Ohlmeyer’s Aim: Restore NBC’s Pride

Probably Don Ohlmeyer’s ace card as the new entertainment boss of troubled NBC is that he doesn’t need the job. It’s a long-shot task even for a gambler. And Ohlmeyer, a well-known independent producer, may well be rolling the dice plenty in his attempt to salvage the hemorrhaging network.

If he comes up snake eyes, there’s no telling the future of NBC, which is often rumored up for sale and has recently lost Johnny Carson, Bill Cosby and David Letterman from its roster of regular performers. An admission by NBC News Tuesday that it had staged a flaming crash of a General Motors pickup truck on its “Dateline NBC” series was yet another serious, embarrassing blow to the network’s shaky reputation.

The network’s confession further damaged NBC’s overall image just as Ohlmeyer has been charged with restoring it. And although the news division is not his domain, he says the crash-staging incident “is not unrelated” because “one of our goals is to try to combine news and sports and entertainment for the most interesting programming.” He maintains that NBC’s eventual reversal and admission of the “mistake” was a positive step, but says it was “an unfortunate incident.”

“Dateline NBC” airs in prime time, which will be the focus of Ohlmeyer’s rebuilding efforts.

Of his new entertainment role at NBC, Ohlmeyer, 48, who was a sports protege of the visionary ABC executive Roone Arledge and helped transform “Monday Night Football” into a national pastime as its producer, says: “The most important thing Roone taught me is that you can’t be afraid to fail.”

Ohlmeyer, who has won 14 Emmy Awards, including one for the 1983 drama “Special Bulletin,” first came to NBC in 1977 as the executive producer of sports. “When I went to NBC Sports,” he says, “they weren’t in the best of shape either. I think the year before I got there, NBC Sports made $3 million. And the year I left (1982), we made $52 million.”

But it’s a different network world Ohlmeyer returned to last week. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, ABC, CBS and NBC were still just about the whole TV ballgame--free-wheeling, high-living and calling most of the shots. No more. A whole world of alternative television choices, from cable to VCRs, has the networks running scared.

“When I was at ABC and even at NBC the first time around, whether the company was run well or run poorly, it still made just an unbelievable amount of money,” Ohlmeyer said in an interview. Nowadays, he adds, “there’s not as much excess” in the operation of networks. Indeed, the NBC network lost an estimated $70 million in 1991.

Yet he is optimistic about his new job as NBC’s West Coast president: “There’s really nothing wrong with NBC that a couple of hits won’t fix.”

Actually, it will take more. In a way, Ohlmeyer is in a position with some parallels to that of Grant Tinker when he, too, returned to NBC in 1981 to try to breathe new life into the network as it suffered through another critical period, at rock-bottom and demoralized. Despite initial ups and downs, Tinker restored confidence in NBC by giving it direction, renewed pride and an all-important sense of calmness.

The hits followed, from “Cheers” to “The Cosby Show.”

Although Tinker was the chairman of NBC, Ohlmeyer’s job also goes to the heart of the network’s future. He speaks of “re-energizing the company. If I’d have been here and been as beat up in public as some of these people, well, it takes a little of your enthusiasm away.”

Reminded of how Tinker set great store in lifting the morale of NBC, Ohlmeyer says: “If I can do for this company what Grant Tinker did for this company, I’ll be the happiest man in the world. One of the most important things is to re-energize talented people and give them the resources and the opportunity to go out and perform their jobs. And I think these people can perform.”

Cheerleading aside, Ohlmeyer says he will have “financial control out here” so he can move quickly. And he has in-house clout. He is a friend of Jack Welch, the chairman of NBC’s parent company, General Electric. He is a friend of NBC President Robert Wright. And he is a friend of Brandon Tartikoff, the former NBC Entertainment president, who was close to the dealings that resulted in Ohlmeyer’s appointment.

Because of his all-around TV experience and connections, there is already talk that a successful performance by Ohlmeyer with the entertainment division could eventually propel him into the company’s top job as Wright’s successor. At the moment, however, the track record is nice, but now he has to deliver.

Ohlmeyer, who has produced television coverage of the Olympics, already has gone on record as favoring “event” programming, and he is vociferously opposed to NBC’s campaign this season to focus primarily on the 18-to-49-year-old audience that advertisers favor.

“The 18-to-49 demographic is the flavor of the month” among advertisers, he says. “But I look at a country where, in five years, the largest segment of the population is going to be over 50. And you know what? Those people have a lot of money. So if I’m an advertiser, I’d kind of like to reach those people.”

While Ohlmeyer talks about “stopping the bleeding” at NBC--”over four years, they’ve lost a third of their audience”--he also says the network has to “develop a vision of what this business is going to look like at the turn of the century.

“I would like to have done something like (PBS’) ‘The Civil War’ on network TV. Compared to network shows, it would be inexpensive and there should be a place in our tent for programs like that. We’re not the Discovery Channel, we’re not Bravo, but we need to provide the viewer with a sense that if he comes with us, we’re going to take him on a wonderful journey.”

If Ohlmeyer is clearly an enthusiastic salesman and an apprentice seer, he is also a hard-bitten veteran of the TV wars and knows the value of flat-out commercial hits such as “Cheers” and “Seinfeld,” which, as a new back-to-back tandem, provided NBC with two Top 10 shows in last week’s ratings.

Although “Cheers” is planning to call it quits after this season, Ohlmeyer says, “We’d love to have it around for another 10 years.” While declining to single out NBC’s trademark shows of the future--those that give a network an identity, as “Hill Street Blues” and “The Cosby Show” did--he adds:

“I happen to think that ‘Seinfeld’ is a great show. It’s a show that has taken nurturing, and Jerry is hitting his stride at exactly the time he’s getting the broad-based exposure to the public. I think you’re going to see the public warm to that show.”

In a rather startling showing, “Seinfeld” last week must have thrilled advertisers who buy into the 18-to-49 demographic because the series attracted a higher percentage of that audience--34%--than any other program in prime time. Its lead-in, “Cheers,” had 33%.

As for “event” programming, Ohlmeyer thinks regular series can serve a role, citing a successful Saturday night of the past when three series set in Miami--”The Golden Girls,” “Empty Nest” and “Nurses”--were linked by a hurricane story.

In his dealings as a network outsider for the past decade, Ohlmeyer produced shows for both traditional TV and cable and thus had a first-hand look at the future, which could provide NBC with valuable perspective.

“I remember,” he says, “when I did ‘Cold Sassy Tree’ (for the TNT cable channel), with Faye Dunaway and Richard Widmark. It was the second movie that TNT had done. We did a script. We got about four notes. We fixed it. We went to shoot. (TNT executive) Scott Sassa came out on the set one day to just kind of show the flag. When it was over, we showed them a rough cut. They gave us a couple of notes. We fixed it. And when we were done, we had a screening and three people from TNT were there.

“Segue to a few years later. We do ‘Crazy in Love,’ and at the final screening there were 37 people from TNT. And I turned to Scott and I said, ‘You know, Scott, you’ve really turned yourself into a network.’ ”

Now Ohlmeyer’s goal is to turn NBC back into a competitive network. In addition to sports and dramas, his credits include the reality shows “Lifestories” and “Fast Copy”--which means such series, now in vogue, may be stepped up at NBC. Noting the growing success of ABC’s “20/20” on Fridays, a night of heavy video viewing, Ohlmeyer says: “You can’t go to the video store and rent ‘20/20.’ ”

Ohlmeyer says he also wants to give series earlier commitments “so they can start thinking about the next year and fine-tuning. One of the things NBC did when it came back under Grant and Brandon was it made good programs; it put them in a time slot; it left them alone. It let the other networks make mistakes.

“I want to make this place fun to work at again. It can be fun. You know, they’re having fun at CBS right now. They went from third place to first. They deserve credit. And we’re going to try to beat their brains out.”