The Great Spring Grasp

In a sign of how tough times are in the television business, networks have become so desperate to hook viewers that they’re trying to reach out of the screen to grab them--or at at least it’ll seem that way with ABC and NBC both using 3-D gimmickry during the crucial May sweeps.

With stakes higher--and network ratings lower--than ever before, programmers will duke it out during the ratings period in a big-budget shootout that will see broadcasters busting out all over, including high-profile movie premieres as well as a seemingly unprecedented number of miniseries.

The survey period, which begins Thursday and runs through May 21, is the most important of four conducted annually for local TV stations, which use the outcome as the basis for negotiating advertising rates into the fall.

As a result, the networks will offer seven miniseries, among them NBC’s mythological epic “The Odyssey” and CBS’ “The Last Don,” based on “The Godfather” author Mario Puzo’s novel; movie premieres that include “Forrest Gump” and “The Mask”; and reunions such as CBS’ “Dukes of Hazzard” movie and “Knots Landing” miniseries.

In what’s now a May tradition, five long-running series--ABC’s “Roseanne” and “Coach,” Fox’s “Martin” and “Married . . . With Children,” and NBC’s “Wings”--will carry their final original episodes next month.

Less conclusive series milestones include the birth of the Buchmans’ baby on “Mad About You” and the coming out on “Ellen.” Even those once-freckled teenagers who call “Beverly Hills, 90210” home get into the act by graduating from college (this is the show’s seventh season, after all) on the last night of sweeps.

There will also be various guest-casting come-ons, such as “Star Wars’ ” Mark Hamill landing on “3rd Rock From the Sun” and a “Friends” cameo by Robin Williams and Billy Crystal timed to plug their movie “Fathers’ Day,” which opens a day later.

With network ratings declining to record lows (ABC, CBS and NBC now account for just half of prime-time viewing on an average night, after combining to reach 76% of the audience a decade ago), there’s a broad consensus within the industry that it’s less than ideal to squander so much high-profile programming in such concentrated fashion.

Two miniseries go head-to-head both May 11 and 18, for example, with “The Last Don” premiering opposite ABC’s rendering of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” while a week later “The Odyssey” faces CBS’ frontier saga “True Women.”

Similarly, ABC has scheduled its six-hour version of Stephen King’s chiller “The Shining” in three parts beginning Sunday, with the final two hours to air next Thursday versus prime-time’s scariest competition, “Seinfeld” and “ER.”

Network officials lament that so much of their best (or at least biggest) stuff must wait until May instead of being shown during the fallow periods before sweeps in March and April, when competition would be less intense and ratings probably higher. For now, however, they’re playing by the existing rules.

“I think you’re going to keep seeing it as long as we live under this sweeps scenario where May is so important to the stations,” said Kelly Kahl, CBS’ vice president of scheduling. “In a sense, everyone’s afraid to be outdone. Unfortunately, the loser is the audience.”

Yet the networks also hope the audience has been conditioned now to expect a lot to watch once a sweeps month rolls around.

“I’m sure viewers were asking ‘What’s the big deal about May?’ ” said Alan Cohen, ABC’s executive vice president of marketing, regarding the splashy on-air promos that have been touting the approach of sweeps for several weeks. “After doing that for a few years, people know there are a lot of big events.”

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There is method, or at least strategy, behind the madness. ABC, currently in third place among the networks, will front-load the sweeps with its biggest guns, “The Shining” and “Forrest Gump,” anticipating that they in turn will promote programs that follow. (ABC stations in more than 100 cities are even giving away four-day weekends at the Colorado hotel that inspired King to write “The Shining.”)

ABC’s 3-D promotion will feature “elements” within eight of its series, including “Home Improvement,” “The Drew Carey Show” and “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.” NBC’s 3-D hoopla surrounds the season finale of “3rd Rock,” which airs May 18.

“We’re hoping even if people don’t have the glasses they’ll be curious to see what it looks like,” said Cohen, who acknowledged that having two networks trumpeting 3-D stunts “probably raises the awareness on both of them.”

Not that there’s any sort of cooperation involved. While both networks insist their 3-D will look better than what’s been seen on television before, because each uses a different technology, glasses distributed in conjunction with ABC’s promotion won’t work on the “3rd Rock” episode, and vice versa.

NBC is spending $1.3 million to produce the “3rd Rock” 3-D sequences alone, which account for only about 15 minutes of the hourlong episode. Segments include an homage to the Terry Gilliam movie “Brazil” and an elaborate musical number.

“My goal is [that] it looks so good you won’t even care if you have the glasses,” said director Phil Joanou, whose credits include the movie “Final Analysis.” “I always looked at the glasses as icing on the cake. . . . We’re not doing spears coming at the lens.”

That episode precedes NBC’s sweeps centerpiece, “The Odyssey,” which the network commissioned after its surprising success last year with a new version of “Gulliver’s Travels.”

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The real chess game played out during sweeps, meanwhile, involves counter-programming--that is, deciding what to put on against attractions like “The Odyssey” and “The Shining,” which (based on past ratings for “Gulliver’s” and earlier King adaptations such as “It” and “The Stand”) seem destined to be sure-fire hits.

CBS goes against “The Odyssey,” for example, with “True Women”--a historical western that should have more appeal among women and in rural areas. ABC will parry both with the Demi Moore-Michael Douglas feature film “Disclosure.”

If executives guessed right, those programs will each attract a slightly different audience segment and perhaps even increase the number of people watching network television overall that night.

“In terms of everybody countering each other, we’ve done a pretty good job,” CBS’ Kahl said. “These are some event-loaded weekends. I would hope it would be to all of our benefits.”

Fox has opted to sit out the game of dueling miniseries, instead relying on its regular programs, including cliffhanger episodes of “The X-Files,” “Melrose Place,” “Millennium” and “New York Undercover.” The network also has a promotion tying in series with a telecast of the Jim Carrey film “The Mask.”

Many cable networks save original productions till after May, once the networks exhaust their war chests and hit series are in reruns. The Turner-owned TNT and TBS networks will be carrying more than 40 NBA playoff games over the next four weeks--coverage that drew 2.3 million households on average in 1996, outscoring all other cable outlets.

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The Last Episodes

Five long-running sitcoms end their network runs next month, due to declining ratings and rising costs. Set those VCRs for:

“Martin” May 1, 8 p.m. Fox

“Married With Children” May 5, 9 p.m. Fox

“Coach” May 14, 8 p.m. ABC

“Roseanne” May 20, 8 p.m. ABC

“Wings” May 21, 9 p.m. NBC