| It's a bit of a red herring to suggest that ratings gluttony is what's driving all this. The fact is, Sunday nights are Sunday nights in broadcast TV and nothing draws impressive numbers except sports. The 8 to 9 slot is getting Big Brother, a show that was teetering on the edge this season, and that draws numbers roughly comparable to historical Tony numbers (albeit skewed toward the 18-49 demo rather than the between 40 and death crowd and yet CBS has traditionally been interested in the luxury market angle of the latter demo). This year is an anomaly regardless. Interest in the Tonys and Broadway is likely to be way down even if there were 4 hours on the network. Also, the BB slot takes CBS on a not especially favorable roller coaster between the 60 minutes (and Tony) demo and the BB demo. The traditional "flow" is disrupted, and I find it hard to believe that the former demo is going to leave their sets on CBS for a disjointed hour of BB when there are major football and baseball attractions to be had. (Even I will be spending the evening with one eye on the Tonys and the other on the Yankees Red Sox game. Luckily, I don't HAVE to see the NFL game lol). And to be clear, when I said red herring above, I meant that the impetus for the bifurcated viewing of the Tonys is nurturing the Paramount + brand, something CBS (rightly or wrongly) views as "the future." |
