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Hammocking is a technique used inbroadcast programming whereby an unpopulartelevision program is scheduled between two popular ones in the hope that viewers will watch it, using the analogy of ahammock hanging between two strong and established trees. Also related is the concept oftent-pole programming, or using popular, well-established television shows scheduled in pivotal time periods to boost the ratings of the shows around them. Used especially for new shows, hammocking is limited toprime time, where "appointment television" is strong.
The main theory in play is that audiences are less likely to change channels for a single time slot. Presupposing that there are three available time slots, the weakest show would, under a hammocking strategy, be placed in the middle slot so that itslead-in, the show that airs before it, is a series popular enough to create acoattail effect when a viewer leaves the television on the same station; to keep people watching, another popular series is positioned in thelead-out slot after the weak show, so the viewer has reduced incentive to change the channel. These strategies depend on the general phenomenon ofaudience flow.[1] The strength of the final program then presumably leads into the latelocal news, followed bylate night programming, with the hope the channel remains unchanged after bedtime to allow a network affiliatetelevision station to have strong ratings for its morning newscast leading into the network'smorning show. This creates ahalo effect with the schedule in general to build network and affiliate station loyalty with a viewer.
Public broadcasting also uses this as a way to promote serious but valuable content. Hammocking may lead to situations where even if programs remain weak, audience rating will be high. However, there is a risk. If the middle show is too weak, the audience could change the channel altogether even if they “would have stayed if the two popular programs had formed a block.”[2]
Hammocking has been fairly reliable over the years. It was largely discovered by accident in the late 1950s:Michael Dann is credited with developing the concept afterDecember Bride, thought to be a major hit at the time, under-performed when it lost its lead-in,I Love Lucy.[3]
Trying to hammock programs that have little in common with each other can have unusual consequences:TNBC, a block of programming NBC carried during the 1990s that had been aimed at teenagers, had a lead-in fromWeekend Today, a news program targeting those teens' parents. By the end of TNBC's run, after the block's teen viewership had declined, the average age of those recognized by theNielsens as watching TNBC was 41 years old, driven mainly by the lead-in fromWeekend Today.[4]
British networkITV used a hammocking strategy for itsgame showevent seriesRed or Black?, under which each episode in its first season consisted of a pre-recorded segment and a live final round, with a second program (such asThe X Factor) aired in between.[5][6][7] The British comedyBritain's Got the Pop Factor... and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice used hammocking for comedic effect in support of its satire ofreality talent competition shows, with its two parts (which depict the final performance and results shows of a singing competition) being hammocked on itsChannel 4 premiere by a documentary on the special's creatorPeter Kay.[8]
In some cases, the middle show becomes a hit.NBC used this strategy for years with itsMust See TV Thursday night schedule, where the strong series on the night,Friends,Seinfeld,Frasier,Will & Grace andER, provided two half-hour hammock spots in the night where newer sitcoms were positioned in order to provide strength throughout the night and build the network's bench on other nights if they proved successful. Many of the programs were critically derided for poor writing and acting and "floating by" on the ratings of other shows (The Single Guy andUnion Square being the most prominent and higher-rated examples). So dominant was Must See TV, that a common industry joke of that era was the comparison of the hammocked shows to NBC instead placing atest pattern in the half-hour between the end of one top-of-the-hour show and the start of the other, and garnering equivalent ratings for much less effort and cost.[9]
The WB had a similar experiment with an hour of hammocking on Mondays after7th Heaven and before the local news or off net syndicated programming. Examples of7th Heaven/local program hammocking includeSavannah,Buffy the Vampire Slayer (until it was moved out of the hammock spot in 1998),Three,Kelly Kelly,Alright Already,Hyperion Bay,Rescue 77,Safe Harbor, the second season ofZoe,Brutally Normal,Roswell (until its move toUPN),Angel (until it was moved out of the hammock spot in 2002),Just Legal,Related andRunaway. The sole exception isEverwood, because the show draws much more of an audience with7th Heaven than the hammock programs.
In the 2003–04 season, NBC experimented with a new hammocking format withDonald Trump'sThe Apprentice, which aired betweenFriends andER. "Much was made of the ratings forThe Apprentice, but in truth, even in its protected spot, it lost almost 4 points compared with theFriends lead-in and 2 points compared withER. Moreover, when moved to the unprotected Wednesday night slot, it dropped into the bottom third of the ratings."[10]
NBC's effort to hammockThe Jay Leno Show between its prime time lineup and local affiliates' late local news was a failure, as the late local newscasts saw massive ratings declines,[11][12] as did the shows following those late local newscasts, particularlyThe Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.[13]The resulting dispute led to Leno being given backThe Tonight Show's time slot, and the brand as well after an unhappy O'Brien left NBC in February to starthis own series on TBS.
Recently, ABC attempted to hammock programming afterModern Family and a drama after (in this case, eitherRevenge,Designated Survivor, orA Million Little Things), to middling or little success. More recently, CBS made an attempt to hammock programming betweenNCIS andNCIS: New Orleans, which proved somewhat successful. Examples includeBull (a series featuring formerNCIS regularMichael Weatherly) andFBI (which launched aMost Wanted spin-off as a hammock end to the Tuesday evening schedule at the start of 2020).
TheSuper Bowl has regularly been used as an opportunity to take advantage of the massivelead-out audience the game produces. Through the early 1990s, most attempts to launch new series in the slot had been failures,[14] after which networks became more likely to air highly-anticipated episodes or premieres of an already-established series rather than series premieres (although there have still been exceptions to this practice).[15][16][17][18] During the Super Bowl itself, theSuper Bowl halftime show is a hammocking event; until the early 1990s, the Super Bowl halftime consisted of conventionalhalftime show fare such asmarching bands and troupes such asUp with People.[19] More effectivecounterprogramming against Super Bowl halftime beginning in 1992 forced theNational Football League to treat the halftime as a more serious matter, and from 1993 onward, the slot was given to concerts by major pop stars, a tradition that has continued for three decades after.[20][21] Beginning in 1997, the NFL expanded its halftime concert strategy to itsThanksgiving contests, themselves the most-watched regular season games.[22] By 2026, the NFL had grown confident enough in the strength of the Super Bowl's domestic ratings and the unlikelihood of a major counterprogramming attempt that it shifted its focus to acts it hoped would expand the global audience, controversially choosingBad Bunny (a Spanish language reggaeton/trap artist whose international following is stronger than his domestic) to headline theSuper Bowl LX halftime show.[23] The choice indeed drew a modestly succesful counterprogram in the form of theAll-American Halftime Show, acountry music concert that diverted several million viewers away from the official halftime show.[24]