Television in The United States - Programming

Programming

American television has had very successful programming that has inspired television networks across the world to make shows of similar types or broadcast these shows in their own country. Some of these shows are still on the air and some are still alive and well in syndication. The opposite is also true; a number of popular American programs were based on shows from other countries, especially the United Kingdom and Canada.

Primetime comedy has included situation comedies such as I Love Lucy, M*A*S*H, All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Jeffersons, The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, Friends, Boy Meets World, The King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond, as well as sketch comedy/variety series such as Saturday Night Live and Milton Berle's early shows, The Carol Burnett Show and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.

Dramatic series have taken many forms over the years. Westerns such as Gunsmoke had their greatest popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. Medical dramas have endured (Marcus Welby, M.D., St. Elsewhere, ER), as have family dramas (Eight Is Enough, The Waltons, Little House on the Prairie) and crime dramas (Dragnet, Hawaii Five-O, Hill Street Blues, Law & Order and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - the last two of which have spawned multiple spin-offs).

The major networks all offer a morning news program (NBC's The Today Show and ABC's Good Morning America are the standard bearers), as well as an early-evening newscast anchored by the de facto face of the network's news operations (Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather for CBS; NBC's Chet Huntley, David Brinkley and Tom Brokaw; ABC's Peter Jennings). Successful news magazines have included 60 Minutes, 20/20, and Dateline in primetime and Meet the Press (the US's oldest series, having debuted in 1947), Face the Nation and This Week on Sunday mornings.

Reality television has long existed in the United States, both played for laughs (Candid Camera, Real People) and as drama (COPS, The Real World). A new variant - competition series placing ordinary people in unusual circumstances or in talent contests, generally eliminating one participant per week, exploded in popularity in 2000 with the launch of Survivor. Big Brother, America's Next Top Model and So You Think You Can Dance followed; American Idol, based on the UK's Pop Idol, debuted in 2002 and has dominated the ratings consistently as of 2009, while The Amazing Race has won the Emmy Award for its program category every year since its 2001 debut.

American soap operas have been running for over six decades. Currently, there are four daytime soap operas in production: General Hospital, Days of our Lives, The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. Long-running soaps no longer in production include Search for Tomorrow, Guiding Light, As the World Turns, Another World, One Life to Live, and All My Children. Primetime soap operas of note have included Peyton Place, Dallas, Dynasty, Beverly Hills, 90210 and Revenge.

Daytime has also been home of many popular game shows over the years (particularly during the 1970s), such as The Price is Right, Family Feud, Match Game, The Newlywed Game and Concentration. Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! have found their greatest success in the early-evening slot before primetime, while game shows actually aired within primetime had great popularity in the 1950s and 1960s (What's My Line?, I've Got a Secret, To Tell the Truth) and again, intermittently, in the 2000s (Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, The Weakest Link, Deal or No Deal). The Price Is Right, which has appeared on CBS since 1972, was the only daytime game show remaining on the broadcast networks for fifteen years (prior to CBS's announcement it would be joined by a remake of Let's Make a Deal in October 2009).

The most successful talk show has been the late-night (after 11:30 PM Eastern/Pacific) The Tonight Show (particularly during the 29-year run of third host Johnny Carson). Tonight ushered in a multi-decade period of dominance by one network in American late-night programming and paved the way for many similar combinations of comedy and celebrity interviews, such as those hosted by Merv Griffin and David Letterman.

Daytime talk show hits have included The Oprah Winfrey Show, Phil Donahue, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and Live with Regis and Kelly, and run the gamut from serious to lighthearted; a subset of so-called trash TV talk shows such as The Jerry Springer Show also veered into exploitation and titillation.

Children's television programs are also quite popular, though with FCC rules on E/I content and regulations on commercial time during children's shows, over-the-air broadcast stations have found it much harder to profit from these programs compared to in the past. Children's programming has mostly migrated to cable television with such successful shows of recent such as Fanboy & Chum Chum, SpongeBob SquarePants, iCarly, The Suite Life on Deck, Big Time Rush, Victorious, Phineas & Ferb, The Fairly OddParents among others becoming popular on the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon cable channels. Other channels offering kids and family programming include PBS Kids Sprout, Disney XD, Cartoon Network, Boomerang and others. FCC rules on E/I content may prevent series airing on these channels from being syndicated on over-the-air television stations.

While the majority of programs broadcast on United States television are produced domestically, some programs carried in syndication, on public television or on cable television are imported from outside the U.S.; most commonly, these imported programs come from the primarily English-speaking countries of Canada and the United Kingdom. PBS in particular, is commonly known for its broadcasts of British comedies such as Are You Being Served?, Keeping Up Appearances and As Time Goes By, which typically air on most PBS member stations on weekend evenings. As for Canadian programs, most of the programming imported from Canada includes children's programs from family-oriented specialty channels YTV and Family such as Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Naturally, Sadie and Life with Derek. Among some of the more well-known Canadian television series among American viewers include the Degrassi High franchise (which aired in Canada on CBC Television, with the later incarnation Degrassi: The Next Generation airing on CTV and presently MuchMusic), SCTV Network and The Red Green Show. American Spanish-language networks also import much of their programming; for example, Univision imports much of its programming, especially telenovelas that are broadcast on the network, from Mexican broadcaster Televisa and Venezuelan broadcaster Venevision.