ABC's Bad Habits Revealed

By Brian Ford Sullivan

The downfall of ABC has been the whipping boy of the 2001-2002 season as after two seasons of "Millionaire" highs, the price for relying on said program too much finally had to be paid for. Down to just one night (Thursdays), ABC is now watching FOX quickly move in on the third place crown amongst the major networks. With only two real success stories to speak of ("Alias," "My Wife and Kids") ABC has some major rebuilding to do come next season. But as CBS can attest, all it takes is a few shows and some savvy scheduling to turn things around. If anything CBS is the anti-ABC in that it used its reality franchise ("Survivor") sparing and wisely as it helped catapult "C.S.I." into the #2 spot overall in primetime. But before ABC does even that, it has to break the habits it has built over the past few years - sticking with shows past their prime, making horrendous time slot decisions and not giving new shows a solid launching pad.

Bad move #1 -- Sticking with shows past their prime.

While all of ABC's series have taken a hit in the ratings this season when looking down the list one wonders how ABC can renew some of them knowing how far they've spiraled. While "The Practice's" drop is forgivable (it's still the #23 show in primetime on the major networks), "Dharma & Greg" (#64 overall) is in the 30% audience drop range and it opens the network's Tuesday night lineup. Even canceled "What About Joan" didn't manage that big of a dip in the ratings and ABC let the axe fall after 2 airings. And then there's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire's" 40% fall to #45 overall after finishing last season in the top 10. How both of these shows can remain on ABC's schedule next season is beyond me.

The kicker is though that even if ABC parts ways with both shows, there's still its two-year renewal deal with "The Drew Carey Show" and "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" - all the airings of which are down at least 25% from last season. The latter certainly is acceptable due to its limited cost but two more years of "Drew Carey" when it tentpoles the network's Wednesday night lineup? Consider what damage "Drew" and "Dharma's" failure has caused other shows on ABC's lineup. The two shows "Dharma & Greg" and "Drew Carey" lead out to - "Spin City" and "The Job" respectively - are down at least 20% from last season. So essentially thanks to their poor lead-in support, both shows are conceivably doomed thanks to "Dharma" and "Drew" and yet a show like "Drew" is locked up for two more years.

-0.13% - "My Wife and Kids"
-6.69% - "The Wonderful World of Disney"
-9.02% - "Primetime Thursday"
-10.00% - "Monday Night Football"
-10.81% - "N.Y.P.D. Blue"
-15.67% - "20/20"
-21.06% - "Spin City"
-21.75% - "20/20 Downtown"
-23.03% - "The Job"
-25.87% - "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" (1)
-26.51% - "The Drew Carey Show"
-26.76% - "Once & Again"
-26.90% - "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" (2)
-27.15% - "The Practice"
-28.29% - "What About Joan"
-31.25% - "Dharma & Greg"
-40.77% - "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"
-53.10% - "The Mole"

Bad move #2 -- Poor time slot decisions.

What's the worst thing to do to a struggling drama like "Once & Again?" Move it to Friday nights. That's exactly what ABC did instead of sticking with the show's Wednesday, 10:00/9:00c time slot. They've paid the price on both fronts as not only are "Once & Again's" ratings down 26.76%, but its current Wednesday replacement "20/20 Downtown" is doing 9.91% worse than "Once & Again" did there last season. Even worse is that with its move to Wednesdays "20/20" is down 15.67% from its ratings last season overall and it also brought down ABC's Friday, 10:00/9:00c time slot average by 15.16% when it moved back to Fridays. The same can be said of "The Mole" which after a successful Tuesday run last season saw its audience sliced in half with a move to Fridays.

Bad move #3 -- Let new shows have a chance.

Why is "Alias" a success? It's the only new show that ABC gave a real shot at succeeding this season. Why? Because it replaced a show at the climax of its popularity (the Sunday edition of "Millionaire" which had helped build up "The Practice" this season) and paired it with two successful programs in their own right - its "Disney" franchise and "The Practice." Why did "Thieves" fail? ABC put it on Friday nights between two shows that had yet to prove themselves in their time slots ("The Mole" and "Once & Again"). Even "Philly," which probably would have died a quick death if ABC stuck with its four comedy format on Tuesdays, got a reprieve (and a good shot at a second season) thanks to ABC using "N.Y.P.D. Blue" as a lead-in instead of going along with its original plan of moving the show to Wednesdays against "Law & Order." Knowing how well "Alias" and "Philly" ended up working out in their given scenarios one wonders how ABC can pull another "Thieves" next season.

Knowing all of these things, ABC once again has a fine development slate ("Veritas," "Capital City," etc.) and a handful of building blocks from this season to start with. How would you assemble them? Let us know what you think.__thefutoncritic.com (March 25, 2002)

Home

2002 Articles Archive Index