It’s May 1993. It’s pilot week. We go into the process knowing that we have three of our four Thursday night comedies: “Wings,” “Seinfeld” and the “Cheers” spinoff “Frasier.” We were searching for our 8 p.m. show. The family hour was still sort of a thing, so our hope was to find something more family-oriented for the leadoff spot on the night.
Our comedy development team had placed their chips on a show starring Henry Winkler. “Monty” was a Rush Limbaugh-like character, and the comedy was both workplace and family. “Monty” had elements of “All in the Family,” including David Schwimmer playing a version of the Rob Reiner role.
There was a lot of anticipation as we gathered to screen the “Monty” pilot, and there was dead silence in the room during the screening. Everyone filed out of the room with the realization that we did not have a leadoff comedy for Thursday night.
I stood in the empty executive conference room where we screened the pilots and also set the schedule. I opened the scheduling board and tried to figure out our options. Although I understood the constraints of what we could put at 8 p.m., there seemed to be only one option — and it was sitting on Saturday night, where it had been sent into exile in January.
I moved “Mad About You” to the Thursday 8 p.m. slot and called Eric Cardinal, a good friend and our head of research, and asked him to come over to the conference room. Eric agreed it was our best option, but we both knew there would be issues with going with an all adult block of comedies.
We called Warren Littlefield and Don Ohlmeyer into the room, and it was agreed that we needed to do this. We discussed it with sales and broadcast standards, so we did our due diligence.
There was one hiccup before we nailed the night down. Don found out that “Married … with Children” might be in play, and we debated whether to make a run for it as our leadoff Thursday comedy. Needless to say, this discussion was not as easy as whether we should move “Mad” over to Thursday. Fortunately, that decision was made for us, as FOX renewed the show before we could make a move.
We announced “Mad About You” as our Thursday night leadoff comedy, and not surprisingly, we got a lot of heat for the move. I was personally singled out by some groups as one step removed from the devil. It all seems sort of funny now, but it was a big thing back then. With “Mad” at 8, we had reinvented the comedy block and we were one step closer to Must-See TV.
For me the Thursday night of “Mad About You,” “Wings,” “Seinfeld” and “Frasier” rivaled “Cosby,” “Family Ties,” “Cheers” and “Night Court” as the two most perfect nights of comedy on NBC. I would tell people that when you have a four-comedy block, one of them becomes the “walk the dog” show. These two nights were not favorites among the canine population.
As for “Monty,” that show about the Rush Limbaugh-ish character? NBC passed on it, but it hit a soft spot with Rupert Murdoch over at FOX, and in January 1994 “Monty” premiered on FBC. It did not go well.
Finally, quietly we were building a comedy-heavy schedule. We went into the 1993-94 season with 14 comedies on the schedule. They weren’t all gems, but they were sales-friendly, repeatable and modular. We also went into the new season commitment free. This would allow us to make the big move in 1994-95.
The 1993-94 season was the pivotal moment in the history of NBC’s successful run as not only the No. 1 network, but also the network with the most appealing audience to advertisers. The centerpiece of that was our Thursday night comedy block. This was a win-win-win for the network:
· Big 18-49 ratings
· An upscale, highly educated, urban audience
· Airing on the most important night for advertisers — Thursday
Of course, there was uncertainty as to how our new Thursday line-up of “Mad About You,” “Wings,” “Seinfeld” and “Frasier” would perform. “Mad” was leading off a night for the first time and going against “The Simpsons” on FOX. “Seinfeld” no longer had “Cheers” as a lead-in and was now the cleanup hitter, and we had no idea that “Frasier” would turn out to be a classic sitcom.
Regardless, we went into the ’93-’94 season confident that we were moving in the right direction, and we decided we needed something to signal that.
Here’s my version of what happened next.
Every afternoon at 2:30, about 10 senior executives would head up to Don Ohlmeyer’s office for what we called the “2:30 Meeting,” and you had to be there right at 2:30. Don had this thing about being prompt. This meeting was a byproduct of the General Electric sensibility filtering into the network. QMI stood for Quick Market Intelligence, and its purpose was to make sure the top executives were all aware of both internal and external events that could impact decision-making. Information would be shared and strategies and responses would be laid out. It actually worked.
In the spring of ’93, after we had set the schedule for the following fall, we were at a 2:30 meeting. I brought up ABC’s TGIF Friday night schedule. I always felt that they did a fantastic job branding that night, where the whole was more than the sum of its parts, and that we should think about our Thursday night in a similar way. Don turned to Vince Manze and John Miller, our marketing heads, and told them to go off and come up with a brand for the night. They came back with Must-See TV, and we went into the ’93-’94 season with a rallying cry for the most important night on our schedule.
Thursday night lived up to the brand. “Mad”/”Wings” built a foundation for “Seinfeld,” which exceeded our expectations in terms of its broad appeal without the “Cheers” lead-in. The quality of the “Frasier” episodes continued to grow over the season, and it won an Emmy in its freshman year.
For a scheduler, this night was perfection, and I did not change a thing all season. One of the secrets to “Seinfeld’s” success was that I had 20-plus episodes that were still virtually unseen by most fans of the show. These were the episodes that aired on Wednesday night during the show’s first two full seasons. I had several third runs, and when “Seinfeld” needed a repeat, these episodes played like first-run episodes to a good portion of the audience.
As successful as we were, there was more to come. That development season Warner Bros. brought us two shows — “Friends” and “ER” — that would solidify Thursday as a night for the ages. In addition, in midseason we premiered “Homicide: Life on the Street” on Wednesday night, and we all believed that it would be the show to replace “LA Law” on Thursdays at 10.
Next, we’ll look at the 1994 pilot season, a threat to my life and a restless night epiphany.
No comments:
Post a Comment