Strike Threatens Season--Stoddard

If the strike by TV and film writers continues until June or July, it could force the three major networks to start their fall seasons as late as November, ABC Entertainment President Brandon Stoddard said Monday.

That in turn could make viewers seek alternatives to the networks, whose audience already has been eroding because of competition from cable TV, independent stations and videocassette recorders, and cause “the possible loss of a couple of more (audience) share points for the networks.”

“It’s not a happy thought,” Stoddard said on an occasion that should have been happier for both him and ABC. When ratings are released today for the prime-time season that officially ended Sunday, they will show that ABC finished second after three years in third, behind NBC and ahead of CBS.

Stoddard, whose network hasn’t formally said when its new TV season will start, said he personally thought the new season will start in mid-October or late that month because of the writers’ walkout, now in its seventh week. NBC would not be hurt as much by a late start because it begins its telecast of the Summer Olympics on Sept. 14, and then it has the World Series to air in October.

Although Stoddard was chipper in manner, his downbeat forecast was the first public prediction on the strike’s effect by a top network executive. It came here at a press conference held via satellite with TV writers around the nation.

As he spoke, negotiators for CBS, ABC and NBC, some 200 production companies and the Writers Guild of America held their first full bargaining session since March 10. It ended quickly.

A guild spokesman here said the federally mediated talks in Los Angeles broke off after 20 minutes when the management side refused to budge from its “final” offer made on March 6.

Discussing non-strike matters, Stoddard said Dolly Parton’s first-year variety series was in what he called a “disappointment area” for him, as was “Moonlighting,” now in its third season.

However, he said, neither can be counted out for next season. Talks are under way about the future of the two programs and what direction they might take if renewed.

Stoddard expressed pleasure about the outcome of this season but didn’t gloat. The second-place finish was good “but it isn’t that terrific,” he said, noting that ABC actually would have come in third were it not for the help of its telecasts of the World Series, the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics.