SCHEDULING MUST-SEE-TV PART 4

Back in the mid-1990s, when scheduling moves really mattered to the bottom line of a broadcast network, two of my guiding principles were:

·       There are three moves to the scheduling game — your move, the other guy’s move and your response to that move. There is not a fourth.

·       Let the other guy do the dirty work for you. Don’t overthink a scheduling move; let your competition do that.

When we moved “Frasier” and “Wings” to Tuesday to establish a second night of Must-See TV for the 1994-95 season, we knew we would be going onto ABC’s successful turf and that we were putting a show that we had a lot of faith in against one of their heavy hitters in “Roseanne.” We had done our homework, and based on feedback from the upfront, we knew there would be a financial upside from this move.

As an aside, we were making another “bold” move on Thursday at 10 p.m. by putting our new medical drama “ER” against CBS’ “Chicago Hope.” “CH” was also a freshman medical drama, but it was created David E. Kelley, and CBS had announced the pickup and time period far in advance. CBS acted like it was their time period and we were the encroachers. More on this down the road.

When I got the call from Don Ohlmeyer that Ted Harbert at ABC was “threatening” to make the move of “Home Improvement” from Wednesday to Tuesday to take on “Frasier,” he told me, “The fun’s over. Let’s put ‘Frasier’ back on Thursday.” My response to Don was that ABC seemed more worried about this move than we were, and that this will result in diminished ratings for both of their big tentpole shows. I also told Don that if they moved “Home Improvement,” ABC would make the Tuesday face-off the story of the new season, which means a boatload of free publicity.

As always, Don (in accordance with the GE culture) was willing to give me all the rope I needed to hang myself and asked me to work with Eric Cardinal, our West Coast research head, to do more competitive analysis of the move. We found that “Home Improvement” would win a head-to-head contest with “Frasier,” but that our comedy would more than hold its own in the time period. When you factor in the gross ratings improvement for us on Tuesday/Thursday and the increase in sales, this looked like a big win for us in spite of the ABC move. In addition, we calculated that ABC would take a gross ratings hit on their two big comedy nights if they made the move.

When we didn’t react to Harbert’s initial threat, Ted kept calling over the summer, telling Ohlmeyer they had hired consultants to look into this and that they all agreed that ABC should make the move. I kept reassuring Don we were doing the right thing, and in success we had set ourselves up for long-term profitability. ABC waited until late in the summer to announce the flip, figuring that we would react. We did nothing.

Paramount, which owned both “Frasier” and “Wings,” was apoplectic, and put pressure on us to unscramble the egg. I ran into Kelsey Grammer at some affiliate function after ABC made the change. I introduced myself and told him that he should see this as a sign of the faith that we had in the series. I also explained that, if the move works, it significantly increased the value of “Frasier” in syndication. It was no longer the show that followed “Seinfeld” but the show that opened up another Must-See TV night for NBC. I told him if Paramount couldn’t figure that out, I would personally write the syndication presentation for them. What an a–hole I was back then.

Sure enough, this Tuesday confrontation became the talk of the fall. We had bet the ranch on this move. We also believed that on Thursday at 10, we had the stronger medical drama in “ER.” The 1994-95 season was going to be really interesting.

The face-off between “Frasier” and “Home Improvement” was the talk of the summer, and the free publicity was amazing. We purposely kept “Frasier” on Thursday night throughout the summer and waited for premiere week to move it head-to-head against “HI.”

It wasn’t quite The Battle of the Bastards, but we were about to go to war with ABC at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, and for the overall claim as the No. 1 network in the 18-49 demographic, which was the currency of the business.

Back in the mid-’90s, the Hollywood Radio and Television Society (HRTS) would kick off the broadcast season with a panel of the network presidents. I still remember when Warren Littlefield was asked about the confrontation, he was humble and said (which was the truth) that we expected “Home Improvement” to win but that we would be competitive. Ted Harbert, then head of ABC Entertainment, was a bit more arrogant about this. He was out of a job within two years.

When I came out to Burbank in 1991, I decided not to look at the ratings until I arrived at the office. This was before ratings hotlines. I would often get a call on the way in to the office from someone in research, and I would beg them not to call and read me the ratings. When I got into the office, I would print up the overnights and look at them as if I were looking at a poker hand. I remember the relief at looking at the “Frasier” overnight ratings. We didn’t win the time period, but it was clear “Frasier” would survive against “Home Improvement” and that “HI” had taken the bigger hit with this move to Tuesday. It looked vulnerable.

The even bigger relief, and pleasant surprise, was what was about to happen on Thursday night — where two medical dramas were going head-to-head at 10 p.m. The “ER” pilot, which I told you all tested through the roof, was two hours, and we had a tough decision to make. Do we pre-empt “Seinfeld” in premiere week and air the pilot from 9-11 p.m., or do we find another timeslot for the premiere? We all agreed that we would be leaving too much money on the table if “Seinfeld” were not part of our Thursday night premiere strategy. Fortunately, we had a simple solution.

At that time, we had a Monday movie night that went up against “Monday Night Football” in the fall. Our movie targeted women 18-54, and we figured that would be the demo for “ER,” so we premiered the pilot on Monday and ran the second episode on Thursday along with our comedy premieres. We were confident that if viewers showed up on Monday, they would come back Thursday for the next episode. They did. We outrated the premiere of “Chicago Hope,” but the shocker was on week two, where “ER” blew “Hope” out of the water and CBS needed to rethink keeping the show on Thursday night.

“ER” quickly established itself as a juggernaut. Next, we had to figure out how and where to repeat the pilot, which leads me to a funny story.

New Year’s Day featured the top college football bowl games (now there are a gazillion bowls). NBC would air the Orange Bowl in prime, and ABC would air the Rose Bowl in the afternoon and the Sugar Bowl in prime. Generally, one of those games was for the national championship. With two networks airing college football, CBS would wisely see that as an opportunity to premiere a midseason series against them. I remember “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” among others, successfully launched against the bowl games.

NBC had lost the rights to the Orange Bowl for the 1995 game. We were sitting around one day thinking about how to program the “ER” repeat. We knew CBS was going to move “Chicago Hope” away from “ER,” and I suggested that given their New Year’s Day strategy, I would not be surprised if they took the opportunity to relaunch it at 10 p.m. on Monday, which was New Year’s Day.

We pre-emptively announced we were repeating the “ER” pilot on New Year’s Day, and we did it sometime in October. We went out with a press release figuring that would give CBS pause. It turned out we were right about where “Chicago Hope” was going, and shockingly, CBS announced it would move there on New Year’s Day. It’s a free country.

Mandy Patinkin, who was starring in “CH” at the time, heard about this and called Don Ohlmeyer’s office demanding to meet with him. Don graciously agreed, and after Mandy vented, Don walked him through the chronology of events and told him that he was in the wrong president’s office and should head back over to CBS. On New Year’s Day, the “ER” repeat once again crushed “Chicago Hope,” which did remain on the CBS schedule for a few more seasons away from the big dog.

Those were the days when scheduling really mattered, and the networks would aggressively go after each other.

Not only were we celebrating the success of “ER,” but also another pleasant surprise was brewing over on Thursday. That’s the next story.

We weren’t expecting great things from the “Friends” pilot. It was not a strong-testing show, and it had two other obstacles. That May, FOX announced a comedy about a group of single twentysomethings in Chicago called “Wild Oats.” It was eerily similar to “Friends,” down to a hangout where the gang congregated.

The comparisons between the two shows occupied most of the coverage. We felt we had the better show with the stronger cast, but it didn’t matter. Paul Rudd was in the cast of “Wild Oats,” but I took solace in the fact that notorious show killer Paula Marshall was one of the leads.

The second obstacle was a bit more daunting. It turned out that Jennifer Aniston was in “second position” on “Friends.” She had also starred in a CBS series called “Muddling Through” that had yet to air, and what second position meant was that if the CBS show moved forward, she was legally committed to that show and we would need to replace her on “Friends.” Although “Muddling Through” did not make the fall schedule, the Eye net decided to air the episodes on Saturday night in the summer on 1994, prior to the premiere of “Friends.”

The morning that CBS announced that they were airing the Aniston show, we were in a Current meeting in Burbank. We knew that if these episodes got any sort of a rating, CBS may well order more just to block Aniston from boing part of the “Friends” cast. My boss Warren Littlefield looked at me and said, referring to “Muddling Through,” “Kill it!”

Although CBS put the show on Saturday night, I scheduled an original Danielle Steel movie (which always popped a rating) against the premiere and aired second-run Steel movies over the next few weeks to squash it. The strategy worked.

There was one more glitch before “Friends” got on the air. One afternoon Jamie Tarses, our top developer at the time, came into my office quite upset. Back then we were trying to do away with opening themes songs, and the “Friends” producers (Marta Kauffman, Kevin Bright and David Crane — more on them later) wanted an opening theme. Jamie played it for me and told me Don Ohlmeyer didn’t like it and was resisting even allowing an opening theme for the show. She asked if I would go up to Don’s office with her and support the song and the positioning. I thought the opening was fun and creative. Regarding the song itself, I really had no opinion, but if it was important to her and the producers, sure, I’d go into the lion’s den with her.

We caught Don in a good mood. As was usual, he asked if I would take responsibility if this turned out to be a mistake. This was the ritual between us. I said I would, and the rest is history.

Although it was given the cushy 8:30 hammock between “Mad About You” and “Seinfeld,” my Spidey senses told me that “Friends” seemed to be performing better than your average comedy given such a primo time slot. Also, the show’s rating built over the first few weeks, and the quality of the episodes kept getting better and better.

The real test came when I gave “Friends” a one-time-only at-bat behind “Frasier” on Tuesday night. If my memory serves me, we were getting close to the November sweep, and “The John Larroquette Show” needed a “hit,” which was scheduling slang for we didn’t have an original episode. I thought there was nothing to lose in seeing how “Friends” would do outside of its hammock. It performed above the level of the “Larroquette” originals.