'FRIENDS'

By JENNIFER FREY
WASHINGTON POST
Kramer. Ross and Rachel. Alex P. Keaton. Arnie Becker. The Huxtables. Capt. Frank Furillo. Dr. Greene.
Norm and Cliff -- and the place where everybody knew their name.
For the better part of two decades, NBC's Thursday night characters have been a shorthand guide to American popular culture, instantly recognizable names that prompted Thursday night appointment television and Friday morning office recaps.
Remember the "Friends" episode when Ross and Rachel finally kissed? The time Rosalind Shays fell to her death in "L.A. Law's" elevator shaft? The night the cast of "Cheers" called it quits? (You probably do, since 93 million viewers tuned in to see it.)
The marketing whizzes at NBC smartly branded the night "Must-See TV," and viewers followed their directive, making NBC's Thursday the most popular -- and profitable -- night of television.
Until, perhaps, now.
As "Friends" -- a cornerstone of NBC's Thursday night popularity -- begins its 10th and final season this week, network executives can debate over and over who ruled Thursday nights last season (are you counting total viewers? total households? the coveted 18-to-49-year-old demographic?).
But the bottom line is, for the first time since the early '80s, NBC has a serious Thursday night challenger: CBS. And one of the greatest success stories in prime-time television is threatened with extinction.
An evening captured
"NBC has brilliantly and seamlessly maintained dominance for 20 years," says Robert Thompson, founding director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.
"They managed to capture an evening, Thursday, the success of which transcended the very shows that made Thursday a hit in the first place. That was really the extraordinary thing they did."
But can the network pull it off one more time? Many are skeptical, including Thompson. NBC has one season to find a new Thursday night "tent pole" -- the industry term for a show so popular it carries viewers through less-popular shows that follow or precede it. And NBC has to do it with CBS going after it full throttle.
"NBC has been successful because they had 'Seinfeld,' they had 'Cheers,' they had 'ER,' they had 'Hill Street Blues,'" says Les Moonves, CBS president and CEO.
"Now, it's been a real horse race between NBC and us for that night. ... That's their strongest night, and that's our strongest night."
After years of networks' putting up mainly throwaway shows against NBC's daunting Thursday lineup, CBS started its assault in 2001 by putting "Survivor" up against "Friends." Early on, "Survivor" beat "Friends" in the Nielsens in spring 2001. But "Friends" remained solid and won its time slot last year.
The challenger
CBS' real success came when "CSI" overtook "ER" as the most-watched drama last season, regularly winning the 9 p.m. time slot in total viewers. Now CBS is going after "ER" by doing everything possible to lure new viewers to its 10 p.m. missing-persons drama "Without a Trace," which beat "ER" during summer reruns.
Even Moonves (who, ironically, played a major role in developing both "ER" and "Friends" while at Warner Bros.) does not expect "Without a Trace" to upend NBC's hold on 10 p.m., but the demise of "Friends" makes things difficult for NBC.
"The bell has sounded," says independent TV producer Warren Littlefield, who spent 20 years at NBC, the last nine as president of the entertainment division.
"You're down to ... 18 half-hours of 'Friends,' and the call for a replacement is loud and clear. ... You've got one year. It's critical."
Littlefield would know. He remembers what it felt like when "Cheers" was about to go off the air in 1993 and "Seinfeld" had not yet revealed itself as a breakout hit.
"Like a noose tightening around my neck," Littlefield says. Now that noose belongs to the current president of NBC Entertainment, Jeff Zucker, who swears he doesn't feel it.
"The fact is, we actually feel very confident about Thursday night because we already have a 'Friends' replacement in place," Zucker says.
He is referring not to "Coupling," the ensemble show that debuts Thursday at 9:30 p.m., but to "Joey," the "Friends" spinoff starring Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribbiani that is expected to air at 8 p.m.
Still, Zucker knows he's in the hot seat. As he himself said in a 90-minute tribute that NBC aired in May 2000 to commemorate 20 years of Thursday night success: "There is nothing like having the pressure that comes with having to make sure that Thursday night remains 'Must-See TV.'"
Significance
The mere existence of a tribute speaks to the significance of NBC's Thursday night dominance in television history, even if it was NBC plugging itself in prime time (as part of its 75th anniversary celebration).
"As 'Hill Street Blues' gave way to 'L.A. Law' gave way to 'ER,'" says Thompson, "you can really understand all you need to know about the history of prime-time television by simply looking at what happened on NBC on Thursday nights from 1983 to 2003."
Years before NBC came up with the "Must-See TV" marketing slogan, the evening was pitched as "the best night of television on television," a nod to both the popularity of the programming and the smartly written dramas that drew critical acclaim.
It started with the 1981 debut of "Hill Street Blues," the gritty, realistic yet humorous police drama that was unlike anything else on television at the time.
Unquestionably, though, the program that truly transformed Thursday for NBC was "The Cosby Show," the half-hour sitcom about the Huxtables of Brooklyn that captured the imagination of America with its lovable, realistic portrait of the American family, headed by the immensely popular Bill Cosby. The show quickly became one of the most popular sitcoms in television history.
Littlefield remembers when the network taped the pilot, just days before announcing the 1984 fall schedule.
"I called Brandon Tartikoff," he says, referring to the man who, along with Grant Tinker, is credited as the main architect of NBC's Thursday night success, "and I said, 'I think we have a monster hit.'"
He was right. "Cosby" started strong and, by its second season, debuted with an incredible 57 ratings share.
"Cosby" was followed at 8:30 p.m. by "Family Ties," starring Michael J. Fox as Alex P. Keaton, strait-laced Republican son of two extremely liberal parents.
"Cheers" -- which would win four Emmys for best comedy -- clocked in at 9 p.m., followed by the daffy "Night Court." "Hill Street Blues," at 10 p.m., stayed on the air until 1987.
"The miracle is that there have been other great lineups in the history of television, but this one continued to be the No. 1 must-see lineup even after every show that started it was over," Thompson says.
That one night's success started a major turnaround at NBC, which went from being the No. 3 network to No. 1 by 1986. It also did wonders for NBC's bottom line: Thursday night is the biggest night for TV advertising revenue, driven in large part by last-minute, high-cost ads for theater movies opening on Fridays.
One after another
Soon, NBC seemed unstoppable. In the 10 p.m. time slot, "Hill Street Blues" seamlessly gave way to wildly popular "L.A. Law," which was then replaced in 1994 by "ER," the most popular drama on television for eight straight seasons.
Success wasn't as effortless when it came to the sitcom slots, but somehow everything always seemed to work out. After "Cosby" bowed out in 1992 and its replacement bombed, "Cheers" (with temporary reruns at 8 p.m. and new shows at 9) carried NBC for a season, followed by the unexpectedly hip and popular "Seinfeld."
By the time "Seinfeld" came to a close in 1998, "Friends" had blossomed from a semipopular 8:30 p.m. offering into a national phenomenon that opened NBC's Thursday night lineup at 8 and made huge stars out of its six cast members.
Those shows also marked the network's shift from the family-oriented "Cosby" and "Family Ties" to what Littlefield describes as the "sophisticated, smart, urban, young adult comedy that goes to the heart of NBC appointment comedy."
The problem has been the merry-go-round of mediocre or unsuccessful shows (like "Caroline in the City," "The Single Guy," "Leap of Faith") that have aired at 8:30 p.m. "Scrubs," which airs in that time slot now, is a solid comedy, but it's no tent pole.
And so NBC is banking on "Joey," a show it hasn't even filmed a pilot for. But, as Zucker points out, it is using a formula that has worked before in the form of "Frasier." Unlike the unsuccessful spinoffs by former "Seinfeld" characters, "Joey" will keep the same character from the original show, as did "Frasier," and use some "Friends" writers as well.
"There are no guarantees in anything," Zucker says. "This is as solid a bet as you could make at this point."
He adds, "I'm a pretty firm believer that everyone wants to know what the next 'Friends' is, and I'm a pretty firm believer that you can't know what the next 'Friends' is until 'Friends' moves on."