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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9633094" data-attributes="member: 6799660">In so many ways it was (in the U.S., with regards to broadcast television, etc.). The decade started with 4 networks* consistently trying to fill the primetime block and ended with 6. The weekends were a crap-shoot on what they did, and Fox/WB/UPN might have left the 10-11 PM (EST) timeslot open for local programming, but in general it was 4-6 networks filling 4 hours on ~5 evenings a week.It also was also before the internet really started sucking the advertising dollars out of everything else (and after newsprint's heyday). Having an ad on broadcast TV was hugely more powerful than being on cable, and first run shows were massively more watched than even first-run re-runs. Thus getting people to sit down and watch your programming block (preferably the whole block) was just a huge crazy deal*. *tv promos were accidentally spoiling plots because the promo department was so incentivized to get people watching. ER couldn't have a cast member leave if they could be killed off in a ridiculous or pointless way. etc. This is before American Idol/Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and a few others showed that reality shows and game shows could carry prime time broadcast slots, so it was mostly sitcoms, dramas (/nighttime soaps), sportsball on prescribed evenings (for one network), and some newsmagazine shows -- with the massive abundance of that being sitcoms.There tended to be 5 types* of shows: *self-made categories, no idea what others call them.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Experimental first-season shows: trying new stuff. You have to do this as your stuff ages out, and you're at peace with most of it is going to fail.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Tentpole hits: The Friends, Cheers, and Frasiers. You used these to prop up a night of entertainment. Whomever had the most of these won the evening (especially if you could have them at the beginning and end of an evening and keep people in the middle).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Solid and Steady midline shows: The Married with Childrens or Third Rock from the Suns. These ran for years and networks supported and advertised them, but they couldn't anchor an evening. Figuring out what to put alongside these was a big question mark.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Tag-alongs: The Just Shoot Me example. These are what you threw in between Friends, Frasier, and ER. They were good enough or innocuous enough that you kept most of your audience until the next thing they were really interested in.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Sacrificial shows: You put these opposite Friends or Dallas or whatever the other network has that has an iron grip on the evening (because you can't actually just show nothing or your local affiliates will jump ship or something). Finding out that your show has been given this slot is like being told your boss threw you under the bus.</li> </ul>So between the tag-alongs, sacrificials, and midline shows, that's a huge number of shows you maybe have heard of, but barely recall.</blockquote>

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