Corporate Comebacks: ABC

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If you air it, there’s no guarantee they will come.

The American Broadcasting Company (DIS), best known in couch-surfing circles as ABC, learned this lesson the hard way.

Throughout the late 90s (and well into this current decade), as rival NBC (GE) built on the strength of its Must See TV lineup and competitor CBS (CBS) posted impressive Nielsen numbers with a pair of Queens, New York-centric sitcoms and a procedural called CSI, ABC floundered.

The network that dominated the airwaves for most of the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations with iconic offerings like Three’s Company, Charlie’s Angels, The Love Boat, MacGyver and The Wonder Years was without a breakout hit.


By the end of the 2003-2004 season, ABC had fallen to fourth in the ratings - behind even newcomer Fox (NWS). And no amount of C-level reshuffling seemed to right the ship: The company had cycled through no less than 3 programming overlords in 5 years.

And it knew how to add insult to inury. In an effort to counter the all-out fascination with CBS’s Survivor in 1999, ABC leveraged its popular Who Wants to Be a Millionaire property, but did so with the heaviest of hands. Instead of merely scheduling the newfangled game show opposite Survivor, it aired the thing 4 times a week throughout the fall season, turning the show into the TV equivalent of meatloaf (as in, “meatloaf for dinner again?”).

Its foray into reality TV was equally ill-conceived: Are You Hot? and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! did little to derail the early success of shows like The Amazing Race and American Idol.

But everybody loves a comeback - especially on TV.

Under the tutelage of new prime-time entertainment president Stephen McPherson , the alphabet network found its footing and staged a sharp turnaround. And -- shock and awe! -- all it took were a couple of good programming calls, namely the Teri Hatcher-led Desperate Housewives and the J.J. Abrams-helmed Lost.

The latter, according to Entertainment Weekly, debuted “to 18.7 million viewers, giving ABC its most watched drama since 1995…until Desperate Housewives debuted with 21.6 million viewers.”

In the ensuing years, ABC added the popular -- and acclaimed -- Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty. It even managed to make up for its earlier reality TV debacles with a debacle people actually like to watch: Dancing with the Stars.

Ever wonder if the powerful studio executive who green-lighted the movie you just saw a trailer for was high? Because what else would explain investing time and resources in a picture that doesn’t stand a chance, except maybe on a shelf at Blockbuster?

It’s the same with TV.

For years ABC threw second-rate content at the wall, only to find that it wouldn’t stick. But its resurgence means a rival network had to falter, and NBC is doing so in spectacular fashion. Since Friends ended its 10-year run in 2004, the network hasn’t had a number 1 hit. CEO Jeff Zucker recently said he doesn’t think NBC will ever return to its former prime-time glory.


That’s either a white flag of surrender or a ruse. When the only thing that stands between good ratings and bad are a few inspired picks, you never know when a down-on-its-luck network might bounce back.