What's Left To Watch On Network TV?

SOMETHING UNUSUAL HAPPENED AT THIS summer’s Television Critics Association press tour, an event where networks hype their upcoming slates to the media.

- Judy Berman

During Fox’s presentation, journalists voiced concerns about Almost Family, a new drama that recalls several real cases of fertility fraud. The show opens with the revelation that a doctor ( Timothy Hutton) has inseminated dozens of women with his own sperm, without their knowledge. Critics who had seen the show detected an incongruously breezy tone for a story of what several described as a medical rape. Seemingly caught offguard, creators Jason Katims and Annie Weisman promised to address Hutton’s character. But they also insisted his actions were beside the point; the salient theme, they said, was family.

I don’t think the show’s creators intended to make light of rape. Yet at a time when such story lines invite close scrutiny—and for good reason—Fox’s apparent failure to foresee a backlash comes offas bafflingly clueless. It all felt emblematic of a more general sense, in recent years, that broadcast networks have grown out of touch.

Network prime-time ratings have been plummeting for quite a while. In the 2000s, cable channels started pouring money into the kind of original scripted comedies and dramas that broadcast networks largely abandoned when the reality- TV craze hit. More recently, juggernauts like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead have beaten out dozens of network series as two of the most-watched scripted shows among viewers ages 18 to 49; in that demographic last year, Thrones outperformed even football.