ABSTRACT

Over the last 20 years, NBC has worked hard to maintain its dominance on Thursday evenings with a series of programs that it promoted heavily as “Must See TV.” Individual programs changed over the years from The Cosby Show, Cheers, and L.A. Law to Seinfeld, Friends, and E.R.. However, the network ensured that it drew enough viewers by maintaining some of its hit shows as anchors for Thursday evenings. It placed new shows, often of a similar type, to follow ones that had already become established hits. The powerful block of programming also discouraged the rest of the networks from placing shows of a similar type to those offered by NBC on this evening because of worries that they might not do well.