‘War’ Miniseries Falls Short

An estimated 75 million Americans watched the first 18 hours of ABC’s $110-million “War and Remembrance,” but its ratings did not meet the network’s guarantees to advertisers, according to figures released today.

The network had no comment on how much the shortfall would cost ABC, but executives had previously estimated that even if the epic miniseries version of Herman Wouk’s novel met its ratings commitments, ABC would still lose about $20 million on the project. The miniseries averaged an 18.6 rating for the entire seven nights, according to the A. C. Nielsen Co. Industry reports indicate ABC was committed to a 20.2 average rating.