MOVIES : What AFI List? TV Viewers Have Own Film Tastes

Earlier this year, the USA cable channel aired the acclaimed, Oscar-nominated dramas “The Age of Innocence” and “Remains of the Day.”

Viewers tuned out.

“They were disappointments,” confesses Neil Hoffman, vice president of programming for USA. “They are fine movies, but as far as television audiences, they just didn’t seem to want to watch them on TV. They were period pieces, and that had a lot to do with it.”

Indeed, when it comes to the most popular movies on television, there isn’t much overlap with the American Film Institute’s Top 100 list. Executives with the TV channels that specialize in movies say couch potatoes generally prefer action flicks, big-name stars and comedies over dramas and period pieces.

USA’s most popular movies include Eddie Murphy’s “Coming to America,” John Candy’s “Uncle Buck,” Sylvester Stallone’s “Rambo” shoot-’em-ups and the “Star Wars” trilogy.

“We find that action movies can repeat over and over, even though people know the outcome,” Hoffman says. “They enjoy watching the action sequences. They enjoy getting that thrill over and over.”

That observation is echoed by Jeff Carr, vice president of programming at the TBS cable channel, whose most popular titles include the James Bond adventures, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Jaws.”

Action films are something that channel-hopping viewers can pick up in the middle, Carr notes, “as opposed to mysteries that you have to stick to from the beginning. That is why the action movies repeat very well. We don’t have to have that investment of sticking to it from the beginning and trying to stay with it the whole way.”

Frequently, movies that weren’t box-office hits find an audience on television. TBS and TNT have had great luck with the critically lambasted 1989 flop “Road House” and the goofy fantasy “The Beastmaster” and its two sequels, “Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time” and “Beastmaster 3: The Eye of Braxus.”

In fact, TNT will present a “Beastmaster” triple bill this weekend, beginning at 10:30 p.m. Saturday.

Carr confirms that “Road House,” in which Patrick Swayze plays a buffed bar bouncer, is not going to win any Oscars. But it does well in the ratings because it has action for male viewers and Swayze for female viewers, he says.

There are places where the classics do well, of course--the channels that specialize in them: Turner Classic Movies and American Movie Classics. “Casablanca,” “King Kong” and “Citizen Kane” are among the most popular movies on TCM. AMC viewers can’t get enough of “An Affair to Remember,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “How to Marry a Millionaire.”

Pat Davis, vice president of programming and scheduling for AMC, says that these films have continuing appeal because “the story and the stars touched a chord with people. They either made them cry or laugh or think about something. I think it’s a sign of a great movie if you come out of the movie theater or you watch it on television and you think about it afterward.”

Though AMC viewers prefer color movies, Davis points out that they will tune in for certain black-and-white films, such as John Ford’s seminal 1939 western “Stagecoach,” starring John Wayne.

“People love it,” she says. “It is such great entertainment. These films don’t show their age. The writing in these films is always phenomenal. You can’t have a superstar in a horrible movie and expect it to do well. The story just drives everything.”

Films starring Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly always do well on AMC, says Davis. “I know people love them. Anything with John Wayne does well.”

Davis says she tries to show audience favorites as often as possible. “There are certain films like ‘Butch Cassidy’ that people look at like old friends. As long as they keep wanting them, I’ll keep airing them.”

TBS’ Carr says he tries to schedule hot titles between three and four times a year. “If we show a movie at 8 p.m. Eastern time, we’ll maybe show it on a Sunday afternoon [next] or maybe at 8 p.m. West Coast time. Even if a movie gets, say, a 2 or 3 rating, which is very good for us, that’s only 2% or 3% of the households watching [TV]. You’ve got a whole 97% of the TV audience that hasn’t seen that film, so that’s why we can repeat these movies and they do well.”

Both TBS and TNT also have attracted viewers with their clever movie franchises, such as TBS’ “Dinner and a Movie” and “Movies for Guys.” This summer, TNT is devoting its Saturday night programming to “Monstervision Presents Joe Bob’s Summer School,” featuring B-movie expert Joe Bob Briggs as host. Each week, Briggs offers comedic lectures on a different high school subject corresponding to that night’s feature.

On Aug. 29, TBS kicks off a new franchise called “The Movie Lounge,” which Carr describes as sort of a “Politically Incorrect” meets a movie. “You are going to have a host and three guests,” Carr says. “During the commercial breaks, they will discuss various aspects of the movie. Our kickoff movie will be ‘War of the Roses.’ ”

Occasionally, certain movies and stars will perform better than expected. Hoffman says everyone at USA thought that the female-driven drama “Fried Green Tomatoes” wouldn’t attract a wide audience. “We thought this would have limited appeal,” he says. “To our pleasant surprise, it has done better two or three times now.”

The Oscar-nominated 1994 prison drama “The Shawshank Redemption” has been a real ratings-getter for TNT despite its nearly three-hour length and heavy subject matter. “It hit all of the [right buttons],” says Lisa Mateus, vice president of programming. “We brought it back again and again. Thank God we have something that is good and gets good numbers.”

AMC’s Davis says she was taken aback by the popularity of the low-budget westerns starring the late World War II hero Audie Murphy. “I used to play them in the morning and afternoon until I realized there was such a big audience for them that we could put them on at night and people would enjoy them.”

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Movies on TV: The Favorites

Here are the most consistent ratings draws for eight movie-hungry channels.

American Movie Classics

“My Fair Lady”

“Stagecoach”

“An Affair to Remember”

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”

“How to Marry a Millionaire”

*

The Disney Channel

“Hocus Pocus”

“First Kid”

“Mary Poppins”

“Pocahontas”

“Under Wraps”

*

Lifetime

“Almost Golden: The Jessica Savitch Story”

“The Color Purple”

“In a Child’s Name” (a CBS miniseries)

“The Silence of the Lambs”

“Danielle Steele’s Secrets”

*

Turner Classic Movies

“King Kong”

“Bringing Up Baby”

“Casablanca”

“She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”

“Singin’ in the Rain”

*

TNT

“Rain Man”

“Back to the Future”

“Road House”

“Trading Places”

“The Beastmaster” trilogy

“Elvis, the Early Years”

“A Christmas Story”

*

TBS

James Bond films--”Diamonds Are Forever” is the consistently highest-rated

“Jaws”

“Raiders of the Lost Ark”

“Road House”

“The Beastmaster”

*

USA

“Uncle Buck”

“Kindergarten Cop”

“Field of Dreams”

“Star Wars” trilogy

“Coming to America”

“Rambo” trilogy

*

KCOP-TV Channel 13

“The Terminator”

“Rambo II” and “Rambo III”

“Dirty Dancing”

“Red Heat”

“Lethal Weapon”

Source: Executives at each outlet