Arts: The 2012 TV Upfronts

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Television The 2012 TV Upfronts The delicious programs ABC will stuff down your gullet come fall. By Troy Patterson Posted Wednesday, May 16, 2012, at 12:06 AM ET In 2008, ABC began the fall season airing precisely one half-hour comedy, Samantha Who?, starring Christina Applegate as Doesn't Matter. In 2009, ABC began the fall season airing four sitcoms. In 2010, a month before the networks announced their fall schedules, the New York Times' Brian Stetler reported of "a renaissance…for the network TV sitcom, which not too long ago was pronounced terminally ill." The piece relayed audience research determining that painful economic times called for belly-aching laughter; it forwarded the notion that 22-minute sitcoms were well-suited to online viewing; and it decided that the unfunny mid-00s were "merely an anemic period." And now we have gone from drought to glut. Today at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, ABC announced that it will begin the fall season airing six sitcoms and expand to eight in November. We in the entertainment press feed on such data avidly, as if making a dinner of passed hors d'oeuvres. This week, in promising an autumn laff-a-thon, broadcasters have behaved like so many tray-laden cater-waiters delivering tidbits to be supped upon, digested, converted into the energy of trends. NBC is adding four comedies for a total of 10. Fox is adding three for a total of nine, if you include animation. CBS is expected to announce just two, but CBS is a special case, as it is clearly both the most successful network and the least funny. What, exactly, did ABC introduce to the alimentary canal this afternoon? Both The Family ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Americans Elect Spends Millions, Doesn't Manage To Pick a Third-Party Presidential Candidate Can Fox Repeat Its New Girl Success With Mindy Kaling? The Wire vs. Treme: David Simon Stages a Battle of the Bands	Advertisement
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