Summer Season Sizzles

Cable is, once again, soaking up more than its share of the summer sun. As they have in recent years, ad-supported cable networks continued to poach viewers from broadcast rivals, earning a 60 share (up from 58 last summer) to broadcast's 38 (down from 40). The gains are largely due to the slew of new original dramas, such as TNT's record-breaking The Closer and ABC Family's Wildfire, and strong returning hits, including Lifetime's Missing, USA's Monk and FX's Rescue Me.

But broadcast networks are encouraged by an overall increase in TV viewing. While their new reality shows and reruns of procedural dramas have had mixed results, combined summer viewing for broadcast and cable is up 1% overall, proving that people are still happy to stay in, crank up the AC and sample new TV fare.

“Summer used to be wide open for cable; the broadcasters were just out to lunch,” says UPN President Dawn Ostroff. “With [broadcast] networks introducing so much new reality, it is just more competitive than it has ever been.”

And that includes the Big Four, which are closer than ever to each other, even when they're without regular-season heavy-hitters, such as Fox's American Idol, NBC's The Apprentice and CBS' Survivor. From May 26 through July 17, ABC averaged a 2.4 rating in adults 18-49, while CBS, NBC and Fox each scored a 2.1. (UPN was pulling a 1.0 and The WB a 0.9).

Broadcast's runaway summer hit, of course, is ABC's Dancing With the Stars, which pulled in young and old alike and nabbed a second-season pickup last week. The dance competition even spawned a successful copycat: Fox's So You Think You Can Dance earned a 4.4/14 rating/share in adults 18-49 and attracted 10 million total viewers when it premiered July 20.

Dancing's performance stood out from a batch of misfires like CBS' The Cut and ABC's The Scholar and modest performers like NBC's I Want To Be a Hilton.

“It's still really a hit-or-miss strategy for the networks: throw something up and see if it hits,” says Horizon Media's research chief Brad Adgate.

Broadcast's summer scripted shows have largely fallen flat, and no one illustrates that better than Fox. Last year, crowing about its 52-week scheduling strategy, Fox unveiled six summer shows. This summer, the network introduced just two and is pulling the exact same 2.1 rating in the 18-49 demo. The Princes of Malibu has struggled to keep its Simpsons lead-in in the demo (93% the first week, down to 69% the second week) and even hurt ratings for Family Guy, which follows the show. The five new Family Guy episodes that aired before Princes was introduced averaged a 3.7. The next two, with a Princes lead-in, dropped to a 3.0 and 2.9.

Repeats of scripted series have had mixed results. Fox's House proved a hit by performing better in its early weeks in reruns than it had in originals, but Desperate Housewives and Lost have garnered lackluster ratings on ABC. And CBS' stuffing its schedule with CSI and Without a Trace reruns summer after summer has grown tired: Last year, the Eye was pulling a 2.4 rating in the 18-49 demo; this year that's down to a 2.1.

Both of the summer's major limited series, ABC's Roman saga Empire and TNT's $100 million Spielberg Western Into the West, fell off steadily throughout their runs.

As summer nights dwindle, cable will likely continue strong. Some of its bigger originals are still to debut, notably FX's Over There, TNT's Wanted and Lifetime's limited series Beach Girls. Bravo, MTV and Sci Fi all have fresh batches of reality shows premiering in August, but so far, cable's summer reality has produced few breakout hits and several middling shows—Bravo's Being Bobby Brown and Comedy Central's Stella among the latter.

As for broadcast, NBC might yet pull out of its ratings slump. With Tommy Lee Goes to College, The Law Firm and Meet Mr. Mom coming up, it's the only network with an arsenal of summer reality series still to premiere.