A couple of days ago, Summer dropped me a note, saying that repeats of “Medium” had started to show up on CBS’s regular line-up. You may recall that “Medium” was dropped by NBC this year, but quickly scooped up by CBS as part of its Friday night line-up.
And while this isn’t the first time a show has jumped networks, it is one of the few times that the new network has started showing repeats of episodes produced and aired on another network.
It’s interesting to see CBS getting behind the series, giving it some exposure and using the summer season to hopefully build audience viewing habits for Fridays this fall. ( I will admit part of me is torn because while I’d like to see “Medium” do well in its timeslot, it goes head-to-head with “Dollhouse” this fall. And being the Joss-worshiper I am, I want to see that show do well.) And it’s just nice to see a scripted show that isn’t a “CSI” or “Law and Order” clone getting some summer air time or filling the slot with yet another hour of “Big Brother.”
And as I thought about it, I began to wonder–just what happened to the summer repeat season? Has the release of shows on DVD cut out summer repeats of most drama shows? I understand the logic, but how can fans discover shows in the summer that everyone has been talking about all year if they’re not on and the DVDs are months away?
One such case is “Chuck,” a series that could have benefited from some summer exposure and repeats. After NBC renewed it at the last second, citing viewer response and the Subway cross-marketing campaign, I am willing to bet there are some casual viewers out there who might have been curious to see what many of us loved so much and fought so hard to keep on the air. And yet, if you cast your eye across NBC’s schedule, all you see is endless showings of “Law and Order” clones or “America’s Got Talent.” But no “Chuck.”
Not even on a cable outlet like Bravo or USA, where the show might do well and, again, gain new viewers for the upcoming third season.
And yet NBC used to be good at marketing repeats. They had the whole “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you” campaign. And during “Quantum Leap”‘s run, the network would run the show each night at 10 p.m. EST, selecting the “best” episodes from the season to showcase the series, allow fans to experience our favorite leaps again and maybe winning some new fans who might sample the show.
I even recall TV Guide used to compile a list of “must see” repeats for the summer season–things to keep your eye open for.
And now, we’ve got next to nothing.
Don’t get me wrong–I like that we have new offerings in the summer and I applaud NBC for bringing “Merlin” to our shores for a wider audience. And I realize that there are some shows owned by the network that will get run on every cable outlet possible simply because it makes better financial sense for the network (“Warehouse 13”), but I still find myself wishing we could get a little more variety in our summer repeats….
I’m right there with ya. Last year’s writer’s strike killed the momentum for quite a few of my favourite shows, and summer repeats would have been a great way to try and salvage some of that. Since that was the road not taken, Chuck hung on for deal life, Pushing Daisies got cut, Life died, and Terminator was… well… terminated (even though that was more of a timeslot thing….) My message to the suits: Either bring back the summer reruns, or release the DVDs well before the new season. Either way, just let people get a chance to get caught up.
i missed a few smallville’s and have been trying to catch them in the repeats. CW is one of the few that do it. I wonder sometimes if it’s an effect of the shows coming out on DVD? or is it the fact that a lot more people stay home and they want ‘new ratings’ vs the ‘nothing on TV lets go outside’
I do miss it.
I understand the demise of many summer reruns. In its effort to compete with such big time and successful cable networks like BBC America, SyFy, FX, USA, and ABC Family, which run 13-episode new programming year round, the networks slowly began introducing that concept themselves and now several — NBC in particular — are running new shows almost every night of the week during the summer. It all has to do with the advertising dollars. And, fortunately, some of those shows aren’t too bad. Two that come to mind are Kings and Merlin.
The advent of cable really tightened up the competition and repeats just don’t get the same audience share as original programming does. Factor in DVDs and Hulu and there is just less demand for repeat programming on the boob tube. And as Sam noted, with cable channels luring summer audiences with more original content, NBC and other broadcast networks have followed suit.
While I agree the a show like Chuck could benefit from repeated airings, you have realize that the suits do see it that way. They don’t believe it is there job to give a struggling show a “leg up”. They view their job as maximizing viewership. And if they can do it with “America’s Got Talent” instead of repeats of earlier shows, then that’s what they’ll air.
On the plus side, NBC is offering the Canadian TV produced show The Listener, which most US audiences did not have a chance to see when it aired in Canada back in March.
I seriously applaud what CBS is doing with Medium reruns for the summer, to get their Ghost Whisperer audience prepared to check the show out if they haven’t already, and to get the folks who were watching it on NBC to check it out on CBS. I’ve seen ads for Medium during their other programs, which is more than what I saw on NBC during the last month or two.
As for the lack of Chuck reruns, Season 1 disappeared off Hulu, but now seems to have reappeared as redirects saying “Watch this at TheWB.com”… which is better than nothing. It also explains why no NBC aired reruns… they aren’t fully financially involved.
I am concerned about The Listener now, though… my DVR doesn’t show any episodes beyond tonight’s and I know they were scheduled to air through the season finale, which would have been August 27th. I hope they didn’t yank it because I like this show, and we’ve got an interview with Christina Jennings and Craig Olejnik waiting in the wings!
The thing is, with the advent of websites like Hulu, you really don’t need a repeat schedule. The real question is, how many people sit down and watch a program at its scheduled time like we had to in the past due to a lack of VCRs? It was special because the lack of resources made it special. Now, it’s unnecessary.