The following is taken from a friend's
log (click the link to find out who exactly, if you don't already know):
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"According to various sources around the Internet the 94-97 NBC "Must See TV" lineup consisted of the following:
1994
Mad About You,
Friends,
Seinfeld and
Madman of the People1995
Friends,
The Single Guy,
Seinfeld,
Caroline in the City1996
Friends,
The Single Guy,
Seinfeld,
Caroline In the City1997
Friends,
Union Square,
Seinfeld,
Veronica's ClosetWhat's the point of all this? Just covering my ass on a call out. Yeah, some rookie out there thought
Friends was broadcast after
Seinfeld for a short period."
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Today's word of the day is "thoroughness", because being thorough usually pays off. I may be a rookie, but I know enough to realize that messing around with absolutes such as "always" and "never" can often lead to disaster. A claim was recently made that
Friends was always broadcast before
Seinfeld on NBC's Thursday lineup, not including holiday specials and other unusual, isolated circumstances. The evidence above looks to be pretty supportive of that assertion, but what we're all forgetting here is that these TV lineups are usually provided at the beginning of the fall television season and rarely hold up throughout the entire course of the year. Here's a little more patented trivia for you all. An early history of NBC's
Friends, courtesy of
Seth A. Ovadia. His article is very long, so here are the most relevant passages:
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"Although
Cosby,
Cheers and
L.A. Law have been off the air for a number of years now, NBC has continued to use Thursday night and its framework of four half-hour comedies topped off by a drama as their showcase night.
Seinfeld has replaced
Cheers as the centerpiece of the evening and such shows as
Mad About You,
Wings and
Frasier (a
Cheers spinoff) have done time on Thursday, establishing an audience and then getting farmed out to other nights as hits to build around.
Therefore, we can see that
Friends original time slot of 8:30 on Thursday - in between
Mad About You and
Seinfeld - was a position that offered the show a large lead in and a massive follow up, a position where even a significant drop-off from the audiences before and after it would still guarantee a top thirty position in the rankings.
Friends did more than just hold the audience, however. It actually improved on its lead in as it attracted a "cult following" during the fall. Through February, it was the 14th highest ranking show on television for the season.
In February, NBC decided to cancel the show that was in the 9:30 slot on Thursday, the Dabney Coleman vehicle Madman of the People, which was failing to hold the audience between the top ranked show in the nation, Seinfeld, and the top ranked drama, the new medical show, ER. NBC moved Friends from 8:30 to 9:30, a position that Tom Shales noted, "Al Gore reading the party platform could get a rating in."
To help it in its move to 9:30, NBC arranged the added support of having four stars from other Thursday night shows make guest appearances on the two part episode that played at 8:30 and then 9:30 on the night of the move. In the first part, Helen Hunt and Leila Kenzle of
Mad About You guest starred, which set off a plot development that was based on the fact that Lisa Kudrow has roles in both
Mad About You and
Friends as twin sisters. The 9:30 episode had Noah Wyle and George Clooney from
ER, despite that fact that
ER is set in Chicago and
Friends in New York. As Shales noted, "what does that matter when a network is on a promotional bender?" "
"The move to 9:30 was one that worked even better than NBC could have hoped. The show not only
held viewers between Seinfeld and ER, it moved into the top five on a regular basis during the spring, on its way to an eighth place overall finish (second behind
ER among new shows). Over the summer, it became the highest rated show ten times in a period of eleven weeks and was the highest rated series overall for the rerun season.
Ironically,
Friends was so successful at 9:30, it has lost its position there. NBC has moved it to the 8:00 p.m. slot for this season so that it could function as an anchor in the place of
Mad About You which has been shipped off to Sunday nights in an attempt by NBC to establish a presence on that evening.
Friends may very well not be in the top five for this television season due to the fact that early evening shows draw less of an audience than later slotted shows, but
Friends has moved on to where it performs a different function for NBC on Thursday nights. Originally a show that was hoped to not lose viewers, it has developed a following that NBC believes it can use to draw viewers to the channel all by itself."
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Whew!
Ok, time to summarize. So as you can see,
Friends began airing
AFTER Seinfeld in February of 1995. It didn't switch to the front of the Thursday lineup until later in the fall of 1995. That's a whole six months of post-
Seinfeld Friends episodes, some new, some reruns. Just in case you don't believe what you've just read, you can find additional evidence
here and
here (old Usenet postings).
There you have it. I don't think I have much else to say. I suppose two words should suffice.
PANTS DOWN
