http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/business/media/21prime.html?emc=eta1
For the past several years, many broadcast network executives have looked at the ratings for their 10 p.m. shows and lamented that it has become impossible to build a true, breakout hit at that hour anymore.
No hits at 10 p.m.? How about Thursday at 10 on MTV? For most weeks this winter, about six million viewers 18 to 49 (the prime age group for most advertising sales) have flocked to “Jersey Shore,” a number that would constitute a blaring hit by almost anyone’s measure.
Nothing at 10 on any broadcast network on any night of the week comes anywhere near that six million figure. In fact, fewer than five shows in all of the rest of television (other than sports) have averaged that many young-adult viewers this season.
On another cable network, the History Channel, a growing hit called “Pawn Stars” has drawn as many as four million viewers between 18 and 49 on Monday nights, posting numbers bigger than “Law & Order: SVU” on NBC and “The Mentalist” on CBS. Dramas like those have managed to attract about 3.8 million viewers in that audience group, the most for network shows at 10.
Indeed, the 10 p.m. time period has become an expensive graveyard for many hourlong network dramas — so much so that one network, NBC, tried unsuccessfully to insert Jay Leno in that hour five nights a week.
NBC had conducted research that mainly blamed the diminishing audiences at 10 on the growing playback at that hour of programs from digital video recorders. But playback of recorded shows does not seem to be unduly affecting shows like “Jersey Shore” and “Pawn Stars” — along with other 10 p.m. cable successes like “The Game” on BET, “Teen Mom” on MTV, “Tosh.0” on Comedy Central and “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” on Bravo, all of which are thriving at 10. In that 18 to 49 age group, of the top 15 shows on cable television last week, eight played in the 10 p.m. hour.