According to Deadline, the major television broadcast networks have decided to scrap their annual fall preview specials this year. The preview specials are clip shows hosted by talent from the network to promote the new fall sitcoms.
This is due to both a changing television industry as well as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
These specials were inexpensive ways to generate excitement around the season’s television and had very high ratings, although viewership has been decreasing over recent years.
“We always would put them on and go, ‘Oh, I don’t know if anyone’s going to watch this,'” a longtime scheduling executive told Deadline. “But then they were watched by like 3 million people. They were never the lowest rated shows of the week, that’s for sure.”
“It’s such a different world from even the mid-aughts,” says one veteran scheduler, also to Deadline. “There’s just so much product that honestly hasn’t been seen, really, that can be moved over to broadcast. Network television in this new ecosystem is not at the top. And to people in everyday life, they’re not sitting there with a checklist of, ‘oh, this is an original broadcast show.’ They’re sitting there and saying, ‘I’ve never seen this. That looks interesting. Let me watch it.'”
According to Deadline, another broadcast veteran stated, “I am not sure people at home really give a sh*t. Other than sports, most people aren’t sitting down every night turning on CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox going, ‘Hey, wonder what’s on tonight?'”
They continued, “The networks were weakened to begin with. It’s like they had a sprained ankle. This is taking a baseball bat to their knees. I mean, at bare minimum, it’s probably two months from strike end to getting stuff on the air. Most shows probably have nothing written. So it’s a month to write and a month to shoot to get stuff in the can. If the strike ended tomorrow, and they say ‘oh we’ll try to get something on in January,’ they’re maybe going to air 13 episodes, tops, which isn’t serving your audience. I mean everyday, they’re just teaching people they don’t need broadcast TV.”