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reality quick-fixes
Duct tape for hole-full schedule. Could win No. 1.
By Kevin Downey
Stretching over 15 consecutive nights and running 18 hours, ABC’s “I’m a Celebrity - Get Me Out of Here!” is a lot more than the latest venue for faded stars trying reclaim the spotlight.
The show is pivotal to ABC’s strategy for February sweeps, which began yesterday, one in which reality shows make up one-fourth of the network’s primetime lineup. ABC's single mission is to gain an edge against NBC and move up to No.1 in the 18-49 demographic.
It has a chance.
ABC ranks No. 2 this season, and its adult 18-49 rating is up 5 percent, thanks in large part to last Sunday’s Super Bowl, and well ahead of its No. 4 slot last season.
Even before the game, ABC was showing solid gains from such reality programs as “The Bachelorette” and, to a lesser degree, “Celebrity Mole: Hawaii,” both of which finish their runs this month.
Reality programming is ABC's short-term fix-it, a tit-for-tat tool that, where it works, can serve to boost up a particular time slot. That makes it ideal for sweeps, which is all about quickie hits.
“We and all the networks obviously know it is important to have scripted programs,” says Jeff Bader, executive vice president of ABC Entertainment. “We are going to spend a lot of resources going forward on scripted programs.
“But what reality has done is that it’s created intense competition in certain time periods, which didn’t exist at the beginning of the season. So while we really need to push our comedies, reality can be used to fix a time period.”
One of ABC’s broken time periods is its entire Thursday night, where, like Fox, it struggles against NBC’s “Friends”-led lineup and CBS’s “CSI.”
ABC in recent weeks has ranked No. 3 or No. 4 for the night in the 18-49 demographic.
But starting the week after next Thursday, ABC will kick off the short-run reality series “Are You Hot? The Search for America’s Sexiest People.” That show will share Thursday the week after with “I’m a Celebrity,” which will run one week beyond Feb. 26, when the sweeps end.
“Obviously, looking at the landscape there, we would like to be third,” says Bader, speaking of Thursdays.
“We want to have a presence. We’ll do that with reality this year, and in May we’ll see what makes most sense for the fall.”
Although ABC’s performance in the sweeps depends heavily on reality shows, the network is naturally airing a number of scripted programs, including the debut of “Dragnet” on Sunday. (See yesterday's Media Life for Ethan Alter's review, "Dragnet,' against the odds, it works: Ed O'Neill pulls off a solid Joe Friday. Al who? and Ed Robertson's review today, 'Dragnet' must escape its history: Few remakes overcome the past. Jack, you there?)
ABC needs to do something, having premiered seven shows in the fall with only three left standing, all sitcoms.
Dramas have proven to be ABC's biggest problem. Its four new ones in the fall were canceled and ABC has continued to struggle with poor ratings, as it did with last Monday’s “Veritas: The Quest” and “Miracles” premieres.
Even the critically lauded “Alias” has failed to capture a significant audience in its second season and, in a sign of trouble for the future, on Sunday scored the worst rating since the 1980s for a show that followed the Super Bowl.
ABC also had trouble this week when it moved “The Practice” from Sunday to Monday at 9 p.m., where it competes with CBS’s “Everybody Loves Raymond,” NBC’s “Third Watch” and Fox’s “Joe Millionaire.”
“I feel they have made great strides and they are producing better scripted programs than we were exposed to last year,” says Michele Toller, senior national media manager at Empower MediaMarketing.
“The one thing that has me scratching my head is why they moved ‘The Practice.’ When you’re making strides, why put one of your most reliable shows up against ‘Raymond,’ which wins its time slot every week.”
“Raymond” wins, that is, when “Joe” isn’t there.
Either way, the move ruffled the feathers of David E. Kelley, “The Practice’s” executive producer.
But the show is staying put.
“We are not planning any changes,” says Bader.
“It’s an impossible time period because of ‘Joe Millionaire.’ But ‘Joe Millionaire’ goes off the air in four weeks, so hopefully we’ll see people figuring out ‘The Practice’ is now on Mondays.”
January 31, 2003© 2003 Media Life
-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.
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