A Glum Season Closes; Lessons for the Fall?

The 1996-97 television season is drawing to a close, probably none too soon for the major networks, which can sift through the wreckage of dashed hopes while savoring the year’s few bright spots.

Programmers must analyze those lessons as they prepare to announce next fall’s lineups, with NBC to start off the annual chess game by unveiling its roster Monday and competitors to follow during the next 10 days.

The current season began with heightened expectations thanks to a slew of returning stars like Bill Cosby, Michael J. Fox, Ted Danson and Rhea Perlman, all associated with NBC programs that ruled prime time a decade ago, before the Fox network and other competitors muddied the TV landscape and gradually whittled away the network share of audience.

Despite those big names, however, ABC, CBS and NBC again experienced a precipitous overall ratings decline, down 8% from a year ago. For the first time, TV’s “Big Three” are accounting for less than half (49%) of prime-time viewing, a drain partly attributable to Fox, whose strong results were buoyed by televising two high-rated sports events, the World Series and the Super Bowl.

Perhaps of most concern, the networks have gone through another season without a new series emerging as a clear-cut hit (except perhaps for Fox’s “King of the Hill”).

Struggling just to maintain current audience levels, the networks talk less these days about winning back lost viewers than of stemming the tide of future defections. Borrowing baseball terminology, there’s also discussion of settling for singles and doubles instead of swinging wildly in search of home runs.

What else can be learned from the season that’s ending, with an eye on how that will shape what happens next fall? Here are half a dozen lessons driven home during the last eight months.

Know thy audience: After a season in which everyone seemed to be bumping into everyone else with “Friends” clones trying to emulate NBC’s success, the networks have sought to more clearly diversify their programming.

Pursuing such a strategy means that CBS is again appealing to an older, more rural audience with slices of Americana like “Touched by an Angel,” and that Fox has embraced its youth-oriented roots as the home of “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “The Simpsons.”

“I wanted to re-identify the brand of Fox,” said Fox Entertainment Group President Peter Roth, who took that job in September. “I wanted to make sure it was crystal-clear. . . . The key is to focus on your strengths.”

“We actually have a philosophy at this network about who we are trying to reach,” said Jamie Kellner, chief executive of the WB network, which has used its animated frog mascot to help push an image of “the place where American families can watch television together.”

In contrast, a rival executive called ABC, which has suffered the steepest drop this year, “schizophrenic,” trying to be a family network some places, hip and cutting-edge in others.

Big stars can lure viewers back, but not necessarily for long: Although “Cosby” and Michael J. Fox’s “Spin City” opened with strong ratings, they quickly cooled before settling into mid-range ruts, with solid but not quite hit numbers. Although both have been renewed (and Danson’s CBS comedy “Ink” may be), neither has proved to be the savior that preseason hype may have led some to anticipate.

Two other highly touted shows--NBC’s “Suddenly Susan,” starring Brooke Shields, and Fox’s “Millennium,” with Lance Henriksen--will also be back. The latter declined after a promising start, while the former benefited from the safe haven of NBC’s “Must See TV” Thursday night lineup.

The magnitude and volume of stars may have been anomalous, but CBS Entertainment President Leslie Moonves maintains that programmers will keep turning to such performers in seeking to capture viewers.

“We forget people are stars for a reason,” he said. “It’s not just because they have a name. It’s because they have a talent that people want to see.”

There’s no substitute for existing hits: NBC is the only network that’s been regularly able to get people to sample its new series, thanks to the launching pad provided by sandwiching such shows between “Friends,” “Seinfeld” and “ER.”

Small wonder that the NBC comedies to air after “Seinfeld” (“Suddenly Susan,” “The Naked Truth” and “Fired Up”) are the year’s highest-rated new shows. Of course, that’s also no assurance of success once such programs venture elsewhere, demonstrated by the dismal results on Wednesdays for “The Single Guy.”

Having such hits nevertheless offers a major advantage in getting people to sample new programs, compared to the Catch-22 situation facing ABC: Because fewer people are watching the network, its on-air promos reach fewer eyeballs, making it difficult to attract new viewers.

CBS will have one advantage next season by airing the Winter Olympics--a sure-fire ratings draw--in February. The network will hold a few new programs to premiere after that event.

Patience is a virtue . . . occasionally: ABC has been rewarded for sticking with “The Drew Carey Show,” as has CBS with “Touched by an Angel” and Fox with “The X-Files,” all major hits now after shaky first seasons.

Fox has also reaped lesser dividends for its commitment to “Party of Five,” leaving the show in the same time period and allowing more viewers to gradually discover it.

“We’ve always known that series television depends on habit and dependability,” said UPN Entertainment President Michael Sullivan. “The quick hook means you probably didn’t have much faith in a project to begin with.”

The real challenge is deciding which shows have real growth potential, one reason why so many marginally rated series are “on the bubble” in terms of being renewed.

“That may be the most difficult and important part of this job: knowing when you have a future and when you don’t,” Moonves said. “The days of the instant hit may be over. Since ‘Friends’ and ‘ER,’ there isn’t anything that has come out of the chute with a bang.”

Change is risky: The networks haven’t touched bottom yet in terms of declining audience, and with all the viewing options available, altering one’s lineup means potentially throwing up for grabs the viewers that a struggling program has. Programmers learned this in March when they shuffled their schedules and in some cases fell to record low ratings.

As a result, networks will probably try to avoid wholesale changes next season, or crowding all their series premieres (there were more than 40 newcomers last fall) into a two-week stretch in September.

It may be no accident that “King of the Hill” made its debut in January, after the new season mania died down, or that WB rolled out the critical favorite “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” in March. Moonves said CBS will try to “keep the number of rookies down to a minimum” in the fall.

Mayhem sells, or “Network” may be closer than you think: Critics hate them, but Fox has found an audience for specials like “When Animals Attack,” “World’s Scariest Car Chases” and “Close Call: Cheating Death.” In fact, the network may offer a rotating wheel of such shows in September.

Roth cites the need for balance, saying there is “room for a wide spectrum of programming, including these specials, as long as they don’t overwhelm the schedule.”

Other networks have tinkered with similar fare, bringing to mind a lesson articulated by the late Fred Allen: that imitation is the sincerest form of television.

For the first time in recent years, drunk-driving deaths across the nation are rising. And Post, the executive director of the Orange County branch of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, is hoping the trend doesn’t reach Orange County, where the campaign against handling a vehicle while under the influence has been gaining ground.

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TV’s Year of Ups and Downs

Viewers flocked to certain shows and fled from others this season, with even some veterans losing sizable portions of their audience. The fate of several shows, meanwhile, remains in limbo.

STOCK RISING

“Touched by an Angel”

“The X-Files”

“The Drew Carey Show”

“Party of Five”

“The Nanny”

“Caroline in the City”

STOCK FALLING

“Arsenio”

“The Singe Guy”

“Ned & Stacey”

“Dave’s World”

“John Larroquette Show”

“Murder One”

“Lois & Clark”

“Grace Under Fire”

ON THE BUBBLE

“Sliders”

“Ink”

“Boston Common”

“NewsRadio”

“The Jeff Foxworthy Show”

“Clueless”

“The Naked Truth”

“Moloney”