Make no mistake -- NBC Entertainment President Garth Ancier would love to have a show like "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" on his schedule.
"It's probably the most significant piece of programming on the air in the last several years of television because this is a brand-new genre," he said. "Think about this -- if you're a programmer, you now have a show that you can put on seven days a week, every single night of the week, in any time period you want. And it gets, not-quite 'ER' numbers, but pretty close."("Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" often does better than "ER" in household numbers, but "ER" attracts a younger demographic that's more desirable to advertisers.)
"The fact is that it's an amazing piece of product," Ancier said. "If you're ABC you can take off all your weak shows (during) sweeps . . .and replace them with a show that does (excellent) ratings. Of course that's a pretty valuable piece of programming. There's nothing like it in the modern history of television, I think."
But he also sees a downside to what he sees as ABC's growing "Millionaire" addiction.
"It's like crack," Ancier said. "Once you're on it, it's wonderful because you get these giant ratings, but no one believes it's going to work forever."
And, in the meantime, ABC has dismantled quite a bit of its current prime-time schedule and canceled projects it had coming for the future.
"ABC has taken off a lot of their situation comedies that were in development, a lot of their dramas that were in development to make room for these hours and hours of 'Millionaire,' " Ancier said.
NBC, of course, has just put its own game show, "Twenty One," on the air. But even if it ends up being a success, it will cause considerably less disruption to NBC's comedy and drama schedule and development.
"If we are to put two (hours) of 'Twenty One' on our schedule, we will have replaced two 'Datelines,' " said NBC West Coast president Scott Sassa. "What they've done is they've taken off half-hour comedies. They've taken off drama shows. These shows are very, very hard to develop.
"I think that what's going to be interesting is that when you come to the other side of this and this thing ends, you're going to have a heck of a lot of development to fill in. And that's going to be a tough duty."
For their part, ABC executives deny they've sold out tomorrow for today and "Millionaire."
"We have a full slate of development right now," said ABC Entertainment co-chairman Lloyd Braun. "I must tell you we take absolutely nothing for granted, and we are very passionately developing new programs -- dramas, comedies and alternative series.
"We're not necessarily looking just to throw another game show out there. We sort of feel like we've got the definitive game show right now. We'd like to figure out what the next phenomenon might be beyond the whole game-show format."
And they take umbrage at Ancier's crack about crack cocaine.
"I think that's an unfortunate analogy he chose," said ABC Entertainment co-chairman Stu Bloomberg. "I don't believe that we are mortgaging our future at all. We are both eternally grateful to have this wonderful show. . . . Our development is as strong as ever. So in no way do I think that we are mortgaging our future."
But others aren't so sure. CBS President Les Moonves said he was in basic agreement with Ancier's characterization of ABC's "Millionaire" addiction. "I think it's a fairly accurate description of it." he said.
"Look, I am not in favor of it," said Moonves, who reiterated his earlier statement that "every half-hour of a game show that's on the air means 100 people in Hollywood are out of work ." (Writers, producers, directors, actors, crew people.) "If it expands from three nights to five nights to seven nights -- which, judging from these numbers, it very well might -- I don't necessarily think it's good for television."
ABC is reportedly thinking of expanding beyond its current three-nights-a-week "Millionaire" schedule in the fall, although Bloomberg denies that. "We really like the three-night schedule," Bloomberg said. "We did extensive research before making this decision, and people really wanted to see this more than one night a week. And when we were conducting this research, it was in the middle of the (November) sweeps and they had no idea it was coming off the air. They didn't want to just see it one night a week."
(We do know that ABC will expand beyond three nights a week during the upcoming May sweeps, however.)
For his part, Moonves admits to some sour grapes concerning "Millionaire."
"Am I jealous? Absolutely," Moonves said. "You look at those numbers and when you see that 27 million people saw the show on (a recent) Monday, that's a phenomenal number of people. I do hope the genre slows down. I don't think it's necessarily good to have a proliferation of it.
"Is it like a drug? Well, it's not quite as damaging, but almost."
But will this hurt ABC's future development? "I hope so," Moonves joked.
Not surprisingly, they see it differently at ABC.
"I actually think 'Millionaire' is going to afford us the opportunity to take more chances in our dramatic and comedy programming because of this promotional platform we're going to have and the ability to bring in a very significant audience to sample a show," Bloomberg said.
(So far, there's been little indication of that, however -- just look at "Wonderland," which had the post-"Millionaire" slot on Thursdays for two weeks until it was canceled due to abysmal ratings.)
But the folks at NBC still wouldn't mind having ABC's prize quiz show on their schedule -- at least for as long as the craze lasts.
"Look, I watch 'Millionaire.' It's a fun show to watch," Ancier said. "Will I watch it forever? I don't know. . . . This may be a short-term fad."
Which prompted an aside from his boss.
"Your mother is going to be proud when the thing says, 'It's like crack' and you think it's fun to watch," Sassa said.
Television editor Scott D. Pierce can be reached by e-mail at pierce@desnews.com