FRANK SWERTLOW
ABC’s surprise summer hit “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” has spurred its rivals into developing prime-time game shows.
“All the network heads have put out an edict find me one,” said Sam Haskell, head of Worldwide Television at the William Morris Agency. “They are all looking.”
Next summer, CBS is bringing back “What’s My Line,” a fixture on the network for 17 years starting in 1950. A spokesman said CBS is also developing two new game shows for prime time.
An NBC spokeswoman said that network has held serious discussions about developing a prime-time game show, though a spokeswoman said the “priority is on developing sitcoms.”
If NBC were to move ahead with a game show, it could reprise any one of several popular series it owns the rights to, including “Tic, Tac, Dough” and “Twenty-One,” the prime-time program whose original producers were embroiled in the quiz show scandals of the 1950s.
Fox also has looked into prime-time game shows but is taking a wait-and-see approach, possibly until after “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” returns during the November sweeps on ABC.
Hosted by Regis Philbin, “Millionaire?” premiered Aug. 16. It was broadcast for 13 nights during a two-week period and was among the top-rated shows each week during its run. The show averaged 14.5 million viewers, soaring to a high of 22 million at one point. It was No. 1 in its time period in terms of total viewers. In also was tops among the all-important 18-49-year-old viewers, except for one night.
Bill Croasdale, a media buyer for Western Initiative Media, said the industry would be keeping a keen eye on the success of the game show to determine whether “Millionaire?” was a summer fluke or a genuine hit. ABC, he said, could expand the half-hour “Millionaire?” to an hour and broadcast it more than once a week.
“Action,” Fox’s satiric look at Hollywood movie making, was supposed to be the season’s hippest sitcom so hip that four-letter words, a common part of Hollywood-speak, were bleeped from the dialog. One character, a former child-star-turned-hooker, becomes a movie executive at a leading production company. Funny? Outrageous? TV critics thought so; the public didn’t.
The first two back-to-back episodes were beaten by two repeats of NBC’s “Frasier” and a rerun of “Diagnosis Murder” on CBS. The second episode of “Action” drew 1 million fewer viewers than the first.
In the battle for 18-49-year-old viewers, the demographic coveted by advertisers, the first episode of “Action” finished second behind “Frasier,” but the second episode fared much worse than the first, dropping from 4.4 rating to a 3.9 rating.
Inside-Hollywood shows often have trouble grabbing viewers in the heartland. But media buyer Croasdale said something else led to the low numbers.
“It wasn’t funny,” he said, “I didn’t see any laughter.”
But a Fox insider said the network wasn’t surprised at the outcome. “It’s where we thought we would be,” he said. “This is going to be a slow build. Thursday nights are going to be a free-for-all.”
QVC, never known for its high-end products, is heading to Beverly Hills. The shopping network will feature a four-hour live broadcast Oct. 31 from the Beverly Hills Civic Center. It will feature merchandise from Giorgio, Fleur de Lis, Jessica McClintock and Teuscher’s Chocolates.
