I think we went to New York for the upfront with a feeling that Must-See TV was winding down. Sure, we were excited about “Will & Grace,” but I think there was a sense that we may have played out the formulas. Everything was a year older. Our new dramas did not look promising. Also, the scars from the internal divisions of cancelling the Monday movie had never healed and in fact were getting worse.
Reality was setting in. Not just the attrition of the schedule, but another type of reality. Over at FOX, Mike Darnell was putting on reality clip shows like “When Animals Attack” and “When Good Pets Go Bad.” He was putting them right up against our Thursday schedule and getting numbers. Then in August 1999, ABC introduced a game show, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” Given our upscale audience and the disposition of our specials group, we were not prepared for the emergence of this genre. We were entering the unscripted era.
The 1997-98 season was the final one for the original Must-See TV posse. By the end of 1998-99 both Warren Littlefield and Don Ohlmeyer were gone, and I wasn’t that far behind them. This was no longer fun.
The 1998-99 season was the first in a long while without “Seinfeld” on our schedule. When I arrived in Burbank in 1991, the first scheduling move that I ever made was to flip “Seinfeld” and “Night Court,” making “Seinfeld” the 9 p.m. show on Wednesday night. I was head of scheduling for the final year or so of “The Cosby Show” and “Cheers,” but “Seinfeld” defined my tenure at the Peacock.
It was the beginning of the post-“Seinfeld” era, but it was also the end of the Don Ohlmeyer/Warren Littlefield era of leadership. The dysfunction within the organizational ranks continued. I remember a phone call that NBC chairman Bob Wright put together with a few of us where he pretty much said “STOP IT!” It didn’t stop. Warren left early in the season to be replaced by Scott Sassa. We were told that Don would remain for the season, then Scott would replace him and there would be a new president of entertainment in place for the start of the 1999-2000 season.
We also went into the 1998-99 season with big time period commitments on our comedy nights. “Encore! Encore! at 8:30 on Tuesday, “Jesse” at 8:30 Thursday and “Veronica’s Closet” at 9:30 Thursday were all promised those slots for at least the first 13 episodes. Paramount’s “Frasier” won the war for the 9 o’clock “Seinfeld” slot, and we were committed to keeping it in the time period for two seasons.
“Frasier” will always be a sitcom classic, but it was an older-skewing comedy than “Seinfeld,” so the demographic profile of our Must-See TV Thursday night was altered. Also, Frasier the character returned to Thursday night out of a job and down in the dumps. Several of us screened the initial Thursday episodes, and we were concerned that the show was becoming a downer. The audience quickly responded in kind, and Frasier was back in his Seattle radio job real fast; but some damage had been done.
By the time Scott Sassa arrived, it was clear that we had made a mistake in moving “Frasier” back to Thursday. Scott asked me to rethink the schedule with “Frasier” back on Tuesday and “Friends” moving to 9 p.m. Thursday. That was what Warren and I, and even Don, advocated after Jerry Seinfeld told us he was ending his show — too many cooks.
I told Scott and Don that we could not make these moves because we had committed to leave “Frasier” on Thursday for two seasons. This was in return for a reasonable license fee and possibly getting “Encore! Encore!” as well. Everyone dismissed my warning. I told them to call Business Affairs, which also said that there was no problem making the move. I thought that I was losing my mind.
We made the arrangements to call in the production companies on a Monday and announce all the moves in a big press release. I believe this was early in 1999. Scott and Don were going to meet with the Paramount TV Studio heads first to let them know about the “Frasier” decision. Scott was going to give me the go-ahead to tell our press group to release the changes after that meeting and one with Warner Bros. TV Studio.
The Warner Bros. meeting never happened, because the Paramount people told us in no uncertain terms that “Frasier” could not move for two seasons and they had the paper to prove it. Scott frantically called to tell me the changes would not happen and to call off the dogs.
One of the golden rules of scheduling is to never tell your bosses “I told you so.” At least I knew I wasn’t crazy.
The bright spot on the schedule was “Will & Grace,” which turned out to be everything that we hoped it would be. I think we did the right thing by “protecting” it on Monday to start the season. We gave it tryouts on both Tuesday and Thursday, and wherever we put it, “W&G” delivered. By the start of the 1999-2000 season, it was on Tuesday night in the tentpole 9 p.m. slot. I knew there was opposition to moving it to Tuesday, so I had to actually argue against the move in order to get someone else to place it there. I did that a few times in my scheduling career.
The other pleasant surprise going into what would be my final season at NBC was “Providence,” a quirky family drama about a doctor who returns home to help her family after the death of her mother.
One Sunday morning in early 1998, Warren Littlefield called me to say he was sending over a script for me to read. We had one slot left in our drama development, and there was support for “Fargo,” which was based on the characters in the original movie. Warren was attracted to a pilot script called “Providence” and wanted my opinion. I had also read “Fargo.” I told him in no uncertain terms that I would go for “Providence,” since the script he sent over felt very much like FOX’s “Ally McBeal.”
Warren asked if I would argue for “Providence” in a meeting with Don Ohlmeyer and the development exec whose team wanted “Fargo.” I did, and Don agreed to go forward with “Providence.” I think there was a lot of resentment, and the pilot was not well received in the building.
(Warren, incidentally, is now an executive producer of the version of “Fargo” that airs on FX.)
“Providence” was pushed to midseason, which was the best thing that ever happened to it since I noticed that, unbelievably on Friday night at 8, there was nothing targeted for women 25-54. Back then scheduling still mattered, and although most people in the building were hoping that the show would die, it became a time-period hit.
“Providence” was a perfect show to market over the holidays, and we woke up to shockingly large numbers. John Miller, one of our two top marketing execs, called me the Saturday morning after it premiered. I said to John, “Let the rewriting of history begin.” Of course, all the naysayers were suddenly looking to grab some credit for “Providence’s” success.
Sadly, Warren was not around to celebrate in the success of the show.
Next time, I will tell you about my visit with Kauffman, Bright and Crane, the “Friends” producers.
I spent most of my career in scheduling trying to hide from the spotlight. I made a real effort to avoid introducing myself to the various showrunners. I enjoyed being introduced to them and seeing the expression on their face when they realized, “So that’s him.” I didn’t want to be their friends, and I didn’t want it to ever appear that they were influencing my scheduling decisions. The anonymity was part of the mystique, and I think it made it appear that I had more power than I actually had.
I knew that when confronted by an angry studio exec or showrunner, many execs would blame me for everything. I often received angry calls from these people, screaming at me about actions that I had no involvement in. I guess my colleagues knew I had a tough hide and could handle the abuse. Also, a lot of them were pretty spineless.
I would often be asked to dinner or lunch by these powerful people, and more often than not, they would cancel a few times, reschedule a few times and eventually they would vanish. At FOX when we ordered “Lie to Me,” executive producer Brian Grazer called me and invited me to lunch. He holds the record for most cancellations and reschedules.
This all leads me to my meeting with Marta Kauffman, Kevin Bright and David Crane, the creators and showrunners of “Friends.” As I have been documenting lately in the Must-See TV saga, as we entered the 1998-99 season we again found ourselves handcuffed by time period commitments. Two of those commitments were Warner Bros. comedies created by the “Friends” people. “Jesse,” a freshman series, and “Veronica’s Closet,” in its second season, occupied the 8:30 and 9:30 slots on Thursday night.
In early 1999, my assistant, Kathy Farrell, came in to my office to tell me the “Friends” producers wanted to take me to lunch. I had never met them, and although I would have preferred not to go, we set something up. After one, two or three cancellations (you see) they called and asked if instead of lunch, could I meet them at their offices, which were on the Warner Bros. lot.
At this point, Warren Littlefield was gone and Don Ohlmeyer had one foot out the door. Although I was working well with Warren’s successor, Scott Sassa, it was clear the place was moving in a different direction, and I was also thinking about my next adventure. Let’s say I was not in a very good place. So when I was asked to come over and meet the trio, I was certain they had some agenda. They weren’t interested in my good looks and charm; they must be concerned about something.
They were.
After some niceties, they came right to the point. Marta did the talking. It seems they had been told by who knows who that I was planning on moving both “Jesse” and “Veronica’s Closet” out of their cushy timeslots later in the season. They passionately made the case as to why this would be a mistake.
Two things. First, I had no idea what they were talking about. I had never brought it up and had no plans to make these moves. Second, with Warren and soon Don gone and feeling that my time at the Peacock was waning, I felt emboldened to speak my mind and vent my frustrations about losing control of our schedule.
I guess the simple thing would have been to reassure them that this was not the case, but that’s not where my head was. I calmly looked at the three of them, all of whom were now clearly set for life, and here’s what I said:
“Guys, when I come to work every day, I have only two objectives. I need to put food on my table and the table of all the NBC employees who depend on me and others to make the right decisions. I also need to make sure that I can send my kids to college and make sure that my fellow employees can send their kids to college.
“I have a feeling that you can send your kids, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren and everyone in the state of Idaho to college, so I can’t worry about you. My priorities are the people at NBC.”
That is almost verbatim what I said. I left on that note. I’m pretty sure when I got back to Burbank, I relayed this to Scott Sassa. “We had no plans on doing this,” was his response. “I know,” I replied. He shrugged and we moved on.
“Veronica’s Closet” did move to Monday the following year, but “Jesse” remained on Thursday.
In 2007 I ran into David Crane at an “American Idol” taping. I complimented him on his show “The Class,” which was on CBS at the time. The next morning, I got a call from Peter Liguori, my boss at FOX.
“What the f**k did you tell David Crane?”
“What are you talking about?”
“He just called me. You told him that if CBS cancels ‘The Class,’ we would pick it up.”
“Peter, I would never do that.”
It never ends.
As my career at NBC was winding down, we were at the beginning of the big leap into reality programming. In the summer of 1999, ABC aired a two-week game show event called “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” that exploded into a ratings behemoth. ABC returned the show during the November sweep, and in January 2000, “Millionaire” was a regular part of the ABC schedule, running several nights a week. ABC went on to win the season in adults 18-49, knocking us out of first place for the moment.
In quick succession, each year brought a new franchise: “Survivor” (2000), “The Amazing Race” (2001), “American Idol” and “The Bachelor” (2002), “The Apprentice” (2004) and “Dancing With the Stars,” “So You Think You Can Dance” and “Hell’s Kitchen” (2005). These franchises are still going strong, with “Idol” returning this spring on ABC.
Before the reality-competition explosion, there were the clip shows. When I arrived in Burbank in the fall of 1991, Must-See TV was yet to exist, and we were desperate for ratings. Jeff Gaspin was an executive in the news division. Jeff and I worked together in New York and became pals. By the time I moved coasts, he was overseeing primetime news programming and showed up in my office one day to pitch me a clip show with hard-edged videos that were not considered acceptable for a network news show. I was intrigued, and we went to Warren Littlefield with the idea of trying it out as a series of specials. We figured coming out of our news division would give it some “legitimacy.”
Starting in February 1992, we aired six “I Witness Video” specials. They were a ratings hit, and we made it a part of our schedule for the 1992-93 season, airing Sunday at 7 in the “family hour.” Back then, that hour was either family programming or news, and since “IWV” came from our news division, we were covered.
We got a lot of pushback from our sales group as well as from the TV critics. Internally I wound up as the program executive — none of our programming execs wanted to cover it, and Warren felt I had the relationship with Jeff and NBC News President Michael Gartner. The show lasted two years, and as we were building a quality roster of shows, there was no need for it to continue. So, before FOX made these clip shows a staple of their programming, there was “I Witness Video.”
Somewhere around 1997, Mike Darnell, FOX’s head of unscripted TV, started airing a series of clip-show specials with titles such as “When Animals Attack” and “When Good Pets Go Bad.” These specials often ran on Thursday nights in sweeps and did some serious damage to the ratings on our most important night. We had created the monster in the early ’90s, and now it was attacking us.
In addition to myself, John Miller and Vince Manze, our top marketing executives, were trying to convince Warren and Don Ohlmeyer that we needed to get into the edgy reality show business. Rick Ludwin, who oversaw specials (think Bob Hope), late night and “Seinfeld,” wanted no part of them. The closest we could come was a series of National Geographic specials. We had a deal with Nat Geo for some high-end specials. John and I were put in charge of them, and we pushed them to bring us their most sensational stuff. For example, there was a watering hole in Africa where various species lived in peace — that is until the hole started drying up. I’ll leave it at that.
We continued to watch as these FOX clip shows hurt our ratings. Early in the 1998-99 season Warren left, the ratings were starting to unravel a bit, our shows were aging and one day we got a call from Bruce Nash asking if he could come in and meet with us. Bruce Nash was the supplier of FOX’s clip shows. John Miller and I took the meeting.
Next: The clip that was too gross for FOX.
By the start of the 1998-99 season reality TV, especially shocking clip shows, was beginning to become a part of the network TV landscape. That was especially true at FOX, where Mike Darnell (who would eventually become my partner in crime when I moved to FBC) was taking a bite out of our Thursday ratings. Mike’s primary supplier of these clip shows was Bruce Nash, a rather soft-spoken, unassuming guy who did not look like he would unleash these abominations on to society.
At NBC Vince Manze, John Miller (our top marketing execs) and I would implore Warren Littlefield and Don Ohlmeyer to get in the reality game. There was lots of justified resistance given the upscale audience profile of NBC during the Must-See TV era.
Rick Ludwin, our head of specials, had no appetite of these shows, so John and I became the unofficial reality TV executives. After all, I worked on “I Witness Video” in the early 1990s.
Whenever anything “off brand” came in, John and I would take the meeting. That included meeting with Vince McMahon when he was pitching “Smackdown” to the networks. One day we got a call, possibly from Rick, that Bruce Nash wanted to come in and meet with us. I will never forget the meeting.
Bruce came in with his agent and told us that although he was having success over at FOX, they refused to give him a commitment to a series. He pitched us his catalogue of videos under the title “World’s Most Shocking Videos.” We calmly asked him if this would be in addition to the FOX specials, and he said no he would bring his business to us if we gave him a series commitment.
Bruce then showed John and me a video of a man sweeping up in an elephant’s cage. The elephant backed up and the man’s head went up the elephant’s butt. There was a squishing sound. Bruce told us FOX would not let him show this video and that if we agreed to air it, he would take his business over to us.
I didn’t have to look at John to know that his heart was pumping as fast as mine. We had a chance to steal Bruce Nash from FOX! We told Bruce that we would check with Don about the video, but regardless, we could not call the series “World’s Most Shocking Videos.” We knew our sales department was going to freak out about this, and the name would be rubbing salt in the wound. We settled on “World’s Most Amazing Videos” and told Bruce we would get back to him.
As soon as Bruce left the room, John and I started high-fiving and babbling to each other. We could not believe what just happened. A 13-episode series commitment would bring Bruce Nash to NBC. We ran up to Don’s office, told him what just happened and showed him the clip. Don took a drag on his Marlboro and said, “As long as I don’t hear that squish on the air.”
“World’s Most Amazing Videos” premiered March 3, 1999, a Wednesday night. Stacey Keach was the narrator. Hey, we needed some credibility. Once again, I found myself as the program exec. We got away with a lot, and I told Bruce to go for it but never show a death on camera. Of course, one day a clip comes over with the police shooting a man holding a person hostage in a car. Keach’s narration says the police “neutralized” the perp. I called Bruce and asked if the police killed the hostage taker. “No, they neutralized him.” I did not allow the clip to air.
Bruce and I became pals. I pitched him several ideas, such as “Pro Wrestling Secrets Revealed, an homage to FOX’s “Breaking the Magician’s Code” specials. We piloted an early version of “Tosh.0” called “The Internet’s Funniest Web Sites,” but it never went to series. We were ahead of our time.
I pitched Bruce a dating show called “Me, Tarzan,” which he eventually sold to Turner as “Outback Jack.” When I moved over to FOX, I brought Bruce and Dick Clark in in to see Mike Darnell in an attempt to revive “Dance Fever.” Finally, before “The Biggest Loser,” we played around with a weight-loss competition called “The Weigh Inn.” I had a lot of fun playing off of Bruce.
In May 1999 a new NBC Entertainment president was appointed. No more Don, no more Warren. I knew my days at NBC were coming to a close.
Time for the final chapter in the Must-See TV saga, at least for me.
The 1999-2000 season would be my final one at NBC. I entered the season for the first time without both Warren Littlefield and Don Ohlmeyer. Scott Sassa was the new Don, and Garth Ancier returned to become president of NBC Entertainment. I knew I would never have the respect and relationship that I had with Warren and Don.
We went into the season with only 10 comedies on our schedule. That was eight less from the peak 18-comedy sked. We had five “Datelines” and were beginning to rely a bit more on dramas.
There were two new John Wells shows on our schedule (“Third Watch” and “The West Wing”), both of which had successful runs on the network. “Providence” was starting its first full season, and we were beginning the first of several “Law & Order” colonized hits with “SVU.”
I may have talked about this, but probably my last contribution to the Must-See TV era was to give “SVU” its title. Dick Wolf pitched the show to us with the title “Sex Crimes.” We ordered it to series without a script and never saw a pilot before we announced the schedule. Needless to say, our sales people were freaking out about having to sell a show called “Sex Crimes,” even if it was from Emmy-winning Dick Wolf.
We finally received a script, and there on the first page was a description of the unit as the Special Victims Unit. We met to discuss the script, and I asked everyone why don’t we call the show “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and make our poor sales group happy? No arguments, and the rest is history.
For the first time that I could remember, ownership trumped quality (in my opinion), and we scheduled an NBC Studio relationship dramedy “Cold Feed” (based on a British series) over a pilot that I loved called “Chaos Theory.”
Finally, after much agonizing, we put a drama from Judd Apatow — “Freaks and Geeks” — on Saturday at 8 p.m. Set in the early 1980s, the show centered around two groups of social misfits at a Michigan high school.
Back in December, two NBC development executives came into my office and asked if I would read a script and help them defend it to Ohlmeyer and Sassa. “Freaks and Geeks” was a revelation. I gave it to the Masked Daughter to read, and she also loved it. I worked on several execs over Christmas vacation. When we came back from the holidays in January, Scott Sassa assembled his senior staff to talk about the pilot scripts. There was widespread support for “F&G,” and we ordered it to pilot.
One of the unsung heroes (or is it heroines) of Must-See TV was Lori Openden, our head of casting, who now has that gig at The CW (need I say more?). Lori helped put together a “F&G” cast that included James Franco, Linda Cardellini, Seth Rogen, Busy Philipps, John Francis Daley and Jason Segel. The pilot was dark but, in the end, uplifting. There was a feeling we needed to get this show on the air. Then Columbine happened.
As a group, I don’t remember ever agonizing over a decision as we did over “Freaks and Geeks.” Do we walk away from it? Do we save it for midseason? Will it be seen as us exploiting an American tragedy (even though the show’s “freaks” were really harmless)? We finally decided it was too good a show to walk away from or leave on the shelf.
The other problem was there was really no slot on the schedule that made sense for the show. Although we loved it, we thought it was a small show so we put it Saturday at 8 p.m., figuring it was a low-profile time period and it could sit there. I sort of did the same thing for “Homicide,” which had a long, successful run by hiding it in the Friday 10 p.m. time period.
“Freaks and Geeks” was not going to be a high priority show for our promo group, with “The West Wing,” “Third Watch” and “SVU” getting the push. As Don Ohlmeyer always told us, “You can’t love all your children the same.” As a result, we were completely blindsided by the overwhelmingly positive reviews for “F&G.” The day before it premiered, we were all looking at each other stunned and not knowing what to do.
At the end of the day (and remember this was 18 years ago) “Freaks and Geeks” probably was not going to “work.” We were also reminded that critical response gets you only a little. “Providence” had been trashed in January 1999 and was a hit for the Peacock.
I think “F&G” turned out to be a very dark show, and it’s possible the events of Columbine didn’t help. Rick Ludwin, our specials, “Seinfeld” and late-night guy, hit it on the head. We were agonizing over the show at an afternoon executive meeting, and Rick, in his low-key way, said, “This show needs little victories.” That resonated. We actually did an episode with that in mind, and we even put that episode on a different night, but it was too late. That episode was not the show the creators wanted to do.
“Freaks and Geeks” did not make it through the season. I had another run-in with Judd Apatow when I got to FOX and he gave us “Undeclared.” That also failed, and in an article, Judd blamed me for his failures at both networks and said he would not do network television ever again. Uh, you’re welcome?
There’s one more final chapter.
This chapter is less about scheduling and more about the end of my career at NBC. Although now that I think of it, it was about how I scheduled my departure.
By November 1999, I knew that it was time for me to move on. Over the years, I had been offered big opportunities at UPN and Turner Broadcasting. I was also approached about scheduling a French network (the Masked Wife speaks fluent French, by the way). Not long after I started at NBC, I got a call from Hong Kong asking if I was interested in moving there to oversee a group of satellite channels. Here was the conversation:
Me: “I just moved my family kicking and screaming from New York to L.A. No amount of money would get me to move them again to Hong Kong.”
Them: “Wanna bet?”
Me: “This call is over.”
I remained at NBC out of loyalty to Warren Littlefield and Don Ohlmeyer and out of pride and respect for what we all had built at NBC during the ’90s. None of that was the case anymore. Then a miracle happened.
That November, on a Sunday afternoon, David Nevins called me. David and I had worked together at NBC, and he had moved over to FOX to work with Doug Herzog, who was then president of FOX Entertainment. David now runs Showtime.
“Man, we could really use you over here,” he told me. “Would you meet with Doug?”
I was ready for a change and I loved what FOX represented, both in scripted and reality. I met with Doug and others and by January, I knew this would be my last season at NBC.
I never connected with the new NBC leadership. One day an executive was brought in to run the studio. Prior to coming over to NBC, he had run one of the other broadcast networks. The week he arrived, he called and asked me to lunch. As soon as we sat down this happened:
Him: “I just wanted to clear the air and tell you I’m not here to do your job.”
Me: “So you’re here to do my job?”
Him: “No, that’s why I asked you to lunch.”
Me: “Well, now that I know you’re here to do my job, go ahead. I seem to remember that you got fired because you couldn’t take me on when it came to scheduling, so go for it.”
These are the people you sometimes have to deal with in the biz.
In January, I told Scott Sassa I had no interest in renewing my contract at NBC. I may have also told him what I thought about certain executive hires. I’m not a very nice person.
In late February, there was a management meeting. I told Scott, and he agreed, that I should not attend. The night the meeting started, I received a call from John Agoglia, who was the head of business affairs at NBC for most of my time there. John asked me if I knew who Gail Berman was: “She’s gonna be your boss at FOX, kid.” As soon as I hung up with John, Warren Littlefield called. “Word at the NBC management meeting is that [the President of NBC Entertainment] fired you today,” he said.
I won’t go into what happened next, but I never returned to my job. I started my new gig at FOX in June. After I left, several people rotated through the scheduling job, and there were other rapid high-level changes at NBC. The stability and camaraderie that existed during the Must-See TV ’90s was gone.
Fast forward to January 2004. “American Idol” was about to start its third cycle and its second during the regular season. Reality shows were becoming a ubiquitous part of most schedules, and NBC had just introduced a new competition show, “The Apprentice,” featuring Donald Trump. The show was originally scheduled to go up against “Idol” on Wednesday nights, but Jeff Zucker, who was running NBC at the time, decided to move it away from what appeared to be a growing juggernaut. “The Apprentice” would air at 9 p.m. Thursday. The knife was stuck in the heart of the defining night of Must-See TV.
Within an hour of the announcement, Warren Littlefield called. We acknowledged that what we had inherited from Brandon Tartikoff, and built into a cultural phenomenon, was over. To this day, we remain proud of what we accomplished and the friendships that have lasted over time. Warren and I spoke this Sunday. I complimented him for winning the Emmy for “The Handmaid’s Tale,” on which he’s an executive producer.
Speaking of Brandon Tartikoff, at the peak of Must-See TV, Brandon called me to discuss the scheduling of a Tom Clancy miniseries he was producing. I had no patience for these calls, but this was Brandon, so I was more than happy to have the give and take. In 1992 Brandon had written a book titled “The Last Great Ride.” His premise was that a network could never accomplish what NBC had accomplished in the 1980s, led by “The Cobsy Show” and several quality dramas. Towards the end of our conversation Brandon congratulated me for our Must-See TV success.
“But it will never be as good as what we did in the ’80s,” he said.
I replied, “Brandon, it’s better.”
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