What's the future of syndicated TV?

At 6:30 pm in my market, only one of the big 4 affiliates runs a syndicated program (ET on KRDO-13, ABC in Colorado Springs. The others are all running local news. Granted, at 6:00, Wheel is running on KKTV-11 CBS, and Big Bang on KXRM-21 Fox.

But local news has seen an increase in time, with KKTV-11 ditching Inside Edition at 4:30 for local news, KOAA-5 (NBC) ditching "OMG! Insider" (or whatever they were calling it) at 6:30 for local news, and KRDO-13 moving syndicated product out of the 4:00 hour in favor of local news. In the case of KRDO-13, I think "The Doctors" was moved from 3 PM to 1 PM, and Judge Judy moved from 4 PM to 3 PM.

With the continued shrinkage of OTA TV viewership share, will the cost of syndicated programming be too much for lesser channels to bear? Or will syndie product go to more of a barter model?

There are way too many talk shows on TV. And 90% of them are extremely boring.

Los Angeles at 6:30 - Channel 13 has The Big Bang Theory, channel 9 has Family Feud, and channel 56 has Rules of Engagement.

First-run syndication seems likely to go the way of the dodo, between news, infomercials, and mega TV groups that produce programs in-house for distribution to only their stations.

First run scripted programs died years ago.
Various types of programs seem to be struggling - most notably talk shows, where Oprah's chair remains vacant despite numerous hosts who seemed likely to succeed, on paper.
"News" programs like ET and Inside Edition have been displaced from prime slots by local news -- in my market both of these programs run in the wee hours.
Only a handful of game shows remain - Wheel, Jeopardy!, Millionaire and Feud are the only ones I can think of, and Feud seems to run primarily on lower-rated stations.

In Chicago, I don't see for the time being first run syndicated programming going away on the big 4 stations. WBBM-TV (CBS) hasn't had a 4pm newscast in many years, because they can't compete with WLS-TV & WMAQ-TV in that timeslot. So in that timeslot, they air Judge Judy. Entertainment Tonight is carried around 6:30pm on the same station. Queen Latifah is on at 2pm, & Dr Phil at 3pm (WCIU, the secondary affiliate carries the previous day's program at 9am). They have only a 5 & 6pm newscasts, each only a half hour.

WMAQ-TV, their only network programs during the day are Today (all 4 hours) & Days of our Lives. Extra is on at 4pm & Access Hollywood at 6:30pm. Meredith Vieira is on at 1pm, Steve Harvey at 2pm, & Ellen DeGeneres at 3pm.

WLS-TV outbidded WGN-TV for 2 programs, with one back in 2013, & the other one this year. Live with Kelly & Michael is on at 9am, which moved to this station last season, forcing Windy City Live to move to 11am, resulting in the 11am news to be dropped (so far has worked against WLS-TV on that part, because WGN-TV's Midday News shot up in ratings when that happened). The same station manager that made sure Live would end up on WLS-TV also outbidded WGN-TV for Rachel Ray, & is now on at 1pm on this station this season. Only time will tell if this works in WLS-TV's favor, as it did not work in WBBM-TV's favor several years back, carrying Rachel Ray in the afternoon. This station manager is practically trying to copy the other ABC O&O stations in what they carry, & might not work in Chicago. Inside Edition moved back to 3pm & Jeopardy back to 3:30pm slot, after ABC's attempt to make Katie the new Oprah flopped (in this case, corporate signed all 8 of their station to carry her show, & force other shows out of the 3pm hour slot). Wheel of Fortune is on 6:30 pm. Local news is on at 4pm for an hour, 5 & 6pm for a half hour each.

WGN-TV doesn't have much in the way of daytime syndicated programming these days (most is off-network syndicated), but Maury is their only show left, & the main show airs at 1pm, with a repeat at 3pm. Tribune is already talking about not renewing their affiliation agreements after the 2016 season with NBC Universal, that Maury might be dropped. I don't know what they'll add. When they lost Live with Kelly & Michael, they expanded the morning news from 4 - 9am - 10am. I don't know what's on at 10, which was former home to Rachel Ray, where the show had worked well, in the morning.

For WFLD, their only network programming is in the 7 - 9pm timeslot, giving them plenty of room to add programming. So they need the syndicated programming. They have news at noon & 9pm, besides their normal morning news.

WCIU is independent, & need syndicated programming to fill out their broadcast day, or we'd see infomercials most of the time.

WPWR-TV is the same way, except for 7 - 9pm, they need syndicated programming.

They will be a need for syndicated TV so any talk about syndication going away is a moot point. Outside of news and network programming most stations would either be off-air or infomercials airing most of the day.

TVCOOL said:

They will be a need for syndicated TV so any talk about syndication going away is a moot point. Outside of news and network programming most stations would either be off-air or infomercials airing most of the day.

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Look at all the newer smaller networks that depend on syndication like Cozi, MeTV, AntennaTV, THIS, etc....they seem to be doing well..I cannot see Honey Boo Boo being syndicated (or Duck Dynasty, etc)..I sometimes wonder how those shows make it to the cable/sat networks in the 1st place but then looking at what is on the OTA major networks, I guess I should not be surprised....I rarely watch any of the major networks except NBC for L&O:SVU and FOX for Sunday night animation...and football of course

Well, Bridezillas and Dog the Bounty Hunter is in syndication. Both reality shows. I think Duck Dynasty could be in weekend syndication, heck no on Honey Boo Boo.

-crainbebo

Off-network sitcoms, especially recent ones, still average high amounts of viewers.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/20...ers-for-week-ending-september-14-2014/306353/

I watch the Two and a Half Men and sometimes Seinfeld reruns a lot. Still funny long after the episode was taped. Lately I have been coming home after work and watching the 2:30PM CW Plus run of Just Shoot Me. Fun seeing David Spade looking like he was 17 again. I haven't seen that show in years, probably since the 2003 NBC cancellation.

-crainbebo

PTBoardOp94 said:

First-run syndication seems likely to go the way of the dodo, between news, infomercials, and mega TV groups that produce programs in-house for distribution to only their stations.

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First-run syndication was merely a stop-gap solution until the cable networks matured. If first-run syndication shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation or Babylon Five or Hercules were produced today instead of many years ago, they all would have been on cable networks. And if The Walking Dead had been produced 20 or 25 years ago, it would have been first-run syndication.

But second-run stripping of former network shows like the Big Bang Theory or Two And a Half Men via syndication will remain common on both OTA and cable networks.

Avid Listener said:

First-run syndication was merely a stop-gap solution until the cable networks matured. If first-run syndication shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation or Babylon Five or Hercules were produced today instead of many years ago, they all would have been on cable networks. And if The Walking Dead had been produced 20 or 25 years ago, it would have been first-run syndication.

But second-run stripping of former network shows like the Big Bang Theory or Two And a Half Men via syndication will remain common on both OTA and cable networks.

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Another factor would have been the startup of Fox, and also WB and UPN which became The CW, and also caused the addition of MNTV, but I also agree with the growth of cable being a factor.

Avid Listener said:

First-run syndication was merely a stop-gap solution until the cable networks matured. If first-run syndication shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation or Babylon Five or Hercules were produced today instead of many years ago, they all would have been on cable networks. And if The Walking Dead had been produced 20 or 25 years ago, it would have been first-run syndication.

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Not entirely correct -- if "Star Trek: The Next Generation" were produced today, it would likely air on the CW, not on a cable network. And while I agree that "The Walking Dead" would have once been in first run syndication, that's an equally true statement for something like "The Vampire Diaries".

First run syndication of scripted programs was killed by the combination of cable and the broadcast mini-networks, and not by cable alone.

TexasTom said:

Not entirely correct -- if "Star Trek: The Next Generation" were produced today, it would likely air on the CW, not on a cable network. And while I agree that "The Walking Dead" would have once been in first run syndication, that's an equally true statement for something like "The Vampire Diaries".

First run syndication of scripted programs was killed by the combination of cable and the broadcast mini-networks, and not by cable alone.

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That's really a minor factor. The stations that are now carrying CW are the same stations that would have been carrying first-run scripted syndicated programs back in the day. But even with the CW as a fifth network, that's only two hours of prime-time programming a day. That's only 14 hours a week. Surely there is more than 14 hours a week of scripted programs on cable than just 14 hours a week!

In many ways, given the crappy signals carrying the CW, if you don't get your local CW station on cable, you don't get it anyway.

TexasTom said:

Not entirely correct -- if "Star Trek: The Next Generation" were produced today, it would likely air on the CW, not on a cable network. And while I agree that "The Walking Dead" would have once been in first run syndication, that's an equally true statement for something like "The Vampire Diaries".

First run syndication of scripted programs was killed by the combination of cable and the broadcast mini-networks, and not by cable alone.

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Ironically, "Voyager" was the anchor show for UPN, United Paramount Network...which became the CW when it merged with the WB..

ContinuousWave said:

Ironically, "Voyager" was the anchor show for UPN, United Paramount Network...which became the CW when it merged with the WB..

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One could almost make the case that competition from cable networks was one of the factors that contributed to the merger of UPN and WB to create CW, which effectively "killed" an OTA network.

ContinuousWave said:

Ironically, "Voyager" was the anchor show for UPN, United Paramount Network...which became the CW when it merged with the WB..

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And Enterprise, the final Star Trek TV series, was on UPN as well. I personally think that if UPN had existed at the time TNG and Deep Space Nine would have been there as well.

Pokemon left first-run syndication for Kids WB, then it moved to Cartoon Network. It's the last 90s first-run scripted syndicated show that's still producing new episodes.

I'm wondering as 2015 starts that perhaps it's now the infomercial that's going the way of the dodo. I don't have any numbers to support this theory, just what I see. Fewer are being produced, mostly from Time-Life, health, beauty, and fitness products, and the occasional house flipper. All the rest have either gone bankrupt, or gone to jail. ION TV - once the infomercial king....the longest block is 5 1/2 hours early Monday mornings....It shrinks from there! Here in LA in the overnight hours are being filled more and more with either sitcoms or re-runs of cable reality shows. Is there a big difference in the hours devoted to infomercials in other cities. Will we wonder were they all went say in two years time?

I still see infomercials for cooking products, like the NuWave Oven, Ronco's Six Star Cutlery Set (has aired for years), and...wait for it...Mick and Mimi's Magic Bullet! I swear that infomercial has aired for 10 or more years straight.
I still miss seeing the Miracle Blade III with Chef Tony, and the Showtime Rotisserie infomercial. Those were entertaining programs. "Set it and Forget It! (R)"

-crainbebo