YOU can’t blame ABC executives for being enamored with “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”
They’re probably still pinching themselves over the dumb luck they had in accidentally stumbling on to what is quite possibly the most phenomenal network TV show in a generation.
The problem? They’re planning to run it four times a week next season – a plan that may prove it’s possible to love something too much … even to love it to death.
“This is beyond our wildest dreams,” said ABC’s top programmer, Stu Bloomberg, in a telephone news conference last week assessing the just-concluded season.
Bloomberg was understandably euphoric about ABC emerging as the top-rated network for the first time since 1994-95, and he had “Millionaire” to thank for that.
He could thank the show for a host of other stuff too – most notably, months and months of headlines chronicling its performance, its weekly position at the top of the Nielsens, the havoc it wreaked on nearly everything ABC’s competitors threw up against it, and the way it lifted viewership levels all season long for all of network television, not just ABC.
All that ink, of course, reflected favorably back on Bloomberg and the programming department he heads – and what could be more important than that for a Hollywood player?
By the time the awestruck programming chiefs of the other networks came to town in mid-May to unveil their new fall lineups, the only thing they could all agree on was that “Millionaire” was darned difficult to schedule against, a situation that was made even worse by ABC’s decision to place the responsibility for the success of its entire fall slate on Regis Philbin’s thin shoulders.
How sound is that idea? That’s a tough question to answer since the strategy is so unprecedented. Never in the history of prime-time network television has one runaway hit show gotten four one-hour weekly slots (news magazines and “Falcone” don’t count) – 9 p.m. Sundays, 8 p.m. Tuesdays, 9 p.m. Thursdays and, starting this fall, 8 p.m. Wednesdays.
One would think, though, that devoting four hours per week (out of 22 hours of weekly prime-time programming) to one show would be a risky move, especially for a show on which so much depends for ABC.
The danger is that “Millionaire” will become over-exposed and viewers will then tire of the dramatic music, the sometimes unchallenging nature of the show’s questions, Regis, his monochromatic ties, and his “final answer?” query.
Already there’s talk in the industry of “Millionaire” not performing as well in the ratings recently as it had earlier in the season, although that could be the result of intense competition from the season finales of some long-running hits such as NBC’s “Frasier,” whose finale trounced “Millionaire” on May 18.
Still, based on the way the public embraces and then discards pop culture phenomena, you have to wonder if “Millionaire” is headed for a fall.
Maybe the best way for ABC to have followed “Millionaire’s” megahit first season would have
been to pull back a little in season two – perhaps to schedule it once a week in the same time period, preferably 8-9 p.m. so the whole family could enjoy it.
Common sense would indicate that that would be a better way to ensure that the show sticks around for a few years.
Otherwise, by this time next year, the only headlines ABC will be getting will be: “ABC’s ‘Millionaire’: What went wrong?”