"ABC'S programming plans Article"
ABC's programming plans, FORTUNE TEXT EDITION, March 17, 1997
Briefly mentions Sabrina's success.
ABC'S LAME SITCOM LINEUP
How Can Disney Do So Badly with Family Programs?
Henry Goldblatt
ith Disney as its owner, you wouldn't expect ABC to be having trouble with family TV. But Disney, which bought the network in 1995, hasn't yet been able to revive ABC's once formidable lineup of sitcoms. The latest blow came in February, when the network lost Family Matters, the anchor of its Friday night TGIF schedule, to CBS.
What really matters to ABC about Family Matters is not so much that the show will air on another network beginning next fall. This is, after all, an eight-year-old series that definitely looks its age. What actually stings ABC more is the defection of the program's two star producers, Tom Miller and Robert Boyett. The deal they inked with CBS calls on the team to create several new shows for that network. Miller and Boyett are the duo that created many of ABC's biggest comedy hits of the 1980s and early 1990s, including Full House and Perfect Strangers.
Miller and Boyett-type hits are something that the third-ranked ABC desperately needs. Since September the network's ratings have slumped 12% among viewers 18 to 49 years old, the age group most prized by advertisers. Worse, only one ABC show that's likely to return next season is beating its rivals in the critical 8 to 9 p.m. time slot--the teen sitcom Boy Meets World.
So far this season, ABC ratings among teenagers are down 15%. Among younger kids they've slipped 21%. In fact, ABC has scored only one breakaway success in family fare, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.
ABC has a plan to rebuild its family franchise. Entertainment division president Jamie Tarses, hired away from NBC last June, wants to build family comedies around strong adult characters. That means shows that look less like Sabrina and Boy Meets World and more like Growing Pains and Who's the Boss?--in other words, the very sorts of programs that Miller and Boyett produced in the 1980s.
One reason Miller and Boyett fled ABC, aside from the money, was their worry that they would no longer be major players in the land of Disney. ABC has already announced plans to scrap almost all of its established Saturday morning programs and replace them with a bunch of new shows produced by--guess who?--Disney. "We were simply told that, with the new ownership of the company, Disney was going to control Saturday morning," says Greg Meidel, chairman of Universal Television Group, whose popular children's show Fudge was canceled by ABC--and then picked up by CBS.
So who's benefiting from all this turmoil? Not ABC, which is still struggling to regain its former family-time glory. Not the ever stodgy CBS, which shelled out a hefty $1.7 million for Family Matters, a tired program that's been in a ratings free fall. No, the only clear winners so far are Miller-Boyett Productions and its parent, Warner Bros., who've proved it's still possible for someone in the TV business to make a lot of money out of old-style family entertainment.
Any comments mail me at
eric@ezz.u-net.comEric Last, 25/5/97