NBC “cancels” Monk and Psych
By fred | May 6, 2008
The writers’ strike had a few network to scratch their heads in order to fill their schedule up, and while some just poured in all the reality TV they could, others decided to go “steal” from cable network sisters. This is what CBS did bringing a “cleaned” version of Showtime’s Dexter on, or NBC by grabbing Monk and Psych, the two hits from USA.
The two shows have been airing for a few weeks now on Sunday night, and it’s not been good. Of course, just because it’s a hit on cable doesn’t mean it’ll work on one of the big four, since the audience’s expectations aren’t the same, and, well, a few millions people already saw the show and won’t bother tuning in for reruns just because it has the annoying ads from NBC all along…
Case in point, neither Monk nor Psych have been able to draw much attention to them, and this past Sunday Monk only had 4.1 million viewers and a very low 0.9 on the demo, while Psych had even less viewers (3.6 million) yet did a little better on the demo (1.0), though still very low.
Given such numbers, it’s not really a surprise to see NBC taking both shows off its schedule, replacing them on May 18 and May 25 by four-episode marathons of The Office. With a little luck those idiots will put two one-hour long episode back to back, since we all know those aren’t as good as the show really is, and wonder why it doesn’t do better. Anyways, even in reruns - and technically both Monk and Psych were reruns as well - The Office is expected do perform better, especially on the demo.
Needless to say this move will have absolutely no impact on the future of Monk and Psych, both shows are still hits on their home, USA Network, and have both been renewed for another season already.
How ridiculous! Put a family show on in a bad time slot, far too late, and on a work/school night, from 9-11 pm Sundays, and then be surprised that not that many people watch them!
Plus, they didn’t even begin with the pilot for Psych and broadcast episodes of both shows all out of order.
There is obviously a huge audience for both! NBC blew it. We like The Office but have no interest in watching reruns. But Psych and Monk we were just starting to get hooked on. We Tivo’d it, did NBC even figure out the #s given time-shifting?
No wonder the major networks are collapsing.