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NBC bets on stacked Monday night programming

Sally Herships Mar 12, 2012

Jeremy Hobson: Tonight is the night, for NBC at least. NBC is placing its biggest primetime hopes, “The Voice” and “Smash,” on Monday night — maybe hoping to replace Thursday night with Monday night as the new night for “Must-see TV.”

Here’s Marketplace’s Sally Herships.


Sally Herships: Thursday night, you used to be the night for NBC. Remember “Seinfeld,” “Friends,” “The Cosby Show”?

Tim Molloy: The era of NBC dominating Thursday nights is over.

Tim Molloy is television editor for TheWrap.com. He says NBC’s current Thursday night shows like “30 Rock” are just no match for the death star, black hole, ratings-eater that is “American Idol” on Fox. So NBC is putting a lot of effort into its Monday nights.

Molloy: It’s a pretty good night for television because absolutely no one goes out.

Everyone’s home, ready to watch “The Voice” on NBC, which Molloy says now has better ratings than any primetime show, including “American Idol.”

Robert Thompson teaches TV and popular culture at Syracuse University. He says it’s the show that matters — not the night it’s on. Even on Friday and Saturday nights, potential suicide slots when people are out and about.

Robert Thompson: In the end, you put a really good program that people want to watch on a Friday night and they’ll stay home and watch it.

And advertisers will follow.

In New York, I’m Sally Herships for Marketplace.

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