I don’t expect anyone from NBC to read this.  I’m not stupid.  However, considering how desperate and eager NBC has been for the last couple of years, I figure they could use all of the advice they can get.

I do pity NBC.  After all, they were #1 and fell to #4, even behind Fox, a proposition that was once laughable.  Shows like The Cosby Show, Cheers, Friends were cultural phenomena, but more importantly, truly enjoyable television.  NBC shows had a certain sheen that other networks couldn’t match.  A decade ago NBC battled CBS with medical dramas: ER vs. Chicago Hope, with CBS’s entry looking like a cheap knock off (before ER itself got a bit weird).  Not anymore.

But here’s the real reason I’m writing this: what shows they do have aren’t supported or scheduled to maximize their potential.  In this way, NBC still hasn’t learned how to build its brand back up.  A sad reality for a last-place finisher that’s been last for several years now.

Our personal example goes something like this:

Monday nights are fun.  Our favorite show, How I Met Your Mother (CBS) is on that night.  Both Rose and I love the show.  There’s also House, Heroes, The Big Bang Theory, and Castle on the fall schedule.  So here’s the problem.  Three shows are scheduled for 8:00.

My Top 3

1. How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
2. Heroes (NBC)
3. House (Fox)

Rose’s Top 3

1. How I Met Your Mother
2. House
3. Heroes

Since there are only two tuners on the DVR, we can only watch two shows in the same time slot.  Clearly we record How I Met Your Mother, but how do we break the tie for number 2?  Rose and I are both more likely to watch House than we are Heroes, so the latter gets bumped and I’ll have to rent it on DVD and hope it gets picked up and moved to another time slot.  If it were at it’s old time slot, 9:00, we’d record it.

Here’s the funny thing:  Chuck, last year’s 8:00 show, is also a must-watch show in our house.  In January, it will bump House and get recorded every week alongside HIMYM.  So here’s the irony of their shared-time-slot gamble–they went from 2 weekly hours for a full season to 1 weekly hour for half of a season. This is bad math and goes against the historically organic nature of TV watching.  It isn’t just about individual time slots, but getting people to watch them back-to-back.  Their 9:00 offering is Trauma, a hospital drama: an unlikely pairing with either Heroes or Chuck.

If NBC wants to move up, they can’t lose the few regular watchers they already have!