Saturday, February 18, 2006

The Biggest Loser During The Olympics: CBS

Everyone thinks NBC is suffering because these Olympics are down a bit from the ratings in Nagano (the last overseas Olympics). But the network -- ranked fourth in the demos that matter -- is bringing eyeballs to their network, meeting the ratings they promised to advertisers and getting a platform to promote hit-lets like My Name Is Earl and The Office (a hit-let is a show that gets more press than ratings) and midseason launches. (NBC also rightly points out that it makes use of the Olympics in countless other ways, pumping up ratings for cable channels like USA, their websites and so on.) So they're fine. ABC and Fox are doing great, too. They decided to keep airing their most popular shows during the Games and it's paid off huge in the ratings for everything from House and American Idol to Desperate Housewives and Dancing With The Stars. (Launching a two-parter of Grey's Anatomy off the Super Bowl to gain record ratings opposite the Olympics was the smartest move of all.) So who's the loser? CBS. They decided to roll over and play dead in the middle of February sweeps and air mostly reruns. Even a repeat of CSI did well on Thursday. Imagine if they hadn't squandered this chance to compete. Their affiliates and corporate owners should be angry.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The biggest loser is that snowboader who goofed around instead of crossing the finish line.

Anonymous said...

I'm kind of glad CBS is in repeats so it doesn't conflict with watching Olympics and some of my other shows. My Tivo can't handle three shows at once.

Anonymous said...

CBS is doubly hurt because it's all their old viewers who are watching the Olympics to begin with. In fact, maybe that's why Fox saw no reason to run repeats -- young people don't watch the winter olympics (esxcept for curling of course) nearly as much.