Ohlmeyer Will Have Mondays Free in ’01

Don Ohlmeyer, who came out of retirement and brought Dennis Miller into the sports world, is going back into retirement.

He said Monday he will not return as the producer of ABC’s “Monday Night Football.”

“I enjoyed my year, but the traveling got to me,” he said.

Ohlmeyer, 56, of Beverly Hills, has just completed a second home in the Reserve, a new resort development in Palm Desert, and said he plans to devote time to his hobbies--golf, painting and art history.

“My father died last year at 87, and that had a big impact on me,” he said. “He never once said that he didn’t spend enough time at the office--just the opposite.”

Ohlmeyer’s father, Don Sr., worked as a chemist for a Chicago brewery.

“He was the kindest, gentlest person I ever knew,” Ohlmeyer said. “I wish I was more like him. My sons are. I guess it skipped a generation.”

On March 8 of last year, ABC named Ohlmeyer as producer of “Monday Night Football,” a position he held in the 1970s. He was the producer during the show’s glory days when Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford and Don Meredith were in the booth.

The network gave him great power over the program. His most controversial move was to hire Miller to form a three-member crew with play-by-play announcer Al Michaels and analyst Dan Fouts.

Ohlmeyer also brought in sideline reporters Eric Dickerson and Melissa Stark and named Drew Esocoff director.

Even with those changes, “Monday Night Football” ratings fell 7.3% to a record low. But the show reversed a six-year decline in the male 18-34 demographic, key for advertisers, and it ranked fifth among prime-time network programs.

“We put the template in place and accomplished what we set out to accomplish,” Ohlmeyer said. “We brought the buzz back to ‘Monday Night Football.’

“You’ve got the best play-by-play announcer in the business in Al, and Dan has come into his own and also shown he has a sense of humor. Dennis did what he was supposed to do, and he’s only going to get better.”

Howard Katz, the president of ABC Sports, said, “We clearly intend to continue in the direction that Don took the telecasts last season. He has given us a blueprint and built a team of announcers and production people that will execute his vision.”

The network announced Jan. 25 that it will bring back the same announcing team next season.

Ohlmeyer said, “I came out of retirement because of Howard, who is like the brother I never had, and because it was ‘Monday Night Football.’ ”

Ohlmeyer, a former NBC Sports executive producer who created Ohlmeyer Communications in 1982, was the West Coast president of NBC from 1993 until he retired in early 1999.

ABC did not name a successor.