If you look at a list of the most-watched TV shows of the 1990s, you’ll find that 7 of the top 10 were situation comedies.
Any fan who lived through this period will tell you that this decade was the golden age of three-camera, live studio comedy.
Shows like “Seinfeld,” “Friends,” “Home Improvement,” “Family Comedy” and “Roseanne” average nearly 30 million viewers per episode, a number that would make any network executive think they’d be better off by 2024 Dance with joy.
By 2000, hour-long dramas and reality shows had taken over the television landscape, with only Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond among the top 10 most-watched shows of the year.
These viewing trends have persisted ever since, but sitcoms continue to show signs of life over a long period of time.
“The Office” and “Modern Family” switched gears, adopting a true documentary style and ditching the laughs.
In doing so, they seemed to breathe new life into the art form.
Then the 2010s saw the emergence of a trendy new brand of TV comedy.
Shows like Community, New Girl, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine keep things fresh for a new generation of young people.
But in the 2020s, television’s oldest genre is showing signs of becoming obsolete.
Of course, the big four networks are still delivering high-quality comedies:
“Abbott Elementary,” “Ghost” and several other new situation comedies were successful with critics and audiences.
Watch Abbott Elementary School online
New companies like St. Denis Medical and Happy’s Place are also off to a good start.
But in 2024, broadcast networks will be offering far fewer situation comedies than in previous years.
Several current comedies are reboots or spin-offs from previously successful series, such as Night Court and Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage, a trend that reflects a reluctance to take risks. Once considered the safest type.
There are many factors behind this trend:
Watch Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage online
For one thing, cable TV and streaming are not subject to FCC standards and practice guidelines, which means that when it comes to comedy, HBO, Netflix, and others can give writers more freedom.
So in the world of edgy humor, networks can’t push the envelope that far.
Of course, TV shows have an easier time shaping storylines into the serialized, season-long plots that audiences seem to prefer today.
Then there’s the rise of reality television, which seems to have taken over the place that light-hearted situation comedies once held in millions of American households.
In fact, Americans are so divided right now that we can’t even agree on what’s funny and what’s not.
When “Seinfeld” and “Home Improvement” dominate, they typically draw more than 30 million viewers each week.
With such a large audience, there must be some significant overlap.
But it’s hard to imagine that millions of modern viewers would be equally amused by the plight of Manhattan singles and Midwestern families.
Both shows may have found a sizable market today, but the kind of broad cross-demographic appeal they enjoyed in the ’90s is almost certainly a thing of the past.
Yes, situation comedies are no longer as dominant in today’s television landscape as they once were, for a number of reasons.
Maybe it will eventually make a comeback. But for now, TV dramas and reality shows are the dominant force in broadcasting.
It’s a shame because it seems most of us have experienced enough drama and reality by the time prime time rolls around.
What we can really use is sharing a laugh with our neighbors. Or at least to the studio audience.