Coming into the Fall season, NBC was confident in its new Monday night schedule, which boasted their two most heralded new shows. NBC was extremely confident in Heroes and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Both shows had received critical acclaim, and NBC decided to promote them accordingly. With Heroes at 9PM and Studio 60 at 10PM, NBC was looking to make some long-overdue waves on Monday night. Now, over a month into the new season, the results have been lukewarm. Heroes has become one of the breakout hits of the new season, and was the first new show to get a full season guaranteed. If anything, Heroes has exceeded the already high expectations placed upon them by NBC. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is a whole other story.
From Aaron Sorkin, creator of “The West Wing”, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip has a long history for a new show. The pilot script, written by Sorkin, gained interest from every network, eventually coming to NBC after they won a bidding war with CBS. The show is fairly autobiographical, incorporating Sorkin's cocaine problem as a key plot point (as well as the fact that the main characters are TV writers). The pilot received almost universal praise, and was easily the most well-reviewed new show of the Fall season. Everything about Studio 60 screamed hit. Viewers, however, have yet to acquiesce. The ratings for the premiere were solid, but Studio 60 (an hour-long drama) lost viewers for the next five consecutive half-hours. Why aren't people watching? There's never any way to answer that question definitively, but some consistent criticisms of the show are that it's pretentious and too “inside” the TV industry. The criticisms, however, are largely inconsequential. Studio 60 is capable of getting ratings, the only question is how. Heroes airs the hour before Studio 60 and gets receives much higher ratings. How does NBC get the Heroes viewers to stick around for Studio 60? I don't know if you can. Perhaps that's an un-sexy conclusion to make, but it's the truth. NBC has done its best to cross-promote their two Monday night programs, but it just hasn't worked out. This actually makes sense, considering the demographics for the respective shows. Studio 60 needs to be shooting for the “West Wing” crowd: sophisticated adults, interested in “high art”, with somewhat snobbish tendencies. Basically, you want people who like to look down on the rest of TV to watch your show. And this may be the most self-evident reason why Studio 60 isn't getting the viewers it expected: people who look down on TV aren't watching TV. Obvious as that may seem, it must be frustrating for NBC, because they know that the audience is there; it's just not paying attention. The audience for Heroes will never be the same as the one for Studio 60. Heroes is a comic book show. NBC may try to sell it otherwise, but there's no use. It's about superheroes and super villains and it doesn't have any ties to reality. It is as pure an example of escapism as you will find on prime-time television. Juxtapose this with the hyper-real vibe of Studio 60 and you have a programming line-up of almost polar opposites. You'll always find folks who fit into both demographics and enjoy both shows (like me), but it's not near as effective as, say, showing two Law & Orders one after the other or CBS placing any two of its interchangeable procedural dramas back to back. NBC put Heroes and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip back to back because they were overly optimistic about their two favorite new shows. Maybe next time they'll consider the audience of the shows before forging their schedule. For now, NBC is staying idle, allowing one of its new shows to flourish while the other struggles to tread water. And that's a shame. -Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer