Yada, Yada, and Soon, Nada

When Ted Danson served notice that it was last-call time for “Cheers,” NBC was left scrambling to find a worthy successor. The network responded by moving a marginally rated series, “Seinfeld,” to Thursday nights and launching a “Cheers” spinoff--titled “Frasier”--to go with it.

In a move that hardly coincides with the seasonal spirit of giving, Jerry Seinfeld presented NBC with a similar challenge on Christmas Day by decreeing that his hugely successful comedy will conclude its nine-year run next spring--forcing the network to make hard choices that will determine whether its prime-time leadership is a house of cards built on a few remarkably popular programs.

Seinfeld’s decision, which he made despite what’s believed to be the most lucrative compensation package ever offered an entertainer, promises to generate shock waves throughout the television landscape, just as the demise of “Cheers” did five years ago.

One of the biggest immediate beneficiaries would appear to be Warner Bros. Television, the production company behind “ER.” Warner Bros. has the right to shop that series to other networks for next season if it can’t come to terms with NBC, and losing “Seinfeld” tightens the noose around NBC to meet the studio’s demands to risk losing another mega-hit.

Meanwhile, NBC must evaluate its comedy-laden lineup (the network currently spreads an unprecedented 18 sitcoms across five nights) and determine what programs have the potential to blossom into a hit, just as “Seinfeld” did after a rocky period early in its life.

Critics have accused NBC of failing to develop strong shows behind its established hits, despite the advantage of what are known in the industry as “hammocks”--that is, the time slots between programs like “Friends” and “Seinfeld,” which virtually ensures the series placed in that berth a substantial audience.

What NBC will have to do now is choose and potentially reorganize the so-called tent poles that can support those hammocks. Key pieces in the network’s plans would appear to be “Friends,” “Frasier,” “Mad About You” and “3rd Rock From the Sun,” whose producers have already been fuming over the John Lithgow comedy’s declining ratings since it was moved to Wednesday nights opposite “The Drew Carey Show.”

The fate of “3rd Rock,” in particular, could be tied to “Seinfeld’s” exit, given that the aliens-among-us sitcom is one of the few in NBC’s arsenal seen as having greater potential than it’s showing. The question now is whether the network has damaged the program irrevocably by bouncing it to three different nights in two years on the air. NBC is hoping a special one-hour episode following next month’s Super Bowl will provide a ratings jump-start for the series.

NBC has also made a number of expensive talent deals for next season, including the next comedy from the producers of “Friends” (who also produce the network’s “Veronica’s Closet,” which follows “Seinfeld”) and a show starring Nathan Lane produced by the creative team behind “Frasier.” Both programs have reportedly been promised time periods on either Tuesday or Thursday nights.

Even so, the absence of “Seinfeld” will add to the perception that NBC is vulnerable, and efforts to draw from other nights to shore up Thursday’s schedule will create windows of opportunity for the other networks. Indeed, depending on what choices NBC makes setting its lineup for fall 1998, the other networks may be emboldened even to aggressively program Thursday--a night once given up as a lost cause.

The Thursday lineup represents an enormous profit center for NBC, which this year sold $2.15 billion in advertising during prime time, far more than its nearest competitor. Much of its revenue comes from that one night, with “Seinfeld” and “ER” each commanding $500,000 or more for each 30-second commercial.

Those programs fuel network profits on several fronts, also elevating rates on the series that play adjacent to them as well as late affiliate newscasts and “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” NBC isn’t the only party the show’s conclusion will impact, though no one need stage benefits for anyone involved. The supporting cast of Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards currently make an estimated $600,000 per episode--or more than $13 million this season--and had agreed to another year after this in their last round of negotiations.

Seinfeld’s decision to end the series renders that agreement moot, and though all three will remain sought after to star in new programs, industry sources have estimated their per-episode salary would drop closer to $100,000 on such ventures.

So what’s next for the “Seinfeld” gang? Jerry himself has signed to do an HBO special next summer and talked about returning to his stand-up comedy roots. Alexander recently agreed to produce TV series through Universal Television, which hoped to secure a toehold with the actor for a new show once “Seinfeld” ended. In more roundabout fashion, CBS has a three-series deal with Louis-Dreyfus’ husband, Brad Hall, creator of the NBC series “The Single Guy.”

A larger issue may be the problems facing network television, which has found establishing programs of “Seinfeld’s” magnitude increasingly difficult as competing options siphon away viewers.

Even with its share of the audience eroding, network television has sustained high advertising rates precisely because the medium still offers a means of reaching millions of people. Industry observers have debated, however, at what point those rates will inevitably begin to drop along with the audience--potentially endangering the networks’ ability to operate as they do now.

There’s considerable irony, in fact, that a lawsuit once ensued due to an employee quoting “Seinfeld” around the office water cooler, since the series may have the distinction of being one of the last water-cooler shows. Indeed, as TV viewing becomes more fragmented, hits like “Seinfeld” could be going the way of the dinosaur, meaning the loss of a show that proudly billed as being “about nothing” could actually signal a more profound shift in television’s role as a shared national experience.