A New Season, New Drama: ABC’s Struggle for Ratings

Comic Jimmy Kimmel, ABC’s anointed late-night answer to David Letterman and Jay Leno, stood before a packed house of advertisers in New York, trying to help the network win their dollars.

Squeezed into the orchestra section on that May afternoon were executives from Walt Disney Co., which owns ABC. Among them: Chairman and Chief Executive Michael D. Eisner.

Taking aim, Kimmel noted that not only had the bosses given him a program, but they also were reviving the old cop show “Dragnet.”

“This is the plan to resurrect the network? ‘Dragnet’ and me?” Kimmel asked. “Are you guys trying to get fired? You’ll be out scalping tickets to ‘The Lion King.’ ”

Sure, he was joking, but not everyone was laughing.

Rarely has a single season meant so much to a company and its top executives. Television’s cliffhanger drama this season, which officially begins Monday, isn’t whether President Josiah Bartlet is reelected on NBC’s “The West Wing” but whether Eisner and his crew can break ABC’s fall.

“Obviously,” Disney President Robert Iger said, “this is a huge priority for the company.”

Last year, ABC’s prime-time ratings tumbled more than 20%. The network finished a distant third to NBC and CBS and came in fourth in viewers ages 18 to 49, the group most coveted by advertisers. Ratings eroded so badly that the network finished the season with only one top-20 show, “Monday Night Football.” Programming chief Stu Bloomberg was sacked.

On Sunday night, as if to punctuate ABC’s dismal season, the network did not win one Emmy out of the meager eight nominations it received in the high-profile categories.

If ABC were Disney’s only headache, much less would be on the line. The network accounts for only 15 cents out of every $1 of revenue taken in by Disney. But investors and analysts see ABC’s struggles as symptomatic of larger problems that Eisner has been unable to fix.

Its theme parks have suffered from a soft economy and tourism declines since last year’s terrorist attacks. Its animated film division no longer dominates the genre. Disney merchandise doesn’t sell the way it did a decade ago. Its stock is near an eight-year low.

Another ABC debacle, media analysts contend, could tarnish Eisner’s 18-year legacy at the company and undermine the confidence of a board of directors that has long been in his corner. On Tuesday, those directors are scheduled to meet with Eisner, and ABC probably will be on their minds.

With so much at stake, virtually every realm of the Disney empire has been called into action.

“It’s basically a pull-out-all-the-stops approach,” said Iger, the point man for the network rescue.

The last few weeks have been like a ride on Disneyland’s Space Mountain for everyone involved in overseeing, marketing, writing and producing the fall schedule. There’s been everything from fine-tuning to overhauling.

Plot lines have changed, scripts have been rewritten. “The Drew Carey Show” was told to develop deeper relationships between characters and dump some of the stunts. ABC executives have jumped in to help producers of the new medical drama “MDs” strike a lighter tone.

Eisner, keenly aware of the importance of the network’s greatest hope for ratings success--”8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter”--sent a note to the producers recommending that a scene be shortened. It was.

John Ritter, the show’s star and a veteran of previous ABC regimes, knows the brass is counting on him. “Michael Eisner is in my dressing room right now, waiting to give me a deep tissue massage,” Ritter deadpanned during a break in shooting Friday.

Two months ago, ABC was still calling in reinforcements. A headhunter for the network tracked down veteran marketing whiz Steve Sohmer dining with his 9-year-old son in Venice, Italy.

“They asked me if I would be interested in a new challenge in television,” said Sohmer, who helped launch “The Cosby Show” and the revival of NBC in the 1980s.

When he arrived at Disney’s Burbank compound in August, he knew the vacation was over. “The train hadn’t left the station,” Sohmer said of the new season, “but it was certainly in motion.”

Among other things, he slashed from 32 to two the number of executives who get daily reels of promotional spots. So many people offering suggestions, he said, was “crippling the creative process.”

Then there’s “Dinotopia,” a computer animated/live action prehistoric drama that costs $3 million per episode. ABC executives recently leaned on the producers to make the show more hip by creating Le Sage, a sexy, evil flirt.

“I’m too old for this kind of stuff,” sighed “Dinotopia” producer Robert Halmi Sr., 78. “But it doesn’t hurt the series.”

Now if it could get on the air.

Although ABC executives told advertisers the show would be ready for a fall launch, they underestimated the time it would take to make. Despite a summer scramble, the program’s premiere has been pushed back to Thanksgiving, one day after the end of the all-important November sweeps.

While all this was unfolding behind the scenes, Disney has turned its marketing machine loose on the public to snare viewers.

On Friday, McDonald’s restaurants started featuring placemats with trivia questions about such ABC shows as “8 Simple Rules.” One sample: “Tonight, Paul [John Ritter] has trouble with A) His dog B) His teenage daughters C) His mother. (Hint: What’s the name of the show?)”

Ads for ABC programs such as “Alias” appear behind home plate at Edison International Field as Disney’s Anaheim Angels fight for a playoff spot. Employees sport ABC antenna balls on their cars.

Last month, at Disney’s California Adventure theme park, the stars of ABC’s new and returning shows were put on display. There were question-and-answer sessions with the public, as well as a parade.

“NYPD Blue” star Dennis Franz said he got to ride in the front seat of the park’s roller coaster with co-star Austin Majors, who plays his son Theo.

“If we can help them, it helps all of us,” Franz said. “I’ve become an ABC Mouseketeer.”

Eisner was on hand too. Sitting in a director’s chair near the park’s Paradise Bay, he said he is optimistic about the season but added: “Whether it actually coalesces to be the major turnaround of all time or just a slight improvement, we don’t know.”

Eisner’s cautious words stand in contrast to seasons past, when Disney executives promised success but delivered disappointment. Now they are using phrases such as “stop the downward trend” and “start moving the needle upward.”

Unfortunately for Disney, remaking a network has never been harder.

“I’m not sure that you can turn around a network with a couple of shows,” said Grant Tinker, who led NBC from third place to first in the 1980s.

Back then, Tinker said, “it was a lot cleaner. There were essentially three networks and those rules held hard and fast.”

Today, the TV universe has expanded vastly beyond NBC, CBS and ABC.

There are now six sizable broadcast networks, along with dozens of cable channels and scores of other choices as satellite technology proliferates. About 40% of all homes have three or more TV sets, compared with just one in 10 about 20 years ago.

“In this world of shrinking audience, it’s a tough game to get back into it,” said Tim Spengler, director of national broadcast for ad buyer Initiative Media.

Disney came up with a winning strategy last week. The network began its season early by putting its most promising programs on Tuesday nights, when the competition was mostly airing reruns. The results exceeded even its own expectations.

According to Nielsen Media Research, 17.2 million viewers watched “8 Simple Rules” and more than 16 million tuned in to “Life With Bonnie.”

“There had been so much talk around town that with our lower audience this summer we wouldn’t even get out of the box,” ABC Entertainment President Susan Lyne said. Added her boss, Iger: “We proved them wrong in one night.”

The strategy could have backfired. Had the shows flopped, ABC risked having its entire season declared dead on arrival.

“You have to give them a lot of credit,” NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker said. “ABC had a very good night.”

But this week marks the real test, when all of the other networks weigh in with new shows and fresh episodes of proven hits, such as “Friends,” “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and the “Law and Order” franchise.

“ABC has a good schedule, but the problem is they have enormous competition wherever they are,” said Jay Sures, co-head of United Talent Agency’s television unit.

ABC has chosen to compete through a novel scheduling gimmick born of necessity. They call it “Happy Hour”--a Monday-through-Friday block of comedy and family shows airing from 8 to 9 p.m. That’s when ABC thinks its rivals are most vulnerable.

“Everyone starts on equal footing at 8 p.m.,” Lyne said. “We need to create some chips, some building blocks so that we can launch midseason shows, shows in the summer and next season’s shows.”

ABC’s strategic choices were limited because the network did not have any hit series to use as springboards to develop other successful shows. That has been the key to NBC’s success on Thursday nights with its “Must See TV” lineup of “Friends,” “Will & Grace” and “ER.” Meanwhile, CBS used the popular “Survivor” series to launch “CSI.”

Still, with Disney placing every aspect of ABC’s prime-time programming under the microscope, even the name “Happy Hour” had a rough go. The brainchild of advertising agency Leo Burnett Worldwide Inc., the moniker stirred up debate because of the cultural association with cheap drinks. In the end, the scales tipped in favor of “Happy Hour.”

“Happy Hour really spoke to what we were trying to do,” Lyne said. “This is an entertaining hour, where you can just sit back, have fun--where you don’t have to work.”

Lyne said Disney also wanted to capitalize on its marketing partnership with McDonald’s, home of the Happy Meal. In fact, the two companies share the same ad agency.

“This is a long season, and we need to keep up the pressure to make sure the episodes are really strong, well written, and to make sure the marketing efforts don’t peter out,” Lyne said. “We need to be vigilant.”

Any improvement at all for ABC is likely to help Eisner, at least in the near term.

Merrill Lynch & Co. projects a $410-million operating loss for the network this fiscal year. ABC is weighed down by expensive sports contracts, including the National Basketball Assn. and the National Football League.

Investors and analysts argue that the company needs to show it is at least stopping ABC’s bleeding in prime time.

Said Prudential Securities analyst Katherine Styponias: “Investors will be looking for marginal improvement at a minimum.”

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Times staff writers Brian Lowry and Richard Verrier contributed to this report.