The New TV Season: Reboots and Reality Shows Are Sinking.

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The New TV Season: Reboots and Reality Shows Are Sinking.

 Fallon Counters a Move by Colbert.

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By John Koblin

·       Nov. 25, 2018

Two months into the new television season, there’s big ratings news: The N.F.L. is back!

Then there’s … everything else.

Viewership for entertainment programming on the broadcast networks continues to fall as audiences flock to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. Among adults under the age of 50, the number of viewers for network shows has tumbled an additional 10 percent this season.

Leadership changes at the four major broadcast networks have added to the uncertainty. Fox, ABC and NBC have all announced new heads of entertainment since September, and CBS ousted its longtime leader, Leslie Moonves, after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct.

As for the shows themselves, medical dramas have made a comeback, reboots and reality shows have lost some of their luster, a veteran producer has proved his mettle yet again and a new front in the late-night wars has opened between Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon.

Oh, and football. Viewers still can’t get enough, which has come as a relief to network executives.

Even with the internal upheaval and the continued migration of viewers to streaming services and premium cable outlets, the networks can still point to one sign of relevance: Their collective audience, while shrinking, is still huge. With several prime-time series moving into midseason hiatus, let’s look at the highlights and lowlights so far.

Reboots Are No Longer a Sure Bet

The good news for the “Murphy Brown” revival on CBS? Its audience is stable.

That’s about it.

The reboot of the classic sitcom has largely been a ratings dud. In the 18-to-49 age bracket, “Murphy Brown” ranks 43rd among entertainment programs, drawing roughly the same number of viewers as “The Cool Kids,” a Friday night comedy on Fox about retirees.

The show, which returned Candice Bergen to a role she inhabited through much of the 1990s, faced several built-in challenges. Many of its stars had been off the air for more than a decade, and episodes from its original run, which ended in 1998, are not available online, meaning it had not been able to cultivate a new audience.

Perhaps more important, the series has failed to generate the kind of buzz it had in the days when Vice President Dan Quayle attacked it for “mocking the importance of fathers” after the title character gave birth to a boy in the 1992 season finale.

Networks have employed the reboot strategy in recent years as a way to give viewers shows that are at once new and familiar. But as the tactic has lost its novelty, it has become less of a sure thing.

“Magnum P.I.” — which returned to CBS with the stubble-faced Jay Hernandez taking over the role once played by the mustachioed Tom Selleck — is performing at about the same level as “Murphy Brown.” And “Will & Grace,” the groundbreaking sitcom that NBC brought back with much fanfare in 2017, has lost more than half its audience from a year ago.

Fox has seen solid returns from “Last Man Standing,” a comedy starring Tim Allen that was revived this season after it was canceled by ABC in May 2017. And even without Roseanne Barr, “The Conners” has done well for ABC, generating numbers that suggest it is a sustainable draw. Through five episodes, its ratings are on a par with the CBS hit “Young Sheldon,” good enough for seventh place among entertainment programs. It is also ABC’s highest-rated sitcom.

It’s Morning in Late Night

The audience for late night is smaller than that of prime time, but the battle between “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on CBS and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on NBC is perhaps fiercer than ever.

Viewers made their decision on which of the two late-night leaders they preferred in the opening weeks of the Trump administration, when Mr. Colbert, whose monologues regularly skewer the president, leapfrogged the fun-and-games-minded Mr. Fallon in total audience. Mr. Colbert has since become the runaway winner, typically leading his main rival by more than a million viewers a night.

But while the CBS show was on the rise, “The Tonight Show” managed to cling to something valuable: A lead in the 18-to-49 age bracket prized by advertisers.

Mr. Colbert has lately cut that lead to a mere 1,000 viewers. In an effort to keep him from further loosening Mr. Fallon’s grip on younger viewers, NBC made a big move last month, installing Jim Bell, a former longtime executive producer of “Today” and the current maestro of the network’s Olympics coverage, as the new “Tonight Show” boss.

In handing the show to Mr. Bell, NBC seemed to mimic a strategy employed by CBS in 2016, when it placed Chris Licht, a former producer of “CBS This Morning,” in charge of “The Late Show.” Under Mr. Licht’s guidance, the show made its steady climb to late-night ratings dominance.

Mr. Bell will have his work cut out for him. Nearly all of the late-night shows have had ratings decreases, but none have dropped like “The Tonight Show.” In the two years since President Trump was elected, Mr. Fallon has lost 28 percent of his audience, according to Nielsen. More worrisome to NBC, Mr. Fallon has lost 41 percent of adults under 50 in that time.

The host’s fortunes seemed to change in September 2016, when he playfully tousled Mr. Trump’s hair during an interview segment, a moment that has come to haunt Mr. Fallon. Mr. Bell will be waiting for another moment that sets social media aflame — but in a way that brings wayward viewers back to the venerable NBC franchise.

Dick Wolf, Broadcast Savior

As young viewers flee to streaming services, network executives are running to Mr. Wolf, the 71-year-old producer.

He accounts for an entire night of programming on NBC, with his three Chicago-based dramas on Wednesdays. Another of his NBC shows, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” continues to deliver consistent results. And Mr. Wolf has a new series showing promise on CBS, “FBI.”

Mr. Wolf’s five dramas are among the 21 highest-rated shows on network television. “FBI” is the sixth-most-viewed drama of the season, with over 12 million viewers a week, according to Nielsen’s delayed-viewing data.

His empire is likely to grow. CBS is considering expanding the “FBI” franchise, with the chances of a spinoff series looking better each week.

Harsh Reality for Reality TV

One thing that is almost totally absent among television’s top-rated series: reality programming.

Barely squeaking into the top 10 is “The Voice,” the NBC singing competition whose numbers have slid. “Dancing With the Stars” has stumbled for ABC, down more than 31 percent this year. Add in a loss of 33 percent in the audience for ABC’s “Shark Tank,” and you have a trend that is keeping producers of so-called unscripted television awake at night.

 “The importance of reality and competition shows is waning,” said Preston Beckman, a former executive at NBC and Fox. “None of these shows are the biggest shows on television anymore. And they were once the drivers.”

The biggest bomb was an ABC talk show hosted by Alec Baldwin, which seems headed toward cancellation. The network moved it from Sunday to the prime-time boneyard of Saturday night.

There will be some attempts to reverse the trend. NBC plans to air a summertime hit, “America’s Got Talent,” in January, to see if its success can be replicated. “Survivor” keeps chugging away on CBS and will be back in the spring.

CBS will also debut “The World’s Best,” a talent competition show from the reality TV masterminds Mark Burnett and Mike Darnell, immediately after the broadcast of the Super Bowl in February. Mr. Darnell, who oversaw “American Idol” at Fox, is confident that the genre has not worn out its welcome.

“You can still get a big smash hit,” Mr. Darnell said.

At this point, the results may suggest otherwise.

Need Viewers? Call a Doctor

A Fox procedural series about emergency medical workers starring Angela Bassett, “9-1-1,” was a sleeper hit when it arrived at the tail end of last season.

Co-created by Ryan Murphy, the drama lacks the critical and cultural cachet of “Pose” or any of Mr. Murphy’s limited series, like “American Crime Story,” but it has continued to deliver. The show has scored the fifth-highest ratings among network entertainment programs and is the top scripted show on Fox.

NBC has scored hits with two new shows, the thriller “Manifest” and its medical drama “New Amsterdam.” “Manifest” is in third place among all entertainment shows, but it requires viewers to track intricate twists and turns, and its numbers have started to slide in recent weeks.

“This Is Us,” also on NBC, is again the No. 1 entertainment program among adults under 50, although its ratings are down from last year. “The Big Bang Theory,” the CBS stalwart that is scheduled to end its run next year as the longest-running multicamera comedy series ever, holds the No. 2 slot.

A notable development: One of television’s sturdiest genres, the medical drama, is resonating anew. In addition to NBC’s “New Amsterdam,” ABC has two medical shows, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “The Good Doctor,” among the ratings leaders. That trend will not be lost to network executives, said Mr. Beckman.

“There’s a very quiet, subtle increase in medical dramas,” he said. “And you’ll see more of them. Everybody is getting a little bit away from the procedurals. And everything’s a trend. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery in television.”