ABC Cites the Losses From Advertiser ‘Defections’

How about this for an episode for “thirtysomething”: advertisers prescreening TV shows?

The announcement from Bob Iger, president of ABC Entertainment, stirred a hearty round of laughter from TV reporters Sunday during a press conference at the Century Plaza.

This idea was in response to the network’s recent decision--for “economic reasons”--not to rerun one of last season’s “thirtysomething” episodes in which two gay men were seen talking in bed, presumably after sex. Several advertisers had prescreened the November show and departed, taking their money with them. ABC feared similar reaction if it rebroadcast the program.

Iger said that his staff researched the question of advertiser “defections” and discovered that they had cost the network $14 million last season. “It surprised me,” he said.

He broke that down to “more than a million” lost on the “thirtysomething” pullout and more than $1 million on a TV movie about Rock Hudson. About $9 million of the losses were for movies of the week, the rest for regular series.

John Sacret Young, executive producer of “China Beach,” said Monday that there had been an advertiser pullout from a February episode of his ABC series in which the character Holly had an abortion, and that the episode has not yet been scheduled for rebroadcast. An ABC spokesman said that it was unlikely that the network would be putting the episode on again this summer.

Iger, ordinarily one of the most soft-spoken of TV executives, wasn’t about to take any bad raps: “It’s a sorry state of affairs, in my opinion, when advertisers are acting as skittish as they are,” he said. “It’s funny, the networks seem to get a lot of the grief for it; the sponsors are the ones that should really get the pressure in some cases. It’s ridiculous.”

Meanwhile, ABC said that one of the most rousing (and profitable) movie series of all time--the adventures of archeologist-adventurer Indiana Jones--is being developed into a weekly series for the fall of 1991.

Iger said that agreement had been reached with Paramount Pictures and film producer George Lucas for television rights. The working title is “Young Indiana Jones.” It will focus on Indy at age 10 to 15, said Iger, adding that it isn’t cast yet.

Other shows in the works as possible mid-season replacements include “Stat,” an ensemble comedy set in an emergency ward in an urban hospital, from “Barney Miller” co-creator Danny Arnold, and “The Principal,” starring Randy Quaid as an iconoclastic junior high school principal and widower whose home life consists of his three children and his father, played by Jonathan Winters.