I agree! Especially with a show like The Pretender. Bring it back!

The network excuse of money is a lot of crap. What they really mean is their slavish need to only create programming for the 18-49 group trumps anything else (of course, that does relate back to money since advertising are even more slavish about the 18-49 group). Saturday used to be a night a great television. A lot of it family oriented, some of it adult oriented. In addition to the shows already mentioned others like The Golden Girls and Murder She Wrote were top 10 hits right to the end.

The oldKevin Costner movie comes to mind, "Build it, and they will come." Saturday should be a no-brainer for family entertainment. If there's one group advertisers love more than the 18-49 group, it's the 'tweens. Networks have just become lazy. It won't be long before original programming will only be on Sunday through Thursday. Friday is nearly a wasteland for all networks with the exception of CBS, which has found moderate success with Ghost Whisperer, Medium, and Numbers. Dollhouse may be an interesting series but Syfy is beating them on a regular basis. Smallville and Ugly Betty are barely present. I'm surprised Fox hasn't given the night back to their affiliates.

My weekend is during the week, so for me and several other like me in the retail industry, we come home on Saturdays after a long work day and watch TV. I'd love original programming on Saturday nights again.

Part of what "mdk" says above makes no sense: Levinson is not talking about "artistic vision" but about the networks' failure to make good business decisions. And the "bean counters" have always had the real power in network TV (as is also true at GM, etc.) and aren't a recent phenomenon at all. Even so, I agree that traditional broadcast TV may be as antiquated as newspapers soon.

Levinson just doesn't seem to get that there just is no respect for great artistic vision like his in Hollywood anymore. The bean-counters and brain dead marketing people have taken over totally since the corporate sector was ceded total control over the supposedly "public" airwaves back in 1996. Think back and it becomes obvious that is the exact date when TV and began its decade long slide into total mediocrity and irrelevance. If it doesn't maximize corporate profits over the course of a quarter, it's not going to happen. Sorry to bring the doom and gloom Barry, but TV is as dead as newspapers at this point.

Yes. They could move some stuff around a break up the problems I have on Tuesdays and Fridays. Too many shows no dvr. There is nothing on tv on saturdays. I usually watch my netflix and play the Sims2.

I'm okay with not having anything to watch on Saturday. As TV-addicted as I am, I recognize that I at least need one day to take a breather from it all. And even then either I go out with friends or watch shows I've recorded from the week or my Netflix DVDs.

I'd at least DVR the worthy ones. But, as long as they show some good repeaters on Saturday, I'm pretty satisfied. There are a couple of nights that have more worthy TV than I'm able to record.

Great points. I wonder what the program would be to really reel people in to get them to watch? Sci fi has done a good job with Friday evening shows but even they don't do anything on Saturday nights. Perhaps it will be a cable channel like USA or FX that leads the way here. I don't see NBC or a major network running this.