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It turns out Modern Family was the Robin that signaled the comedy spring at the broadcast networks. Two years after the Emmy-winning ABC series became the first out-of-the-gate big comedy hit in years, the genre’s comeback is complete, while dramas appear headed for a down cycle. Here are the facts:
Four new series have been given full-season orders so far this fall — all of them comedies: Fox’s New Girl, CBS’ 2 Broke Girls and NBC’s Up All Night and Whitney. 
For the first time in a long time, there has been no breakout new drama 3 weeks into the season, and no hourlong freshman series has been given a back-nine order. What’s more, two of the four renewed new comedies, New Girl and 2 Broke Girls, have become rare instant hits. In comparison, it took CBS’ The Big Bang Theory a couple of seasons to find its footing and rose to a hit status after being put behind Two And A Half Men in its third season. And CBS’ How I Met Your Mother just found a new gear with series highs in its seventh season.
With many veteran dramas fading, comedies dominate the fall schedule, especially in the key adults 18-49 demographic. A comedy series has been the top entertainment program in 18-49 on every night that features comedies during each of the first three weeks of the new season. That includes the five most-watched nights of the 
week: Monday, where Two And A Half Men is the top dog, Tuesday (rookie New Girl), Wednesday (Modern Family), Thursday (The Big Bang Theory) and Sunday (Fox’s Family Guy, which leads the entertainment pack behind Sunday Night Football). What’s more, on three of the five nights, those comedies were also the most watched programs (Two And A Half Men, Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory)
For Week 2 of the season, the most recent week for which we have full ratings information, comedies were the top 7 highest-rated entertainment series among adults 18-49:
1. Two And A Half Men (7.4/17)
2. Modern Family (5.7/15)
3. The Big Bang Theory (4.9/15)
4. Mike & Molly (4.8/11)
5. 2 Broke Girls (4.6/12)
6. How I Met Your Mother (4.5/12)
7. New Girl (4.5/11)
The first drama to make an appearance is CBS’ veteran NCIS (4.2/12) at No.8.
With ABC’s new comedy Suburgatory also off to a promising start and likely to get a back order and the network’s high-profile Tim Allen comedy Last Man Standing slated to launch Tuesday, there could be as many as six freshman comedy series given full-season orders this season on all four major networks. And the genre’s momentum will likely continue next season: Comedy’s hot fall was preceded by an even hotter summer, in which comedy pitches were flying fast and furious, often sparking bidding wars and landing big commitments.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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PanAm is getting better… At least it’s not a bleep filled, sexually oriented show…
THANK YOU! I totally agree, Steve!
As far as Tim Allen’s show? It’s basically Home Improvement except he has daughters instead of sons.
As far Whitney? Nails on a chalkboard. Oh and she needs a few acting classes! Yikes. She’s awful. Oh and the supporting cast needs to learn how to NOT overact. Oh and her jokes just aren’t funny they’re crude for crude’s sake.
That is all.
So thrilled to see someone echoing my EXACT thoughts on Whitney.
The funniest thing about Whitney is the statement “Taped before a live studio audience” — yup, one that we never hear, b/c there’s absolutely ZIP to laugh at.
I gave it 2 episodes (well, one-and-a-half), and the canned laughter was far more amusing to me than anything on the show itself.
I read the pilot for Whitney and was shocked…shocked that they bought it. Then, I saw the promo for it and was shocked…shocked that it actually went to series. Then, I saw that they picked it up for a full season and was shocked…shocked that people actually enjoyed it. Also, her other show, 2 Broke Girls sucks as well.
Maybe it’s time to change who has Neilsen boxes because their taste level is frightening.
you know what else is like nails on a chalkboard? Your constant use of “oh”.
Steve, that’s what Matlock reruns are for.
I’m sorry, but if you’re including WHITNEY in your equation as proof of a comedy renaissance then you’re either lying through your teeth or have never seen the show. What it really indicates is just how desperate NBC is, nothing else. The show is simply unwatchable.
Ditto that.
I have to disagree. I had one of the biggest laughs of the season from a Whitney ep. The New Girl, however, has provided ZERO laughs in my house.
Shhh, you probably should keep that to yourself.
Ah but seriously, I can see where New Girl can be grating to some (I found it surprisingly clever and sweet [without being cloyingly so]), but that Whitney show. Wow. Just, really, the absolute worst acting and writing I’ve seen since they gave Arnold a little red-haired brother on Dif’rent Strokes.
Err, you are capable of reading, right?
I’m not really sure where in the post you got the impression the author was making a judgment on the quality of all the shows. It doesn’t matter if you think Whitney is the least funny show ever written. I’m certainly not a fan. Its ratings are adequate for NBC and it got a back 9 order. That’s more than you can say about any freshman drama on any network.
It’s bad enough when people pull “My favourite show is awesome and so it can’t have bad ratings and should be renewed forever”, but it’s even worse when people do the opposite. Yes, Virginia, exceedingly broad and stupid comedies are popular. You don’t need to like them. I don’t.
Thanks for typing that, Anonymous, it saved me the energy.
Audiences watch a ton of drama–on cable. Every drama head at the broadcasters and most of the studios have alienated the top talent with awful notes and intellectual dishonesty but these shows are THRIVING in cable:
JUSTIFIED
MAD MEN
GAME OF THRONES
WALKING DEAD
BOARDWALK EMPIRE
THE KILLING
TREME
DEXTER
WHITE COLLAR
You forgot Leverage.
Leverage along with every other TNT and USA show is poorly written junk, even worse than Broadcast dramas.
all great shows and I doubt primetime TV would ever do any of them. As for these comedies , they aren’t great. Up all night is awful . New girl is so/so, seems like its getting better. But it feels like it was written by a 10 year old
So the see-saw goes: COMEDY ON NETWORK, and great dramas go to Cable. Which makes sense because of edgy content and WAY less censorship to deal with, and the creative free reign given to dramatic show runners. Too bad LONE STAR wasn’t on FX, or allowed to find an audience–we might have a more balanced plate on some network tv that would give non-procedural dramas some traction…
thank god for cable which provides adult content and intelligent, dramatic creatives the place and space to give viewers some emotional, thought provoking television…
With the exception of White Collar(on the lowest common denominator channel USA), I agree.
If you think a couple million viewers in a country of over 300 million is thriving. You’ve got less than 1% of the population watching a show and thats a hit these days
and Hung
And Breaking Bad. But your point stands. All the interesting shows are on cable, and that’s no coincidence. Nothing interesting or good can survive for long on broadcast, the home of the Lowest Common Denomentator.
The broadcast networks are not lowest commen denominator, that honor goes to TNT, USA and SYFY with such badly written and poorly acted shows as The Closer, Burn Notice, Leverage, Psych, Rizzoli and Isles.
I wouldn’t say that Treme is thriving. HBO is just being benevolent and keeping it going despite that b/c it is a very good show. Not The Wire good, but then again, nothing is. I am glad that Treme is still going, but I wouldn’t say that it is a success.
Suburgatory is this decades Gilmore Girls. It has sharp, witty dialogue.
ABC is screwing itself over, though, by not making Suburgatory available on Hulu like it does all its other shows. I missed the pilot and now I feel like I have no free way of getting into the show, so I just won’t bother.
If episode 3 is anything like the second episode, you won’t need any background beyond what is presented in the opening credits – and it’s an amazing show, easily the best of all new comedies mentioned in this article.
It’s not ABC keeping it off hulu, it’s the studio: Warner Bros.
That’s insane or you’re a plant. Gilmore Girls was one of the best shows ever made. Suburgatory is unwatchable. If anything, the show Switched at Birth has some of the Gilmore magic.
I disagree. James is right about the comparison.
Its been on for two episodes and you’re declaring it this decades Gilmore Girls? That’s a ridiculous exageration.
Glad to see sitcoms hot again. Enjoy How to be a Gentleman but don’t hold out much for it…
It’s already gone.
you can enjoy how to be a gentleman but only for seven more weeks at the most
They might be getting high ratings, but comedies 1-7 on that list all totally stink.
Of the 4 sitcoms highlighted, I’d take issue with WHITNEY as being a “hit”, and to some extent UP ALL NIGHT. WHITNEY’s star and creator is hard to watch – she is much mroe adept behind the scenes (as is the case with TWO BROKE GIRLS).
Applegate and Arnett are likeable and talented enough, but I just don’t buy them as a couple. Had PARKS & RECREATION not been on the air, UP ALL NIGHT would be a much better show with real-life couple Arnett and Amy Poehler.
A full-season order doesn’t necessarily define a hit, especially at NBC. They famously gave a full-season order to the rebooted 2010 dud KNIGHT RIDER, then pared it back to 17 eps before mercifully pulling the plug.
Still disappointed with Up All Night. A great cast but sub-par writing. I would prefer more family time and less office stuff for the Applegate character. The show just grinds to a halt when they jump to her career. It’s not funny at all, forced and mostly irritating.
Whitney is just a train wreck.
Arnett’s character is so whipped that watching the show is painful for anyone with testicles.
that is what happens when you become a father – a good father anyway.
WHITNEY is just annoying to watch. When will that male lead give Jack Nicholson his eyebrows back?
3 of those comedies are 4 camera. No ones talking about that, for some reason. Add those to himym, 2.5 men & big bang and that’s a massive return of a classic format.
I’ve never really loved the docu-style of arrested development and I wonder when someone is going to ask “um, why are there cameras following the dunphys everywhere and what documentary are they shooting?
This should be a sounding bell to studios to make more 3 cam shows. Half hour sitcoms are more financially rewarding anyway.
Aside from Modern Family, which I don’t like but understand why others do, those sitcoms are all horrendous. Can someone explain why is the writing so bad on these comedies? How do these writers get these jobs??? Are these shows written by the showrunner’s 9-year-old kids?
I don’t buy that they are just playing to the lowest common denominator, these writers ARE the lowest common denominator.
I think these four shows’ relative success is more an indication of just how starved the viewing audience is for comedy – enough so that they’re willing to watch these four pieces of dreck. We’re in a golden age of drama (that is CABLE drama, not network drama, which is terrible) so that itch is being scratched. But there’s very little even decent comedy out there right now. People who want to watch comedy are going to watch SOMETHING.
Are the audiences who watch network comedy primarily female? Must be looking at the new shows.
I love sitcoms–Raising Hope, Parks & Rec, Community, Louie, etc. But as much as I like the actors, Up All Night is either targeted at a much older demographic or it’s really, really boring. I can’t say anything about Whitney that hasn’t already been said. 2 Broke Girls, as has been mentioned, is mean, racist, and one-liner heavy to the point of black hole density. And New Girl’s success is the most inexplicable of all. How can a sitcom renaissance revolve around such mediocre fare? So far the only really intriguing new falls shows I’ve seen are Homeland and Revenge.
NEW GIRL is indeed heading in the wrong direction. In three episodes, she’s gone from quirky to annoying to borderline-psychotic. This week’s entry will be make or break for me.
WHITNEY = not funny
I love the premise of this article — based on the ratings of 4 sitcoms, comedies are back!
Okay… let’s pick 4 sitcoms and come to a conclusion:
FREE AGENTS: canceled
HOW TO BE A GENTLEMAN: being burned off on Saturdays
PARKS & REC: fewer viewers than the ill-fated HOW TO BE A GENTLEMAN
COMMUNITY: fewer viewers that the already-canceled PLAYBOY CLUB
Comedies are back, baby!
thank you, FM! finally some perspective on this non-story.
I think ABC Wed comedies are underrated. I love watching Themiddle/suburgatory/modernfamiy (havenever watched happy endings)…Its probably being hurt by being up against XF in fall and esp Idol in Spring when it comes to younger viewers.
I like WHITNEY! Sure it perpetuates annoying male/female stereotypes, but I laugh out loud all the time (and I hear my roommate laughing out loud when she watches it). The stereotypes can be funny when they’re true, I think the show just leans on that sexist relationship humor too much. It ends up feeling dated. It needs to find the jokes in other scenarios.
Hopefully the show will move away from just Whitney and her bf fighting all the time. I love the supporting characters, especially the females. I think the show has a lot of potential as long as it allows itself to become bigger than “the clingy girl and her lazy boyfriend show.”
Problem is cable is expanding comedies as well. Fx continues to add comedies and USA is looking to add multiple half hour comedies.
I am a huge sitcom fan. Tv finally broke my will when sitcoms pretty much died. I was forced to expand my drama viewing but I am glad to see the sitcoms powering back.
What is said that a show like alphas is way better than any of the network dramas. Same goes with Suits. I dont understand how all the networks combined can find and nurture a single decent drama
“My Show!”
“NO, MY SHOW!”
*slapfight*
Whitney is better every week and makes me laugh at issues my husband & I have. Then can deal with those things with a sense of humor. I also like the supporting girls, they remind me of the wise cracking women of the 30′s and 40′s when women weren’t always characters. There is a lot there all the way around and am glad it has the chance to show it.
The problem is, is that everybody on here is looking at CBS and NBC comedies which aren’t that great. When I think of a Comedy rejuvenation I look at ABC’s Wednesday Night comedies. They’re all underrated if you ask me. I really enjoy The Middle, Suburgatory, Modern Family, and Happy Endings. Can’t wait for Last Man Standing
Last Man Standing and Suburgatory are pretty funny!
If anything, people are watching comedies (even the not-so-good ones) in an effort to get away from the dreariness in their lives. Wall Street’s been occupied for a couple weeks, if you haven’t noticed.
Whitney is getting better every week and 2 Broke Girls getting better too.