Why your favorite TV shows get zapped

"We asked the creators [of 'Fastlane'] to put together for us a new 21st-century, young-adult, police drama," says Gail Berman, president of Entertainment, Fox Television. "These are two undercover cops who are dealing with all kinds of real-life situations, or real-life crimes, in a stylized way," Berman says. "We want to make sure it feels vital to the young-adult audience that it's being scheduled for."

In the face of shows like this, a question that pops up in the minds of loyal viewers of such classy hits as "West Wing," may be this: Why do the networks mess around with so many mediocre shows on the air when really great shows like this are a big hit with all ages? Here's where another industry assumption about who you really are when you watch TV comes into play.

Keeping it simple: It may (or may not) surprise you to hear that groundbreaking TV is not necessarily what programmers are trying to put on the air. "For the vast majority of the television audience, TV is what they do after they get home after a long day at work or after being with their kids all day," says Susan Lyne, president of ABC Entertainment. "It may be something they do with multiple interruptions.... Something that is overly complex and overly demanding may not be what most of our audience is dying to watch."

Killing off the competition: How about the issue of putting your favorite shows smack up against each other? Why do that? The urge to pit hits against each other to duke it out for the prime-time slot may seem like an obvious business move, but this season, the issue of race gives this tactic an additional bite as well.

ABC and Fox have come under fire for a move that some predict could kill the only two prime-time black shows on the major networks, "Bernie Mac" and "My Wife and Kids." Both are now set to air Wednesday at 8 p.m. Fox executives say they moved "Bernie" because it was a solid hit and they hoped to help their lagging eight o'clock hour.

"These two shows are actually broad-based hits," says Mr. Grushow. He says they looked closely at the audiences for each and calculated that there's only 25 percent duplication among African-American audiences, so the shows should survive the face-off. That being said, Grushow adds, "we really don't feel like we're under any obligation to ensure the success of any of our competitors' shows."

So, why does any of this matter? Isn't TV just something we turn on for fun or, occasionally, news? A recently published study suggests that people who see only negative images of themselves – or no images at all – develop a negative self-image which can, in turn, affect their health.

Given how widespread TV is, experts say people need to pay attention to the reasons some images get on the air – and others don't.

"Demographically based marketing has so positioned each of us in a stereotypical fashion that even though we don't accept it personally, it cannot help but shape us personally," says Robert Snyder, senior partner at the Mature Market Group, a division of J. Walter Thompson Worldwide. The influence is even more powerful with young people, the very ones most prized by networks.

"They are more impressionable and haven't developed their values or finalized how they're going to guide their lives."

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