Also, because the program aired at 9 p.m., it was competing in one of the most heavily watched timeslots on the commercial networks. Although "The National" and "The Journal" had faced commercial competition at 10 p.m., they had been much more successful at carving out their own niche because in that time slot, almost all of the commercial networks were airing drama series. At 9 p.m., "Prime Time News" had to compete with popular sitcoms such as "Cheers", "Frasier", "Seinfeld" and "Murphy Brown".