• by Wayne Friedman , March 21, 2006

The set-up: More people are watching more comedies on TV than ever before. The punchline: They are not watching them on the broadcast networks. Not so funny? Blame the delivery on Magna Global USA, which issued a report Monday showing that cable and syndication are where viewers are turning to get their TV laughs.

"Comedy viewers haven't disappeared--they're simply biding their time, happily watching the same comedies they've loved for years, whether on broadcast, syndication, cable, or DVD--just waiting for a new one to join the club," writes Steve Sternberg, executive vice president of audience analysis for Magna, in the new report.

This creates a bigger problem, he says.

With "Seinfeld," "Frasier," "Friends," and "Everyone Loves Raymond" still on the air in syndication and on cable, networks have found it difficult to find the next great sitcom because their efforts are always being compared to the recent past. The average rating for a broadcast comedy has gone down to a 3.3 household rating for the 2005-2006 season, from an 11.9 in the 1993-1994 season. Although 13 years have passed, the average cable rating hasn't moved--it sits at a 0.5 number. Syndication lost about half its rating to a 2.8 from a 5.6 before.

The difference is the amount of total weekly time viewed. Cable has jumped to 2.41 hours of comedy a week from a 0.74. Broadcast has dropped to a 0.65 from a 2.11. Syndication has climbed--not as much as cable--to 1.78 hour per week from a 0.93 hour average.

Fifty comedies were on broadcast TV in 2003; this season there are 40. TV analysts say the business is cyclical, and Sternberg says networks are just now seeing some of that uptick.

Single camera sitcoms--NBC's "The Office" and "My Name is Earl," and UPN's "Everybody Hates Chris"--have brought broadcast viewers back to comedies to some extent.

The secret, says Sternberg, is finding the true family comedy, not an "edgy" comedy, which pull in a 'fringe' audience. Networks have failed miserably in this regard--"Action," "The Job," "Method & Red," "Coupling," "Father of the Pride," "Arrested Development," "Emily's Reasons Why Not," and "Sons and Daughters"--to name a few.

By comparison, a family comedy grabs multi-generational viewers, all of which pushes up ratings.