years ago
there were two sitcoms that
made the list, and this year
there are 11,” says Larry Jones,
president of TV Land. “During
the 2011-2012 season, four of
the top five shows are sitcoms,
and the other one is football!”
Not surprisingly, Jones
is particularly proud of the
Betty White vehicle Hot
in Cleveland, which TV
Land recently sold to CBS
Television Distribution, which
has plans to take the cable
original out to syndication in
either 2013 or 2014.
As hot as comedy seems,
With New Girl, Fox has
finally found a comic hit
that isn’t animated
however,
researchers are
quick to put its
relative success
into perspective.
According to
Nielsen’s recent
analysis of the
top 10 primetime
broadcast TV
shows, sitcoms
have seen better
days. “Once
synonymous
with primetime
broadcasts,” read
Nielsen’s report,
“sitcoms disappeared
from
the ranking in the 2004-2005
season, only to return again
briefly in the 2008-2009 season,
making up just 7.4 percent of
the total combined audience of
the top ten programs.”
“I don’t think comedy is as
important a genre as it used to
be,” concedes Adgate. “The networks
spend about 3 hours out
of 22 hours of primetime programming
a week on sitcoms.”
Still — if only in relative
terms — comedies are resonating
with viewers, which has
led to obvious questions about
what’s working and why.
“There are a lot of reasons
for this comedy surge,” says
Jones at TV Land. “The country
has faced tough times for
several years now due to war
and the financial crisis, and
in these types of hardships,
people want to laugh.”
What’s working? Women.
“A lot has been written about
female-led comedies being
the hot property this year,
following on the success of
Bridesmaids,” explains Salke at
NBC Entertainment. “There’s
clearly been a run on female
comedies this year, with CBS’s
2 Broke Girls and Fox’s New
Girl, along with our series
Whitney and Are You There,
Chelsea? we have some more
female-centric pilots in the
works right now and hope they,
too, can be successful.”
Seconds Carroll: “Looking
at the list of successful shows,
most of which have predominantly
female leads, I would
expect that the direction
would be to explore more
female writer/producers,
female comics and female
leads to take advantage of the
current audience taste.”
Conversely, “the other
trend, perhaps a reaction
to [let’s call it the Lost Lady
genre], was men dealing
with a less than masculine
world,” notes Scardino. For
some examples, look no further
than ABC’s Last Man
Standing, Man Up and Work
It. Unfortunately, in Scardino’s
humble opinion, “the results
were not as good, but the
shows weren’t as funny either.”
“With the recent success
of multi-camera projects performed
before a studio audience,
some of the new offerings
will likely follow that trend,”
Carroll adds. “We are going to
see more of a balance of the
production styles among the
new comedy offerings.”
Quality helps. “Better writing
and better character development
has helped comedies,”
according to Adgate. Holding
up Modern Family as the prime
example, he adds: “It success-
Spring 2012 MEDIA MAGAZINE 13