Day: May 3, 2024

CBS’ fall schedule: Stick with the steady viewers

As younger viewers drift away, TV networks pondered alternate solutions:
1) Go after them. Copy what the streaming networks are doing. Get guttier and grittier. Interweave some tough stories that stretch over eight or 10 hours.
2) Don’t chase them; they won’t be back anyway. Service the viewers you still have.
That second one has worked fairly well in the Nielsen ratings for CBS. Now it ripples through the play-it-safe line-up the network has announced for fall, including a “Matlock” reboot (shown here). Read more…

Best-bets for May 5: One drama perishes, another begins

1) “Parish” season-finale, 9 p.m., AMC, repeating at 10. A great story has an ending that’s merely semi-great. Gray Parish (Giancarlo Esposito, shown here) is a former getaway driver with conflicting goals – revenge his son’s death or withdraw from the crime world, to preserve the rest of his family. Now those collide. The finale is well-crafted and high-octane, yet feels out-of-sync with what preceded it. Read more…