NY Times article on SITCOMS...
PART 1
Traditional Family TV Sitcom May Be a Dying Breed
By JAMES STERNGOLD
LOS ANGELES -- "Seinfeld" was often called the prototype of the
post-modern sitcom, and so it seemed apt that the last episode
involved a strange dream sequence and a sinister finale for a group of
self-absorbed singles stumbling in an amoral world.
Now compare that with the recent taping of the final episode of "Home
Improvement," a prime-time hit on ABC for the past eight seasons. After the tearful star, Tim Allen, told a joke for a cast and crew drenched in tears, they taped a slightly maudlin story, scheduled to air May 25, in which Allen's character reaffirms his love for his wife and family, and his loyal sidekick finds the love that had long eluded him, lending the closing a poignant moral gravity.
The episode was touching and, many people in television believe, a historical relic, as the traditional family sitcom -- a staple of the medium for more than four decades -- goes the way of the western.
"If that show was pitched to a network today, nobody would take it," lamented Matt Williams, one of the creators and an executive producer of "Home Improvement" and previously a producer of another traditional family sitcom, "The Cosby Show." "This show was created to celebrate the American family, and I'm not sure you can do that in the same way now."
At one time domestic sitcoms like "Father Knows Best," "Leave It to Beaver," "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "The Brady Bunch" and even "All in the Family" and "Sanford and Son" virtually defined television while conveying powerful images of an often idealized if somewhat quirky middle-class existence built around family units. Households across the United States generally had a single television, there were only three networks, and the experience of watching such shows was shared.
No longer. Homes frequently have many television sets; 74 percent of homes now have more than one, compared with 35 percent in 1970. And there are scores of channels transmitting images that have changed subtly but significantly. Singles dominate sitcoms -- shows like "Friends," "The Drew Carey Show" or "Ally McBeal," for example -- and the networks for the most part no longer even try to attract broad audiences. Audiences are deeply divided by age and even by race. Advertisers press the networks to pursue thin slices of the audience -- preferably younger, affluent, white men -- and pay dearly to reach them.
Advertising Age, a trade publication, reports that advertisers pay $425,000 for a 30-second spot on "Friends," compared with $210,000 for an ad on "Home Improvement" and just $115,000 for an ad on "Cosby."
Perhaps the most successful family sitcom still on the air is "The Simpsons," Fox's animated sendup about a dysfunctional family whose creator, Matt Groening, openly describes it as "the anti-Cosby show."
"The idea and delight we once took in celebrating family, community seems to be vaporizing before us," said Norman Lear, the creator of shows like "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons." "You now have all these shows about lone people coming together. It seems to me this is part of something profound. It's a disease of our time. There's a television in every room and the family has become splintered."
One of the last popular domestic sitcoms is "Everybody Loves Raymond," on CBS. Phil Rosenthal, a creator and an executive producer, said he faced enormous resistance from network executives when he presented the idea several years ago.
"To be honest, there was nothing about the premise of this show that anybody at a network found attractive," Rosenthal said. "They said it had to be edgier, hipper, not so family. But what you have to realize is that this is a show about a family with kids, but it is very much for an adult audience. It's not aimed at the broad audiences. It's a new kind of family show, maybe an evolutionary step."
Indeed, there are people who believe that while the old-style show may be dying, there is plenty of demand for new-style family shows. "Perhaps it won't be a traditional family sitcom, but I think America is waiting for the next one," said Warren Littlefield, a producer who was president of NBC Entertainment when it put shows like "Seinfeld" and "Friends" on its schedule. "The rule in television is follow the trends, then buck them."
--End PART 1--
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