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Okay, so let's get this straight: A usually unspeakable euphemism for doody is acceptable prime-time fare, but "repeat" is a dirty word?Well, it's looking that way.
One day after CBS allowed Chicago Hope to (euphemistically) drop the S-bomb on viewers, comes word that the Big Four networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) are considering dropping the word "repeat" from their vocabulary.
Nothing's official yet, but the talk is that the nets may stop highlighting repeat episodes on the broadcast schedules they provide to listing services--i.e., the companies that make the TV books that make your Sunday paper.
Why?
The networks, um, sort of don't want you to know when they're airing a formerly seen Friends.
You see, while you may find it useful to be informed that, say, next week's ep is of the slightly used variety, suits like NBC's Alan Wurtzel tell the Los Angeles Times that the label "repeat" presents "an artificial barrier to viewing."
Translation: They're afraid you won't even bother to tune in if you know in advance that it's old.
To be fair, cable networks never tell anybody when they're resorting to repeats. Of course, maybe that's because aside from the rare exceptions, they're always airing repeats. According to the Times, USA even labeled a telecast of NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as the "series debut"--even if the thing aired two weeks prior on the Peacock.
But unjustly treated or no, can the networks really ban the "R" word?
Maybe, maybe not.
Certainly, they're not going to be able to stop and/or order media outlets--magazines, Websites, newspapers, etc.--from pointing out when they're trotting out reruns. But they may be able to stifle the info from being inserted into that handy-dandy TV book that arrives with the Sunday newspaper, or that handy-dandy TV grid that runs in the daily newspaper.
"For us, it's not going to be business as usual," says Steve Tippie, of Tribune Media Services in Chicago.
Tribune creates the daily and weekly TV listings that reach 30 million readers in newspapers nationwide. While the company could resort to its own database to figure out which shows were new and which weren't, Tippie says Tribune probably wouldn't make a direct end-run around the networks' wishes because, well, they're clients, too.
Says Tippie: "We're sort of in the middle in this."
Or as they say on Chicago Hope: Shit happens.
