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to cure age wrinkles
New sitcoms aim at young as 'Millionaire' fades
By Elizabeth White
While the other networks went into repeats last month, ABC debuted three new sitcoms: "The Job," "What About Joan," and "My Wife and Kids." In the context of the 2000-2001 television season, these shows seem to be a little late to join the party.
But for ABC, whose "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" has slipped faster in younger demos than anyone expected, the comedic relief can’t come a moment too soon.
"They’re testing the waters for these shows to see if they can bring back younger viewers. In the development meetings, they wanted 18-49s," says Roy Rothstein, vice president and director of national broadcast research at Zenith Media Services. "This gives them a chance to fine-tune these series. They can see if the show has a shot at all."
And media folks think that developing new, younger series is especially critical for ABC right now, since "Millionaire" will most likely play a much more limited role next season.
"It’s hard to sustain four nights of ‘Millionaire.’ They tried to drain all they could out of it, but more than two nights is probably overkill," says Allen Banks, executive media director at Saatchi & Saatchi. "They might maintain one, maybe two nights."
Rothstein agrees. "They’re not going to have ‘Millionaire’ every night next year. If they have it back, it will be Friday and Sunday at the most."
"It gets a decent rating, but it’s not the right audience for ABC. ABC doesn’t want to skew old," says Rothstein.
So far, the younger demographic has seemed to appreciate the break in ABC’s regular programming as well.
Last Wednesday the debut episode of "My Wife and Kids" ran in the regular spot of "Millionaire." The Damon Wayans comedy won the 8 p.m. hour among adults 18-49 and improved upon ABC’s season-to-date average for the time period in that demographic by eight percent.
Last Tuesday, Joan Cusack’s "What About Joan" slipped into "The Geena Davis Show’s" regular spot behind "Dharma and Greg" at 9:30 p.m. The show won its half-hour in both households and adults 18-49 and tied with "Frasier" for the highest-rated half-hour in the demographic on Tuesday night.
And for the past three weeks, "The Job," starring Denis Leary, has been running in "Spin City’s" regular Wednesday time slot at 9:30 p.m.
The show has earned decent ratings, but ratings that put it around third place for its time period, behind NBC’s "West Wing" and Fox’s "Boot Camp."
"The Job" has also struggled somewhat to keep the lead-in audience from "Drew Carey," losing up to 17 percent of "Drew Carey’s" rating.
"ABC’s got to be really pleased, the rating levels are really good," says Rothstein. "The younger demos came in."
April 2, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
- Elizabeth White is a staff writer for Media Life.
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