The Real Reason Big Bang Theory Is So Successful

Multi-cam sitcoms (usually filmed with a live studio audience) are dying. The format that brought us Friends, Cheers, Frasier, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Roseanne, and countless others has had its day. In 2017, ABC was without a single multi-cam show for the first time in years (via Hollywood Reporter). Even CBS, which shows Big Bang, is abandoning the format. The trend these days is for single-cam, no-laugh track sitcoms (filmed more like feature films, without live audiences) like 30 Rock, Louie, and Parks and Recreation. Even Big Bang prequel Young Sheldon is ditching the multi-cam format.

The trouble is, people like multi-cam sitcoms. They're comforting. Familiar. Louie may smash boundaries and show us things we've never seen on TV before, but it's not what you want to watch when you're hungover on a Saturday afternoon and you still haven't changed out of last night's underwear. As critic Jaime Weinman noted for Vulture, "There's a high demand for multi-camera — it's intimate and creates the illusion that there's nothing between you and the characters — and right now the supply is low. Fans of Seinfeld and Friends, what do they have besides Big Bang?"

True, there are multi-cam sitcoms other than Big Bang out there, but they're smaller and, as happened in August 2017 to the critically acclaimed The Carmichael Show, prone to abrupt cancellation. Big Bang is only gonna end if it stops making CBS money or if producer Chuck Lorre has a breakdown and vanishes off to Cambodia to become a New Age guru.

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