The reports of the death of the sitcom have been greatly exaggerated… Well, maybe not quite, but close. The form is definitely on life-support with only a handful of new shows debuting this fall to join an already anemic line-up.

It’s no secret that ,for over a decade, reality and game shows have eroded away audiences from scripted programming. One of the sad side effects of these shows is audiences have become conditioned to have shorter and shorter attention spans. How is a show like Samantha Who? able to find an audience against a show like Wipeout? One show is about the travails of a woman who suffers from amnesia and is forced to find out who she really is. The one-liner on the other: People fall — definitely short and pithy, and far easier to grab in a bouncy promo, especially when you throw in funny sound effects when people slam their heads or get hit in the groin.

Despite this phenomenon, reality and game shows typically don’t syndicate very well. Face it — they’re hard enough to sit through once, much less five nights a week. Given the fact that sitcoms like Friends and Seinfeld make studios hundreds of millions in syndication, it’s essential networks find a new breed soon…hopefully before six-season hit Two and a Half Men is forced to change its name to Two and Three Quarter Men.

With a dearth of fresher sitcoms available to air, TBS has resorted to “classic TV” on its schedule. Episodes of The Honeymooners, Bewitched, and The Beverly Hillbillies appear on the line-up weeknights to find fertile audiences — and for good reason. They’re still funny…and the concepts are the star.

That was the philosophy when so-called “high concept” shows were created back in the late ’50s and 1960s, when an upstart named ABC tried to compete against behemoth networks CBS and NBC. In order to compete with “The Colgate Hour” and Bob Hope, ABC needed to show some pizzazz — especially since they couldn’t afford big-name stars. Hence, the birth of half-hours likes The Munsters, F-Troop, and The Flintstones. That’s right — way before Family Guy and The Simpsons came the prehistoric family of all families.

The high concept formula works (and consistently works) for a reason: they are instantly accessible. They’re not dependent on a big-name star or a hip writer from a past hit show. The concept is the star.

Oh, and another thing: they last a long time. Bewitched ran for eight seasons, The Beverly Hillbillies nine. CBS actually cancelled the latter while it was still consistently trouncing the competition, but the network president was embarrassed by the rural proliferation it was spawning (including Petticoat Junction and Green Acres). In the meantime, it made them a fortune.

Through the ’70s and ’80s, high concept shows continued to evolve into instantly graspable classics like Three’s Company, Happy Days, and Alf. Another hidden asset of the genre is they rerun forever. Even though it was set in the ’60s, Get Smart is timeless, whereas star-driven 1980s comedy Murphy Brown stayed about as fresh and relevant as a week-old loaf of Wonder Bread.

It wasn’t until 1990 when ABC officially abandoned the whole TGIF concept in favor of programming “smarter” comedies like Cheers, Seinfeld, and the return of the single-camera comedy. At that point, the classic 8 o’clock comedy was dead…until Disney discovered the need and picked up the ball in a big way, with shows like Phil of the Future, The Suite Life with Zack & Cody, and the daughter of all high-concept sitcoms: Hannah Montana. A cottage industry was quickly founded on a simple premise: an average teen lives a secret life as a pop star. At my house, it runs in a continuous loop because my nine-year-old daughter hides the TIVO remote. No fool is she.

Of course, not every high concept show can become instant hits (remember Homeboys from Outer Space on UPN?). But in an ever-expanding world of Dancing with the Stars and Million Dollar Password, sitcoms need all they can get to stand out from the pack.

Now is not the time to develop The David Schwimmer Show. Audiences aren’t hungry for familiar faces; they’re hungry for a fresh idea. And while we’re on the subject — it’s worth repeating: TV makes stars — not so much the other way around. The entire “Must-See TV” line-up contained nothing but fresh faces — including Cheers, Friends, Night Court, Will & Grace, and even ER.

If you build it, they will come. But it all starts with an idea.

One can imagine what it must have been like for a young Sherwood Schwartz when he went into CBS in 1963. Kennedy was dead, the country was in turmoil, and Schwartz’s hottest credit was staff writer on The Red Skelton Show. But he had this notion of reinventing Laurel & Hardy on a desert island.

It all started with a three hour tour…