By BILL CARTER Published: February 24, 2013 wrote:With every passing week, the sudden blossoming of prime-time success that NBC experienced last fall is looking more like a mirage.
“Do No Harm,” with Stephanie Roth Haberle and Steven Pasquale, was canceled quickly.
The ratings of last September through December, when NBC shocked the television industry by winning 13 of 15 weeks, have dissipated to numbers so small they have not been seen before by any broadcast network — certainly not during a rating period known as a sweeps month, when networks present their strongest programming.
When the official numbers are completed Thursday, NBC will finish this sweeps month not only far behind its regular network competitors, but also well behind the Spanish-language Univision. No broadcast network has ever before finished a television season sweeps month in fifth place.
NBC executives expected a falloff after the N.F.L. season, but last December they expressed hope that some momentum could be sustained. Now, the network is playing by the silver-linings playbook.
“This February was tough, but thankfully the fall did as well as it did,” said Jeff Bader, the chief scheduling executive for NBC. “If we had the fall we were expecting — which was an improvement, but not to be No. 1 — this month would have been a lot harder to take. This is just frustrating.”
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/busin ... hare&_r=1&
Wow, stumbled upon this just the other day. I knew it was doing poorly for a long time now (at least since 2006?) but I didn't know the fall gave it new hope that turned out to be false. If you read the whole article, it states that NBC is doing so bad that its likely losing hundreds of millions on TV. Almost all the prime-time content they have aired in February has been a disaster. Saturday Night Live shockingly is now the highest rated program NBC is airing...a Saturday late evening show that is 38 years old!!!!
. A collapse may not be far away.
