By Kevin Downey

   An old saw in advertising is that if you're worried you have a weak product, a very quick way to find out is to advertise like crazy. The public will confirm your worst fears.
   ABC thinks the opposite is equally true. If you think you have a couple of shows the critics are cool to but you believe in, take your message to the viewing public.
    ABC has such faith in tonight’s "What About Joan" and tomorrow’s "My Wife & Kids" and as a testament of that faith it promoted both shows on Oscar night.
    As expected, both shows did well on their first outing last week.
      "Joan" was ABC’s most watched midseason show in three years and "My Wife" got the network’s best sitcom rating for its time slot in two years.
    The challenge comes this week: Will the shows hold those numbers, or anything close to them?
   While media analysts aren’t yet speculating on future ratings, most say the shows have gained enough viewer interest to hold on to some of that initial promotional push.
   "I think that they were both strong shows," says Deana Myers, an analyst at Paul Kagan Associates. "And it’s a good time of year to launch new shows because there’s not a lot of competition out there right now."
   The enduring creativity of the sitcoms will determine whether viewers stick with them, of course.
   But two promotional spots on the "Academy Awards," which was watched by 43 million people, got viewers to at least give them a try.
   "It’s impossible to ascertain to what degree the shows’ success was due to the ‘Academy Awards,’ but it was definitely an element," says John Rash, senior vice president and director of broadcast negotiations at Campbell Mithun.
   Don Cole, media director at Fletcher, Martin, and Ewing, says: "[The Oscars] are a great way to hype a show. It’s reminiscent of what often happens with the Super Bowl. If you want to promote a show, there’s almost no better place to do it."
   The ratings for the two shows suggest a significant Oscar impact.
   "Joan," for example, did better than "Geena," which it replaced, by 66 percent among adults 18-49 and improved on its lead-in, "Dharma & Greg," by 17 percent.
   A special one-hour of "My Wife" last Wednesday improved on the previous week’s "Drew Carey" and "Spin City" by 75 percent.
   More telling of the show’s appeal, its 18-49 rating went up by 31 percent in its second half-hour. And ABC, in need of scripted hits, quickly upped it to two episodes this week.
    The Oscars had a similar impact on ABC’s "The Practice" in 2000.
   Although that show was already well into its fourth season, a spot during the Oscars increased viewer sampling and it has since become ABC’s highest-rated show outside of "Millionaire."
    "The Practice," however, is considered one of the better shows on the air and won the Emmy for outstanding drama for the past three years.
   Few reviews for "Joan" or "My Wife" have been laudatory, in contrast, although most have been kind.
    Variety wrote about "Joan:" "[Joan Cusack] amply demonstrates her pleasing charms, which makes this show particularly promising. Its ability to sustain what it has rather ambitiously set up, though, remains exceedingly unpredictable."
   Working in "Joan’s" and "My Wife’s" favor is that they had already been generating a good deal of viewer interest before the awards telecast, say ABC executives Mike Benson and Alan Cohen.
   "The ‘Academy Awards’ were the thing we needed to push viewers over the cliff to make sure they came in."
    If "Joan" and "My Wife" continue to do well, ABC just might recover some from the 17.9 percent ratings drop it has so far suffered among adults 18-49 this season.
   After skimping on traditional sitcoms and dramas last year because of "Millionaire," ABC has seemingly followed through on its stated strategy of getting back to scripted programs.
   Another midseason show, "The Job," has already done well on that end.
    The Denis Leary sitcom has maintained about 96 percent of its ratings since premiering last month.

April 3, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.

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