CHANNEL CHANGES FAILED SEASON PRESENTS TOUGH LEARNING CURVE FOR NETWORKS.

Byline: David Kronke

Television Critic

When the 2006-07 season began, critics liked what they saw, and particularly believed that NBC -- with new shows like "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," "Friday Night Lights," "Kidnapped" and "30 Rock" -- had improved its schedule immeasurably.

Two of those shows have been canceled, and in recent weeks NBC scored its lowest ratings in 20 years, averaging just over 7 million viewers -- one week, the network had just one show, "Deal or No Deal," reach more than 10 million viewers.

This goes along with the general dropoff in television viewership. More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox this spring (about 7 percent less) than the same time last year, numbers show.

The reasons for the decline are many, but the networks didn't help their cause. Though TV executives initially denied it, industry observers worried that the glut of serialized shows would cannibalize one another.

Within weeks, that fear was borne out.

Many also feared that The CW -- the fledgling network created from the picked-over remains of UPN and The WB -- hadn't made enough noise to call attention to its maiden season. When that season ends Sunday, The CW's lineup will be in tatters.

Are there lessons to be learned from such an anomalous and tumultuous year in broadcast TV's history? More importantly, will those running the networks pay heed to those lessons?

Lesson No. 1: Too much of a good thing isn't.

Following the success of "Lost," "Desperate Housewives," "24" and "Grey's Anatomy," the networks scheduled nearly 20 serialized series, both dramas and sitcoms.

"At the beginning of the season, there was not a dog in the bunch," notes Bob Thompson, founding director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television.

"You can't look back at the season and say the networks didn't try to be unique," notes Mediaweek ratings analyst Marc Berman. "Certainly, they tried with creative shows."

Nonetheless, in short order, the serialized shows were picked off, one by one: "Smith," "Runaway," "Kidnapped," "Vanished," "Day Break," "The Nine," "Six Degrees," "Big Day," "The Knights of Prosperity" and "Studio 60" all vanished ignominiously.

"Over and over, I heard people say, 'I already have commitments to "24" and "Lost," and simply don't have the time for more of those shows,' " Thompson said. "That's the first reason so many failed."

("Lost," by the way, has been renewed till 2010, but had only 16 episodes per season.)

"When I was pitching pilots in 2001, you couldn't walk in and say the words 'serialized drama'; they would throw you out," recalls Jeffrey Stepakoff, a TV writer and author of the new book "Billion-Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved 'Dawson's Creek' and Other Adventures in TV Writing." "And now, if you look for trends, it once again will be to stay away from serialized material. There's a real everyone-in-the-pool mentality."

The lesson, of course, should be not to avoid serialized shows but to avoid scheduling 20 serialized shows.

Will the networks learn that lesson?

"Of course not," says Ellen Sandler, author of "The TV Writer's Workbook: A Creative Approach to Television Scripts." "The television business is a copycat business. It follows trends, and there are inherent pitfalls in doing that. While they won't do (serialized shows) next year, they will do a different version of the same mistake."

Lesson No. 2: The shelf life "fresh" is rapidly deteriorating.

The hottest shows of last season -- "Lost," "Desperate Housewives," "Grey's Anatomy" -- all lost viewers by the millions this season, with "Lost" shedding nearly 10 million viewers from the audience it enjoyed last season. Even the breakout hits of this season, such as "Heroes" and "Ugly Betty," weren't luring as many fans at season's end as they had at their peaks.

"There's a pressure to top oneself, and what happens is, perhaps after some of that, a show starts being a parody of itself, and audiences turn away," notes Sandler. "It's hard to maintain something for a long period of time.

"Not everything has the capacity to go on for 10 seasons. ... But the economic model of TV is, go on as long as possible without changing anything."

Stepakoff agrees: "How do you come up with a great, fresh concept and tell great stories every week for five years?"

Lesson No. 3: Life is grim enough.

Perhaps reflecting the tenor of our times, a number of the new series -- even some of the comedies -- were filled with jittery, angst-riddled characters. The shows that succeeded? Fantasies such as "Ugly Betty" and "Heroes," the star-driven procedural "Shark" and the upscale soap "Brothers & Sisters."

Stepakoff recalls, "I was talking with Michael Pillar (who worked on many of the "Star Trek" spinoff series) and asked him, 'How do you account for the success of these shows?' And he didn't mention the science-fiction aspects; he said, 'It's the depiction of a pleasant future that people like.'

"Essentially, that's why people watch television -- empathy or fantasy. They empathize with the characters -- 'I went through something like that' -- or they enjoy the fantasy -- 'Wouldn't that be cool?' "

Lesson No. 4: But that doesn't necessarily mean people want to laugh.

The sitcom suffered through another miserable year, with no new series breaking through to the pop-culture consciousness.

"NBC, in its heyday, opened one season (1997) with 18 half-hour comedies," Berman notes. "Now it has four."

Sandler, who worked on "Everybody Loves Raymond," attributes the problem to a lack of creativity in the genre.

"There've been a lot of copycats -- we've had so many sitcoms follow exactly the same setup as 'Raymond.' With each clone that follows, the format gets weaker and weaker until it becomes transparent and has no potential."

Lesson No. 5: There's no easy fix.

Berman flatly declares, "The CW is a mess." Rather than premiering splashy new shows to create a buzz, he noted, the network, culling from UPN and The WB's lineups, instead brought back low-rated series like "Veronica Mars" and "One Tree Hill."

Of NBC, Berman notes, "Their numbers are becoming comparable to a cable network -- they have a 2 or 3 rating in (viewers aged) 18 to 49. That's pathetically bad."

One of the reasons NBC's numbers are so diminished, Berman says, is that viewers are watching episodes online, on iTunes and on DVRs, none of which figure into the broadcast ratings.

"I think this season sent a message -- all these extra ways of watching TV are taking a toll on the broadcast networks," Berman observes.

" 'Heroes' did well, but not like 'Desperate Housewives' and 'Lost' two years ago.

"If I was sitting in their shoes," Berman concludes, "it would be frustrating."

David Kronke, [phone]

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(1 -- cover -- color) TV 101

5 lessons the networks may never learn

(2 -- 5) In the networks' search for hit TV shows this season, NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," top left, failed to have the drawing power of Kiefer Sutherland's "24," top right, on Fox. But NBC's "30 Rock," right, and "Deal or No Deal," above, have attracted wide viewership in the 2006-07 season.

(6 -- 7) "Heroes," top, and "Lost," above, lost viewers this season.