The Nineties/Useful Notes: Difference between revisions

* As for the [[Networks]], [[NBC]] was pretty much king of the roost thanks to its lineup of [[sitcom]]s. [[FOX]] had ''[[The Simpsons]]'', ''[[The X-Files]]'' and its massive sports contract to fall back on, and [[CBS]] and [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] were pretty much neck-and-neck at the bottom. ABC did have a success story with TGIF, though. 1995 saw the birth of [[The WB]] and [[UPN]], and while neither would reach the mass appeal of the Big Four, they would ultimately be successful within their own niches (teenagers and young adults for the WB, and African-Americans for UPN). Cable was still largely a wasteland of reruns, syndication, cooking shows and movies, with the few channels that did become popular ([[MTV]], [[ESPN]], [[HBO]], [[Cartoon Network]], [[Nickelodeon]]) doing so by carving out their own niches instead of trying to compete with broadcast television. The common joke about cable was that it was "[[Bruce Springsteen|57 channels and nothin' on]]." It was only at the end of the decade when HBO started debuting shows like ''[[The Sopranos]]'' and ''[[Sex and the City]]'' and proving that cable was a viable outlet for popular original programming.