Big Three Networks Delay Start Of Season
By Lisa de Moraes
Friday, September 14, 2001; Page C01
Two more broadcast networks canceled plans to debut their new prime-time lineups next week, as the likelihood of their returning to entertainment programming in the near future dimmed yesterday.
CBS and ABC joined NBC, which already had announced that it would delay the start of its 2001-02 television season by one week, starting Sept. 24 instead of Monday.
Nor will CBS air the pilot episode of its drama series "The Agency" any time soon. That show, which was supposed to debut in six days, stars Gil Bellows as a CIA agent. In the first episode, he recruits a Middle Eastern diplomat who knows the target of a planned terrorist bombing in London. Though the attack is eventually foiled in a hail of machine-gun fire, CBS execs decided it was inappropriate to air the episode so soon after Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon left thousands dead or missing.
Another episode of "The Agency," with new footage added, will be substituted to air as the premiere of what is perhaps the network's highest-profile new series. CBS now has an additional week to get that work done; "The Agency" is rescheduled to debut on Thursday, Sept. 27, following "Survivor" and "CSI."
ABC's "Monday Night Football" won't air next week; the NFL announced yesterday that all of this weekend's matchups were canceled, as well as the Monday game.
"We in the National Football League have decided that our priorities for this weekend are to pause, grieve, and reflect," the NFL said in a statement.
The football season is set to resume on Sunday, Sept. 23; no decision has been made as to whether the NFL would reschedule the games or play a shortened season.
Football may be postponed, but the Miss America Pageant will go on. The Miss America Organization announced yesterday that it would proceed with the event, scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 22, to air on ABC. "Our program, like our country, will not be held hostage by terrorism," the organization said in a statement.
"The values of our society include a fundamental right of self-expression," the statement said. "These young women from all over our country deserve the right to be heard and to compete in the scholarship program, which allows them to further their education. Too many individuals have sacrificed their lives to preserve the right of freedom of speech for us to be intimidated."
Fox did not weigh in yesterday as to whether it would debut four series next week as planned. Most of Fox's new-show rollout is scheduled for later in the year, because it has exclusive broadcast rights to the baseball playoffs and the World Series. As of late yesterday, it still planned to launch "That '70s Show" and the new sitcom "Undeclared" next Tuesday. Those programs would be followed by the premiere of "Love Cruise" that was pulled this Tuesday night.
Fox also will kick off the second season of "Dark Angel" next Friday, though the unveiling of the prime-time Friday soap opera "Pasadena" has been put off because actors have not been able to get to Vancouver, Canada, where the show is shot, for final work on the debut episode. For reasons not immediately apparent, Fox has decided to move up the debut of its returning sitcom "Grounded for Life" to next Wednesday, rather than Nov. 7 as originally scheduled.
WB and UPN didn't plan to debut series next week -- the little networks typically stay out of the Premiere Week crush. But WB yesterday reversed its decision to proceed with the launch of its four-sitcom block tonight -- the only debuts it had scheduled this week. Those debuts, including the new Reba McEntire series, have now been put off, and a rerun of the "Sabrina Goes to Rome" TV flick will air instead.
That agreement among news operations to share footage and information has not dampened their competitive spirit
Various news outlets were indeed sharing video yesterday, but much of it was stamped not only with the logo of the network from which it had come, but also the word "exclusive."
And yesterday morning Flag War broke out among the cable news networks. CNN declared itself the victor, having put its animated American flag near the bottom of the screen at midnight Wednesday; MSNBC and Fox News Channel followed suit yesterday morning.
"I'm thrilled we were the first network to put up the American flag," said Garth Ancier, vice president of programming at Turner Broadcasting Systems, which includes CNN.
"We all started hearing about friends and neighbors who were buying flags. Walter Isaacson said he didn't want anyone getting an American flag on before us; he ordered the animated American flag [Wednesday] night."
But with all this shuffling, Nielsen Media Research had still not decided last night whether to change the date it designates as the start of the new TV season.
A Nielsen rep said no decision was likely until next week, the scheduled official first week of the season.
A source close to the situation says that at this point it's not a matter of whether Nielsen will move the start date, but where it will move it.
Staff writer John Maynard contributed to this report.
Taken from The Washington Post
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