High-Flying ‘Dove’ Won’t Keep CBS Out of Third

Struggling CBS was all cheers Thursday over the unexpectedly high ratings for its miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” with Broadcast Group President Howard Stringer joking that the show “maybe outlawed trash television.”

The acclaimed Western, whose success prompted Stringer’s remark in a memo to staffers, may well prove the season’s most-watched miniseries.

But CBS’ glee was tempered by the probability that, “Lonesome Dove” notwithstanding, the once dominant network will still repeat last season’s third-place finish in the prime-time ratings.

Also tempering the ratings glory was the fact that CBS had sold the four-part, $20-million “Dove” to advertisers with a minimum ratings guarantee that proved well below the 26.1 that the show actually averaged during its run Sunday through Wednesday.

CBS, advertising sources said, had guaranteed a rating of 18.6 for the Sunday debut of “Dove,” and a 17.6 average for its next three nights. The show actually got a 28.5 rating on opening night, a 23.8 on Monday, a 24.8 on Tuesday and a 27.3 for the conclusion Wednesday. Each rating point represents 904,000 homes.

It could be argued that CBS underestimated the potential of “Lonesome Dove,” but the network shouldn’t be criticized on that count, said Richard J. Kostyra, executive vice president of the J. Walter Thompson USA advertising agency here.

“Because, if they had walked in and said it was going to do a 28.5,” he said, referring to Sunday’s ratings, “we would have laughed them out of the office. We wouldn’t have bought it.”

He noted that the first installment on Sunday was up against NBC’s TV movie “Full Exposure: The Sex Tapes Scandal” and ABC’s showing of the feature film “Ruthless People,” “and there was major concern that (“Lonesome Dove”) couldn’t deliver the ratings.”

That concern proved unfounded. According to CBS, the ratings for “Lonesome Dove” made it the 14th highest-rated miniseries in TV history and the third highest-rated miniseries since 1984. It was seen in nearly 23.6 million homes.

ABC’s “Roots,” aired in 1977, is still the champion, having averaged a 44.9 rating over eight nights.

CBS Entertainment President Kim LeMasters described “Dove” Thursday as “that shot in the arm we really needed.” But the shot probably won’t prove strong enough for CBS to escape No. 3 status when the prime-time season ends in May.

Until “Dove,” CBS had trailed second-place ABC by 1.4 ratings points, said David Poltrack, CBS’ chief research and marketing executive.

The race will be tighter with “Dove” ratings and those expected for coming CBS offerings, he said Thursday, “and I think it’s going to be competitive. But this is not enough to put us into second. I think we’re still going to be third.”

He conceded that CBS had underestimated the ability of “Dove” to soar in the Nielsens. “I don’t think anyone expected it to do quite as well as it did, and we were conservative in our estimates.”

At least that was happy news for CBS. Such wasn’t the case last November for ABC’s first 18-hour installment of its $110-million “War and Remembrance,” which was $20 million in the red even before it aired.

That World War II saga cost ABC an additional $3 million, advertising sources said, when it averaged an 18.6 rating, which was 1.6 points below what ABC had promised advertisers. ABC will air the rest of the miniseries this spring.

During an International Radio and Television Society lunch appearance here Thursday with his programming counterparts, NBC’s Brandon Tartikoff and ABC’s Brandon Stoddard, LeMasters of CBS heard praise for “Dove” from them--and got a Western hat from them.

(He also heard audience boos. After a discussion of network standards, LeMasters was kidded by Tartikoff about the show’s rape scenes, and joked: “They were tasteful rapes, though.” After the boos, a chastened LeMasters immediately said, “I do apologize. That was an unnecessary remark.”)

Tartikoff, whose network is widely expected to again be No. 1 in prime-time ratings when this season ends, told the society lunch listeners that he found it nice to see a well-done show “bring an audience that size back to network television. . . .

“I think it’s also healthy for the miniseries form to see that kind of audience not just come in the first night, but to make the eight-hour commitment” that “Dove” required.

What was the significance of the “Dove” ratings success?

A certain renewed confidence by Madison Avenue in the audience-getting potential of the miniseries, advertising executive Kostyra said.

“Our memories tend not to be too long,” he said. “I think it’s safe to say that just a few weeks ago miniseries tended to be high-risk, primarily as a result of ‘War and Remembrance.’

“And that”--the lower-than-expected ratings ABC got last November--”is what we tasted in our mouths, probably. . . . I think that ‘Lonesome Dove’ rekindled the confidence in miniseries.”

That rekindling, he added, applies to the network and TV production communities, as well as to advertisers.

The networks were still bullish on miniseries even before “Lonesome Dove,” though. This was CBS’ seventh this season, a spokesman said, and two more are due in the spring, one of them the dramatization of the story of retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North.

Senior ABC executives have said “War and Remembrance” is the last mega-miniseries it will make. There is general industry agreement that the norm now is four or six hours, save for exceptions such as “Lonesome Dove.”

ABC has two miniseries still due this season, plus the six-hour “The Kennedys of Massachusetts” in the wings for next season. It says it has 26 other miniseries projects, most of them four hours, in various stages of development.

NBC, which also has two more miniseries scheduled this spring, and approval to make six more next season, has an additional 20 in development, according to Tony Masucci, the network’s senior vice president for movies and miniseries.

“There was no plan here to cut back on the number,” he said by phone from Burbank, “although we did cut back on the number of hours each one would occupy.”

NBC’s Masucci emphasized that there are and will continue to be exceptions to what has become the norm for miniseries length.

“I think if ‘Shogun’ had never been done, and it showed up on our desk today, we’d feel there’s no way you can do that in four hours,” he said of the hit NBC miniseries that aired in 1980. That program played 12 hours over five nights.