CBS - SERIAL DRAMAS BECOME A TOUGH SELL

SERIAL DRAMAS BECOME A TOUGH SELL

Serial dramas are suddenly finding audiences steering away from them, with CBS yanking Smith, starring Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen, from its schedule, NBC moving Kidnapped to the graveyard of Saturday night and ABC losing five million viewers for Lost. San Francisco Chronicle TV columnist Tim Goodman observed today (Monday) that ABC's plan to put Lost on hiatus for 13 weeks beginning next month in order to avoid repeats might backfire. (It's being replaced during that period by yet another serial drama, Day Break, starring Taye Diggs.) "What if five million more people don't come back?" Goodman asks.

09/10/2006