For the better part of a decade, while drama became more ambitious, and reality shows became more outrageous, comedy had the worst track record in prime time.
As recently as 2008, only two comedies ranked among the top 10 shows at this point in a new television season. Two years earlier, the total was zero.
But comedy has surged back this fall, elbowing past those other genres to reclaim supremacy among viewers. So far this season, sitcoms occupy seven of the top 10 spots among entertainment programs (not counting football) in the category of most financial importance to network executives — viewers ages 18 to 49.
Two shows, “New Girl” on Fox and “2 Broke Girls” on CBS, are brand-new hits. And new comedies have shown promising signs on both other networks: “Suburgatory” and “Last Man Standing” on ABC and “Up All Night” on NBC.
At the same time, several longer-running comedies have expanded their popularity. “Two and a Half Men” on CBS benefited from the publicity that surrounded the noisy departure of Charlie Sheen. Its ratings numbers are up 65 percent (though much came in its first two weeks.)
“How I Met Your Mother” on CBS is up 23 percent, and yet another CBS comedy, “The Big Bang Theory,” is up 8 percent. (CBS has four of those top seven comedies). And ABC’s “Modern Family,” fresh off an Emmy sweep, has improved 25 percent. In the past week, it nudged past “Men” to rank as the top-rated comedy.
In looking for a turning point in the comedy comeback, many fingers point to that three-year-old ABC comedy. Jennifer Salke, the president of NBC Entertainment, said, “ ‘Modern Family’ is at the center of it, just the sheer excellence of it.”
Kevin Reilly, the president of Fox entertainment, said that “Modern Family” seemed to “revive the confidence of the creative community — I definitely feel more vibrancy in comedy now.”
Paul Lee, the entertainment head at ABC, noted that CBS had all along had comedies that were “immensely strong” but, he said “Modern Family” took it “to another level, elevating the genre.”
Part of the reason was the way in which “Modern Family,” achieved success by coming out of nowhere. ABC was moribund in comedy until it secured the sitcom about the daily absurdities visited on three interrelated families.
The pilot was a sensation, validating ABC’s bold scheduling strategy: four new comedies on Wednesday, with “Modern Family” in the center. The show was a hit from its first episode.
That pattern rang familiar to television executives like Warren Littlefield, the former top programmer at NBC, who was around for a previous era of comedy downturn in the 1980s.
“We had come out of the era of the relevant comedies of Norman Lear,” he said, referring to the creator of “All in the Family” among many other comedy hits. “It was a comedy desert. Nobody had transitioned to the next phase. Then Bill Cosby changed all that by illuminating the family comedy with his point of view.”
Mr. Littlefield said “Modern Family” is playing the same role that “The Cosby Show” did in “examining the family, but it’s a family we haven’t seen before.”
Still, timing played a hand. As Nina Tassler, the president of CBS Entertainment, noted, it would be inaccurate to describe comedy as a desert this time, because CBS had several consistent hits, thanks largely to Chuck Lorre, who created three of them.
But as Mr. Lee described it, “comedy had lain fallow for a long time.” Mr. Reilly called the output “truly anemic, except for CBS.”
The cycle of entertainment interest shifted, starting about 2000. Drama soared; reality exploded. But, as usual, after a long run, those genres began to get played out, a trend especially notable this season.
“I feel like the appetite for reality has come down a bit,” said Ms. Salke. “And after shows like ‘Lost’ and ‘24,’ the bigger ideas for drama became harder and harder.”
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