Reboots are doing even worse than expected

Yesterday I talked about the TV season so far.  And I mentioned that reboots were not faring well.  Crunching second week numbers they're doing even worse.

WILL & GRACE's season premier drew only 3 million people.   And that's with David Schwimmer as a guest and lots of promotion.   W&G is toast.

MURPHY BROWN opened with a whimper and went down 9% from that.  Every other comedy that night on CBS kept their audience.   Not good.  Based on readers' comments you guys weren't that impressed either. 

MAGNUM P.I. seems to be exciting no one.

And then there's LAST MAN STANDING.  It kicked ass its first week on Fox.  It got better numbers than it did on ABC.  But don't pop the champagne just yet.  In week two it lost 27% of its audience.  And the trend among reboots is that they go steadily down.  They never build.   Now LAST MAN STANDING, in fairness, even with the loss still is doing better on Fox than sitcoms have done in years.   But let's see how this ultimately plays out.  Fox spent a lot of money for live wrestling to program on Friday nights.  That starts sometime next year.  I'm sure Fox execs are shaking their heads saying, "NOW we get a hit on Friday night?"   One other thing about LAST MAN STANDING -- it's kind of stretching it calling it a reboot.  It was off the air one season.

THE CONNORS has yet to debut.   The expected numbers are half of what ROSEANNE got (which is still pretty decent).  But two things to consider: 1) The curiosity regarding Roseanne's departure should inflate the premier numbers, and 2) Even with Roseanne the ratings were going steadily down.

Look, in a world where we can see all episodes of the original series anytime we want, reboots are not only competing with everything else on TV but themselves as well.  Plus the actors were younger and the writing was at its best in the originals.   60 year-old actors still acting like they did when they were 30 is creaky and creepy.  And writing styles have changed so the reboots sometime feel dated even though they're trying to sound contemporary.

So how long will this reboot trend last?   Let's see how long these shows last and how many more are put into development.  If I was a betting man I'd say the chances of that BIG WAVE DAVE'S reboot are now pretty slim. 

from By Ken Levine