Wouk’s ‘War’: The Final Chapters : Ad Execs Predict Big Losses for ABC

ABC already has lost about $23 million on “War and Remembrance,” and some advertising executives say the figure is likely to climb with the concluding episodes that begin airing Sunday.

Just as the World War II miniseries failed to generate the ratings that ABC had projected for the first installment last November, so too is the second one expected to fall short of the network’s guarantees to sponsors, these executives maintain.

ABC has promised to deliver an average rating of between 18 and 19 for the final 11 1/2 hours of “War and Remembrance” (which translates to between 16 million and 17 million homes).

“I think the industry consensus is that it’s extremely doubtful it’s going to achieve that level,” Ron Fredericks, a senior vice president at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency’s Detroit office, said Friday.

“Just the fact it didn’t do as well as people expected this last fall would lead me to say it’s not going to do as well as they (ABC officials) were talking a year ago,” said Mel Conner of Saatchi & Saatchi DFS-Compton here.

The first part of “War and Remembrance” averaged an 18.6 rating last November (each ratings point represents 904,000 homes), but ABC had promised advertisers a rating of 20.2.

The lower projection for the May run is not based on the miniseries’ showing in November but rather on the fact that national ratings are generally lower overall in the spring than in the winter, because of better weather that permits people to pursue more activities outside the home.

After the “War and Remembrance” shortfall in November, advertising officials estimated that ABC had to provide sponsors about $3 million in “make-good” advertising time, which the network chalked up as losses beyond the $20 million it already had been expecting to lose.

The main reason for the loss, ABC executives said, was the simple fact that costs far exceeded what could be recouped in advertising revenue. In addition, the decision to rush the first 18 hours onto the air in November, instead of February--sparked by last summer’s writers strike--added about $6 million to the production tab.

Fredericks emphasized Friday, however, that even though much was made of last fall’s lower-than-expected Nielsens, they still “were darn good. They were well above network (ratings) averages and were higher than the Summer Olympics (on NBC) in prime time.”

A similar view was given by ABC research vice president Alan Wurtzel, who said expectations for the first chapters of “War and Remembrance” were “so high that when it did well, but wasn’t a home run, everybody said, ‘Boy, what a big failure.’

“In fact, it did well in the demographics and with the target audiences of advertisers . . . and an 18.6 rating is nothing to sneeze at.”

ABC officials said the show’s closing chapters, sold to many advertisers last year as a November and May package, are fully sponsored. Sources said the ad time is going for $250,000 for a 30-second spot.

No sponsors who bought the two-part package have pulled out, said one ABC official, and Conner said he hadn’t heard of any reluctance in the advertising industry to buy time on it.

The concluding installments of “War and Remembrance” pick up in the year 1943 and cover the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz, D-Day at Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, the battle of Iwo Jima, then Hiroshima and victory for the Allies.

One of the reasons Fredericks said the miniseries may fall short of ABC’s projections is the competition it faces. Sunday’s three-hour opener faces CBS’ high-rated “Murder, She Wrote” and the theatrical film “Witness,” and NBC’s popular “Family Ties,” “My Two Dads” and a new TV movie, “The Trial of the Incredible Hulk.” The first hour must also contend with two Fox Broadcasting ratings-getters, “America’s Most Wanted” and “Married . . . With Children.”

On Monday, NBC is countering it with Tom Cruise and “Top Gun,” and the final episode of ABC’s miniseries at 8 p.m. May 14 will be head-to-head with the final episode of “Family Ties.”

ABC’s Wurtzel, reluctant to say how he thinks “Remembrance” will do in the Nielsens, said that he’s “pretty sure that the people who watched before (in November) are going to come back.”

“We did some research after the show then and found that the viewers who were there liked it and planned to watch it again. I’d love to think that some people who missed it the first time around would check it out now. But it’s really hard to project if they will or not.”