In dying color: No. 4 NBC has cast itself in the role of the fading peacock

By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Where there's mire, there's muck, and NBC is just the place to find both. It's long been a kooky little tradition that when TV columnists and critics write about which of the four major broadcast networks is doing worst in the ratings, they say it is "mired in fourth place" or "mired" in third. The practice seems to be phasing out, but then, networks seem to be phasing out, too.

None is phasing faster than NBC, the once-proud-as-a-peacock establishment that is now mired in fourth, behind Fox, behind everybody. Compounding their humiliation, network executives have had to undo, at tremendous expense, their remake of that cultural institution "The Tonight Show," returning it to Jay Leno, killing Leno's ballyhooed prime-time hour and ousting the conspicuously talented Conan O'Brien from his "Tonight" berth after only seven months.

Things are ever-so-much worse even than back in the late '70s and early '80s, when longtime programming wizard Fred Silverman picked NBC as the one network he failed to rejuvenate. His signature flop was a show called "Supertrain," which lasted five short months in 1979 and lost a heap of dough. Battles and tantrums in the executive suites contributed to an abiding sense of collapse.

It was arguably the lowest point in the network's history. But in 1984, Silverman and his brilliant protege Brandon Tartikoff brought Bill Cosby back to television in "The Cosby Show" -- a social milestone that proved to be the sitcom that revived sitcoms. "Cosby" ignited Thursday nights as the birthplace of "Must See TV"; it was on Thursdays that such hits as "L.A. Law," "ER," "Hill Street Blues," "Cheers," "Family Ties" and, later, "Friends" and "Seinfeld."

(More here.)

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