Let’s talk about something fresh and relevant: network television.
Let’s also do something that nobody on blogs ever does, let’s write an article that ranks things on an all-time basis. Let’s rank the three major American television networks on an all-time basis, their whole body of work, top to bottom – has anyone ever done that? (I just looked. Doesn’t seem like it, so we’re good to proceed.) Let’s consider each network’s full catalog, from day one until the present, from early morning cartoons to daytime soaps and game shows to news programming to prime time comedies and dramas to late night shows, let’s look at all of it and determine who’s been the best network from start to finish since network TV is soon to be dead. Let’s use “let’s” at the beginning of every sentence, too.
But how do we go about ranking the networks? What criteria will be applied? How can you really tell who’s done the best job over all these years?
I’ll tell you how: we’re gonna play this by ear and make it up as we go (I think the professionals call that “winging it” or “improvising” or “being lazy as hell”) and then probably wring an accompanying (read: repetitive and non value-added) podcast out of this too. You”ll see, let’s just dive right in, shall we?
Section I: “Your Top 5 Vs. My Top 5, Let’s Do This”
Let’s kick this thing off by lining up each network’s top five programs from throughout its history so we can see whose best is best…
NBC: Seinfeld, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Cheers, Hill Street Blues
CBS: I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, All In The Family, 60 Minutes, The Late Show With David Letterman
ABC: Nightline, Thirtysomething, Monday Night Football, Roseanne, The Fugitive
First of all, holy shit, ABC, those are your top five shows of all time? That’s almost damning enough to warrant immediate disqualification – those shows are so unimpressive. Almost. This thing is equally weighted between both depth and breadth, so we’ll need to see the quantity of good shows that ABC has to its credit before we render a final verdict.
Most importantly, though, that CBS top five is really hard to argue with. I mean, come on- The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy and All In The Family? That’s New York Yankees-style history right there, I’m talking Mount Rushmore of TV. But that might be the key word here: history. As we’ll see, CBS’s best shows may have come early on in its history and, in addition to breadth and depth, we’re also evaluating on consistency and longevity as well. (See? Making this up as we go isn’t such a bad way to do this thing.)
And you could actually make the case that NBC’s top three of Seinfeld, SNL, and The Tonight Show (Johnny Carson only) are every bit the equals of the CBS big three. You could make a really strong case, actually.
Post Section I Rankings:
- CBS
- NBC
- ABC
Section II: Major Genre Analysis
Let’s break this thing down along another dimension or two (or four or five) and look at how each network has performed in specific areas of programming like comedy, drama, late night shows, soap operas, game shows, cartoons, etc.
Let’s start with comedies (excluding any previously mentioned shows in the top five):
Notable NBC comedies: Friends, The Cosby Show, Frazier, Laugh-In, 30 Rock, The Office, Family Ties, Will and Grace, Diff’rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, The Golden Girls, Mad About You, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, I Dream of Jeannie, Night Court, Parks and Rec, The Monkees
Notable CBS comedies: The Andy Griffith Show, MASH, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Two And A Half Men, The Carol Burnett Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Everybody Loves Raymond, Hogan’s Heroes, The Jeffersons, The King of Queens, Hee Haw, How I Met Your Mother
Notable ABC comedies: Taxi, Bewitched, Three’s Company, Happy Days, Leave It To Beaver, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Eight is Enough, Barney Miller, The Brady Bunch, Benson, Coach, The Donna Reed Show, Full House, Who’s The Boss?, Welcome Back Kotter, My Three Sons, The Love Boat, Laverne and Shirley
Wow, CBS. Your notable comedies since the 80s are Everybody Loves Raymond and Two and a Half Men. Not great, not great at all. ABC, meanwhile, has shown a pretty good level of consistency over the past fifty plus years, sporting iconic television shows in almost each decade. However, as is with CBS, they have absolutely nothing to speak of in the past decade and a half. And so, almost by default, NBC seems to have comedy wrapped up, especially if you lump in SNL and Seinfeld with the rest. The Cosby Show and Friends may only rank #5 and #6 on NBC’s all time list, but they’d be #1 in their respective decades at either CBS or ABC. But let’s move on to dramas before we start rolling up another ranking.
Notable ABC dramas: The Fugitive, Twin Peaks, Lost, NYPD Blue, Grey’s Anatomy, Dynasty, The Lone Ranger, The Practice, Life Goes On
Notable CBS dramas: Gunsmoke, Dallas, Murder She Wrote, Perry Mason, The Waltons, Magnum PI, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Knott’s Landing, The Dukes of Hazzard, Falcon Crest, Mission: Impossible, Hawaii Five-O, The Incredible Hulk, The Twilight Zone
Notable NBC dramas: St. Elsewhere, ER, Law and Order, The Rockford Files, The West Wing, Dragnet, Bonanza, Friday Night Lights, Little House on the Prairie, Miami Vice, LA Law
Maybe this is just me, but most network television dramas tend to suck. My grandmother liked most of the dramas listed above. She also graduated from 6th grade and quit school to go to work. But if we’re going to have to adjust our running rankings based on dramas, let’s focus back on CBS. As with most of their shows, CBS seems to be lacking in any real dramatic content once we get past the 1970s. I sense a common theme here. I’ll give ABC credit for Twin Peaks, that took balls and vision to put David Lynch on the air, so kudos to them for that one.
Taking this and the results from the comedy analysis, I’d have to say that the rankings, as of now, look like this:
- NBC
- CBS
- ABC
Section III: Minor Sub-Genre Analysis
This is where we account for all the other types of shows that give a network character, stuff like game shows and miniseries and soap operas and cartoons. These things are important. Well, they used to be important.
Best cartoons/Saturday morning programming:
NBC: The Smurfs, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Saved By the Bell, Land of the Lost, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Astro Boy
ABC: Scooby Doo, The Jetsons, The Flintstones, The Buggs Bunny Show, Jonny Quest, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, The Mickey Mouse Club
CBS: Pee Wee’s Playhouse, Tom and Jerry, Captain Kangaroo, Mighty Mouse, Fat Albert, Buggs Bunny/Roadruner Hour, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Space Ghost, The Monkees
Sub-genre winner: It’s hard to argue with ABC’s powerhouse lineup, especially that big three.
Most notable Soap Opera(s) for each network:
NBC: Days of our Lives
CBS: The Young and the Restless, As the World Turns, Guiding Light
ABC: All My Children, General Hospital
Sub-genre winner: I don’t know, CBS?
Best Game Shows:
ABC: Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Let’s Make a Deal, The Newlywed Game, The Bachelor
NBC: Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, The Match Game
CBS: Survivor, The Price is Right
Sub-genre winner: NBC’s one-two punch of Wheel and Jeopardy, no question.
Best News/Variety/Late Night/Miniseries/Whatever Else Is Left:
CBS: 60 Minutes, Late Night with David Letterman, The Ed Sullivan Show, Lonesome Dove, The Jack Benny Program, Miss USA/Miss Universe Pageant, The Red Skelton Show
NBC: The Today Show, Meet the Press, Unsolved Mysteries, The Dean Martin Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Miss America Pageant
ABC: Roots, Monday Night Football, North and South, American Bandstand, Lawrence Welk, Oprah, Good Morning America, 20/20
Sub-genre winner: ABC in a landslide
Final Analysis and Rankings:
You tell me…
Kidding – I kid! It’s a tough call, really. As we’ve gone through most of the major aspects of the networks, each one has shown strengths and weaknesses. I’d say that CBS was the clear front-runner at the dawn of the TV age, but they were handily passed over by NBC once we made it to the late 70s and 80s. ABC seems to have been the most consistent and well-rounded network, but, in the end, that’s not enough to surpass CBS and their impeccable legacy.
Final Rankings:
- NBC
- CBS
- ABC
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