When ABC announced its fall schedule, the Saturday-night lineup was kind of a shock.
"Young Guns," "China Beach" and "Twin Peaks," three critically acclaimed by relatively low-rated shows, were plucked from other nights."It will never work," doomsayers said. "ABC is afraid to cancel these show - especially `Beach' and `Peaks' - because of critical backlash, so the network is dumping the shows in the Saturday deathtrap where they'll die of anemic ratings."
Not so, says ABC. The network's basic attitude is: Saturday night ratings are bad because the three networks have put bad shows on that night. People will watch good shows if they're available.
And ABC has some data to back that assumption up.
"A lot of people thought we were crazy when we put `China Beach' and `Twin Peaks' on Saturday night," said Alan Wurtzel, ABC's senior vice president of marketing and research. "Well, the research shows that our audience is actually there.
"When you look at the Nielsen ratings, what you see is that there are some 41 million adults (ages) 18 to 49 that are home, can't get a date, and seem to be watching television."
Those 41 million people translate into 31 percent of that key demographic (people 18-49), and they're watching TV on Saturday night. But ABC has some additional research that shows the potential audience is even larger.
Their surveys indicate 33 percent of that audience is watching - very close to the 31 percent Nielsen figure. And ABC research found another 9 percent of the audience was home watching rented videos, a figure that doesn't appear in the Nielsens.
Another 12 percent weren't watching TV, but said they would if there were something worth watching on. That brings the total to 54 percent of the target audience.
And the problem isn't the audience, it's the networks.
"We, the three networks, haven't been very successful in getting their attention," Wurtzel said. "And I think . . . it tended to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. We, in fact, said, `Yeah, everybody's who's home was older, and all the young people are going out, so we'll put on older vehicles like the `Mystery Wheel.' "
The Big Three's total share of the viewing audience is a meager 58 percent on Saturday nights, and the alternatives (Fox, cable, independent stations) reach half of the total homes on that night.
"This isn't research, it's anecdotal. But everybody I know says . . . if you can't get a video from a rental store on Saturday night, there isn't a heck of a lot to watch on the networks," Wurtzel said.
And he admitted that part of the reasoning behind putting "Twin Peaks" on at 9 p.m. - 10 p.m. in the majority of the country - is so that people can go out, come home and still catch the show.
"But by and large, the fact of the matter is that we think there's a lot more of our audience available on Saturday night that we simply haven't programmed to," Wurtzel said. "And we'll find out how smart we are in September."
And ABC could well be right. Back in the '70s, nary a word was said against Saturday night programming. CBS had "All in the Family," "M.A.S.H.," "Mary Tyler Moore," "Bob Newhart" and "Carol Burnett" pulling in big audiences.
As a matter of fact, "All in the Family" was the No. 1 show for five straight years when it ran on Saturdays - a feat even "Cosby" couldn't duplicate.
Now we're hearing that Friday night is another unprogrammable night because no one will watch TV. Some people have short memories. "Dallas" finished No. 1 in two seasons and No. 2 in another on Fridays, and "Dallas" and "Falcon Crest" were fixtures in the Top 10 throughout much of the '80s.
To paraphrase "Field of Dreams," if the networks put on good programs - no matter what night - viewers will come.RATINGS: The week was pretty bad for all three networks - the Nielsen numbers showed a combined rating of 26.2 and a combined share of 51, meaning 49 percent of those watching TV were watching something other than ABC, CBS and NBC.
For the record, ABC tied NBC for first with 8.9 ratings and 17 shares, and CBS was a close third with a 8.4 rating and a 17 share.
THE TOP 10: 1. "Roseanne," ABC; 2. "Cheers," NBC; 3. (tie) "Cosby," NBC and "CBS Sunday Movie: Murder Ordained (Part 1)," CBS; 5. "Empty Nest," NBC; 6. (tie) "60 Minutes," CBS and "Golden Girls," NBC; 8. (tie) "Unsolved Mysteries," NBC and "A Different World," NBC; 10. (tie) "America's Funniest Home Videos," ABC and "Married . . . With Children," Fox.