The CW: Where Sundays No Longer Exist

(MoneyWatch)  Even though Jay Leno's primetime show has been getting all the headlines, another sign of the network TV apocalypse has just come from the CW, which, in the minds of many of us, barely qualifies as a broadcast network. That's because Its qualifications as a network just slipped even more; after various experiments, including last year resorting to running MGM classic movies on Sunday nights, it is dropping any attempt at Sunday night programming, thus reducing its footprint to five nights a week, two hours per night. That's yet another step downward for a network that used to be two networks -- UPN and the WB -- before merging in 2006.

So, NBC has recently recused itself from producing five individual hours of primetime television by moving Leno to the 10 p.m. slot, and the CW has just reduced its need to produce programming by 16 percent. At this rate, maybe in a decade or so, every broadcast network will be reduced to producing one or two popular shows. Fox could just run "American Idol" and "The Simpsons"; NBC could be the Leno network, and so forth. Now that would be efficient.