Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 3, 1995 TAG: 9508030012
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ERIC MINK NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
DATELINE: PASADENA, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
That means that instead of 45 weeks of Sunday-night shows, there'll be 35 to 40, although the total number of hours broadcast will remain essentially equal.
Executive producer Rebecca Eaton told TV critics here what the rationale was: ``Many times over the years,'' she said, ``we've watched our best miniseries debut with a flourish, with all the attendant publicity, great ratings, only to see the audience gently - or not so gently - erode away over the weeks.''
A case in point: ``Middlemarch.'' ``We couldn't have had more publicity, in terms of reviews and press attention, for it. And the first episode generated a huge audience,'' Eaton recalled. ``But then over five weeks, it disintegrated. And we can see a pattern in that.''
Actually, ``Middlemarch,'' the dramatic quality of which also deteriorated seriously as the weeks wore on, may have driven the audience away. But Eaton and her colleagues are correct in trying to learn a lesson from, say, Ken Burns' ``Baseball,'' the most-watched public television series of all time, which ran on consecutive nights.
``The evidence ... proved that when people are there watching the first night, they're much more likely to come back the next night than the next week,'' Eaton said.
That's also the kind of scheduling that creates Big Event buzz, and it also makes it more convenient for viewers to make - and, most important, fulfill - a commitment to watch a whole series.
The first Big Event, coming this October, will be a six-hour dramatic interpretation of Edith Wharton's ``The Buccaneers,'' which is not about pirates but about four young American women who travel to England in search of husbands with titles.
The final installment of ``The House of Cards'' also is targeted for Big Event treatment on three consecutive nights, and appropriately so. That'll appear sometime over the winter. And a sprawling three-part version of Joseph Conrad's ``Nostromo,'' being filmed in Colombia, will be splashed out in spring.
Eaton also said that several two-hour films, instead of being split into two parts and aired on separate weeks, will air as the producers intended them to air, as one whole film. She expects audiences to respond favorably.
``We could tell that when we aired a 90-minute film or a two-hour film, something that was all over in one night, the audience stayed there,'' Eaton said. ``But it was very hard to recapture them to come back for the second half [a week later], even if they had the best intentions.''
That's precisely the treatment that the three newest two-hour ``Prime Suspect'' films will get, with one film airing in its entirety on one night in the fall, another in the winter and the third one next spring.
It's worth noting that these will air on ``Masterpiece Theatre,'' not ``Mystery!,'' the Thursday-night franchise that was the home of the three previous ``Prime Suspect'' miniseries. The two series' longtime underwriter, Mobil Corporation, has announced plans to end its support of ``Mystery!'' after next season and concentrate all its funding on ``Masterpiece.'' The company's commitment to the latter extends to the end of the century.
by CNB