• by Wayne Friedman , September 14, 2005

Worried about the low quality of comedy on TV? Magna Global USA says the joke is on us.

Despite network programming executives' complaints about the lack of good comedies, viewers are watching more comedy than ever before. All this is thanks to a combination of network, syndication, and cable viewing.

Combined TV viewing for comedy is up to 2.51 hours a week for adults 18-49. That's up from 2.37 hours a week ten years ago. For households, overall comedy viewing is up to 4.58 hours per week--up from 4.14 hours.

The broadcast networks, naturally, have been the real sufferers--dropping to 0.38 hours a week during the 2004-2005 season from 1.29 hours in the 1994-1995 season.

Both syndication and cable have been beneficiaries--almost equally. Adult 18-49 viewers watch 1.08 hours a week of comedy on cable and 1.05 hours a week on syndication.

All this makes sense, as the great comedies of the recent past all have had an increased re-run life.

"Friends," "Seinfeld," "Frasier," "The King of Queens," and "Everybody Loves Raymond" all have multiple cable and syndication runs. Soon "Will & Grace" will add to the list of retired sitcoms. Magna Global also notes that sales of DVDs are adding to comedy viewing. Syndication's highest-rated shows are off-network comedies--programming that gets the best time slots and the greatest unit prices for its commercials.

Magna notes that during the 1994-1995 season, off-network comedies airing on cable consisted of "Designing Women," "Wings," "Evening Shade," "Major Dad," "Roc," and "Saved by the Bell."

Ten years later, many more comedies from the 1960s through the 1990s have a renewed afterlife on cable--coming from evergreen shows such as "M*A*S*H," "The Brady Bunch," and others on retro-like networks and comedy blocks on Nick at Nite, TBS, and TV Land.

In recent years, networks pulled the plug on comedies in favor of reality and dramas, especially procedural crime dramas. Two years ago, there were a record 50 comedies on the six broadcast networks. Last year, there were 36. Comedies have come back a little this season, with a total of 40--which is 34 percent of all programs.

"Programming in the broadcast arena tends to run in cycles," wrote Steve Sternberg, executive vp and director of audience analysis at Magna Global USA, in the report. "'Lost' becomes a successful drama, and we immediately see six new sci-fi series on the schedule... When the next broadcast network comedy hits it big, we'll see an influx of new entries."

Shari Anne Brill, vp of director of programming services for Carat USA, says that shows like UPN's "Everybody Hates Chris," CBS' "How I Met Your Mother," and Fox's "Kitchen" could form the basis for a new wave of comedy hits.