Michael Phelps’s eighth gold medal win broke another record, when the telecast catapulted NBC to its best Saturday night ratings since 1990, with almost 40 million tuning in watch him and the U.S. team win the 4×100m medley relay at the Beijing Olympics.

The full Saturday night telecast on NBC averaged 31.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. NBC said the last time it got an audience that size on a Saturday night was February 24, 1990, when 31.4 million viewers watched Empty Nest.

“This event shows the pipes work and that if you put on great programming that people want to watch, then they’ll show up,” NBC Universal president and CEO Jeff Zucker told CNBC.

The only wonder here is why it took anyone so long to realize Saturday night has the potential to be one of the hottest nights of the week.  Instead, it’s a dump ground of reruns or a junkyard of failed series left to burn off episodes no one wants to watch.  When did Saturday become “The Island of Misfit Toys” and, more importantly, how do we get the networks to start programming a night where such iconic classics like All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Love Boat, Fantasy Island, and Golden Girls used to flourish?

It’s been almost a decade since the demise of last vestige hits, including NBC’s Sisters, starring Sela Ward and Swoozie Kurtz, as well as the pre-Shield Michael Chiklis vehicle, The Commish.  Soon after, the other networks had all but given up entirely on the night, either airing old movies or lame specials to simply fill up the time slots.  Eventually, NBC coined the dreaded phrase “repurpose” as a way to recoup costs on expensive shows like the last season of Friends.  The campaign went something like: “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you.”

And so it goes… Presently, not one of the four major networks use the night to launch anything they believe in — and fledgling CW doesn’t even throw its hat in the ring.

Back in the early ’70s, Saturday was the original “Must See TV,” with CBS dominating the night starting with All in the Family, M*A*S*H, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, followed by The Carol Burnett Show.  By the late 1970s, Aaron Spelling hit with Love Boat and Fantasy Island, as viewers found true “escape” entertainment, not to mention kept mainstays like Charo and Leslie Uggams working.

The time has come for networks to realize Saturday night is prime real estate simply waiting for a little urban renewal.   If this summer Olympics proved anything, people are home, waiting, willing and able to watch something interesting other than what they already have Tivo’ed or Netflixed…and the executive who figures that out and starts programming a night of fresh faces and innovative ideas will go down as a pioneer.   You heard it here first.

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