Harry Shearer Quotes

Television can be a very fickle place.

Television viewers, they've been around a long time. They've been watching this thing now for 50 years. I mean, they know exactly what's happening when it comes to television programming. You can't put anything over on them anymore.

NBC programs great shows; it just doesn't have the eyeballs CBS does.

They don't have a lot of appointment viewing. What television depends on, one thing 'Larry King Live' was - whether you liked it, didn't like it - it was appointment viewing.

You know how trends go with television. Next year, the networks might not be open to taking risks.

I usually just watch YouTube videos or reruns on Netflix of older TV shows like 'Family Guy' and stuff. But I still really want to start watching more TV.

Television is not an easy medium, as keeping the audience glued to the TV screens day after day is something which requires a lot of effort.

When 'Blue Collar TV' was on the 'WB,' we were their second-highest rated show, but they didn't know what to do with us. They had 'Reba,' which was number one, and we were number two, and they didn't want to be known as the hayseed network, so they kind of dropped us, even though we were pulling great numbers.

A show needs time to find an audience, and they're very quick to pull them off the air now.

There's not a lot of really great, deep, serialized television, and we can see from the data that that's what people want.

7th Heaven is quite a hit for them now, and they are hoping to appeal to a very similar audience with our show; skewed slightly older I guess, since it's a 9:00 to 10:00 show.

We'll never see national shows with 45 shares again.

I think people connect better with TV. stars over film stars.

I think television is a big commitment, so it has to be something that you're really excited about and something that you want to potentially commit a lot of time to.

'Parks and Rec' is definitely a mainstream show - the group that watches it on TV on Thursday night is small, but the audience that watches it on things like Hulu, Netflix, and Tivo is enormous.

Television is really fertile ground, and it's because of platforms like Netflix and Hulu and, of course, the cable channels like HBO and Showtime.

I think NBC got a little reluctant to get behind single-camera shows after 'Scrubs' didn't do what they thought it was going to do following 'Friends.'

I do think there was an age of television back in the '90s that was a little bit more wholesome.

Network TV is such a difficult, competitive landscape.

There seems to be a vulnerability at the networks in late night. They are losing more and more audience, particularly young viewers who are now looking at cable television. 'Tonight' is an old show. CBS has reruns, and having a public affairs series like 'Nightline' on ABC is a big mistake.

The reason for certain shows not doing well or as per expectations is that they were not aired on not so popular channels.

A lot of people make hay about 'American Idol's ratings and 'Empire.'

TV always wants more people to be watching.

The Simpsons will end as soon as Fox is able to find an 8 p.m. comedy hit to replace it - so I give us another 50 years.

Apparently, when Twin Peaks was on the air in Spain, something like 50 percent of televisions were tuned to it.