Apr 24, 2016 5 min read

Congratulations, Cleveland, you finally beat Pittsburgh.

At least on the couch.

The latest quarterly Nielsen survey of electronic people meters reveals Cleveland residents watch the most television of any major city in the country – five hours and 47 minutes per day. That’s an enormous number of hours devoted to TV, especially when you consider that the daily number is averaged out over seven days – and Friday and Saturday are low-viewing days.

Pittsburgh was second, followed by Detroit, Baltimore and St. Louis.

Nielsen offered no rationale for the statistics. It’s likely winter weather played a role (San Francisco was at the bottom of the list), as well as the fact that all of the top five are sports towns, which may account for some additional time in front of the small screen. It may also be true more tech-savvy cities devote more time to streaming series and that cities with older populations are still likely to get their news from television rather than social media. Certainly, Pittsburgh and other similar cities have retained more local TV news viewers than areas with a younger population.

And here’s a real stunner. In smaller cities that still use set meters, Birmingham, Ala., was No. 1, with 6 hours and 27 minutes of daily viewing. I’m not sure there’s any rationale that can explain that one.

Since the 1980s, Hollywood has begun its lucrative summer movie rollout in May. Now television’s summer season is starting, too. While the small screen summer lineup isn’t nearly as profitable or as high-profile as its big screen counterpart, it’s crucial to keeping viewers in the network – as opposed to cable – habit.

Sunday night, HBO launched its summer series with a knockout punch of “Game of Thrones,” “Veep” and “Silicon Valley.” Networks begin their counterprogramming Monday with the return of the CW’s “Reign” and CBS’s strangely muted final season of “Mike & Molly.”

Then it’s game on – literally. If there’s a trend this summer, it’s the networks’ return to a former summer staple – game shows. Once popular because they were cheaply produced and didn’t require viewers to give up their summer nights on a weekly basis to be enjoyed, their resurgence can be credited – or blamed – on last summer’s success of “500 Questions.”

On tap, in addition to the return of “500 Questions” (May 26,) are “Whose Line Is It Anyway” (May 23), a revival of “To Tell the Truth” (June 14), “Celebrity Family Feud” (June 26) and yet another revamp of $100,000 Pyramid (June 26). From what I can gather, “Hollywood Game Night” has been promoted to the regular season.

Game shows notwithstanding, the summer’s juggernauts will be reality shows, especially the long-standing summer champ, “America’s Got Talent,” which is adding Simon Cowell to the judge’s table (Howard Stern has bowed out). While Cowell will no doubt bring in additional curious eyeballs beginning May 31, it will be interesting to see if he’s as sharp-tongued as he was on the much more serious-toned “American Idol.” Also, AGT’s popular child act component may have been blunted somewhat by the success of “Little Big Shots.”

Other reality series returning include “Undercover Boss” (May 15), “The Bachelorette” (May 23), “So You Think You Can Dance (May 30), “Masterchef” (June 1), “Big Brother” (June 22), “Battlebots” (June 23) and “Bachelor in Paradise” (Aug. 2). Joining the fray beginning May 17 is “Couples,” a new dating series from Mark Burnett.

The high-profile “Under the Dome,” is gone, of course, and its relatively quick demise (not enough episodes for syndication) may have stunted the proliferation of summer dramas. But there are a few worth noting. Steven Spielberg is executive producer of the promising “American Gothic”, which comes along June 22, while “Good Wife” creators are contributing “Braindead,” beginning June 13. For its dramatic entry, Fox offers “Houdini and Doyle” beginning next Monday.

Of the few returning summer shows, “Aquarius” is being given extreme stunt programming – a two-hour premiere June 16 with absolutely no commercials – just a quick news break. Also on the short list of summer returnees are “Wayward Pines” (May 25), “Mistresses” (May 30) and “Zoo” (June 28). And NBC has made the unusual decision of returning “Night Shift” to the summer schedule after it failed as a mid-season replacement. CBS will also finally air the last season of “Person of Interest” beginning May 3.

You’d think that the late-summer success of “The Carmichaels Show” last year would have prompted multiple new sitcoms. You’d be wrong. Fox has something called “Famous” starting June 12, while ABC has a TV version of the old John Candy film, “Uncle Buck” beginning June 14. That’s it.

No doubt, one of the reasons for the early summer launch is that the back end of summer will be dominated by two weeks of Summer Olympics coverage on NBC.

A few failed shows from the past season will be burned off over the summer, too. No doubt, they will still be popular in Cleveland and Birmingham.