From his office on the 38th floor of the ABC building in Manhattan, Fred
Silverman can peer into the office of CBS President Robert Wussler,
just across 53rd Street. Occasionally the two men wave at each other
from the heights, like rival aviators saluting before a dogfight. But
sometimes—when he is trying to woo a star away from another network or
plan a secret strategy—Silverman, head of ABC’s programming, draws his
drapes: if he can look into Wussler’s office, Wussler can look into
his, and Silverman does not want anyone, especially anyone at CBS, to
know where the Red Baron will strike next. Invigorated by Silverman’s frenzied aggressiveness and unorthodox
tactics, ABC—television’s perennial also-ran in ratings, revenues and
prestige—has all but obliterated its competitors in evening prime
time. Last spring, at the end of the 1976-77 season, the network had
the nation’s four top-rated shows and seven of the top ten. CBS, which
had been the premier network since television came of age in the ’50s,
managed to squeeze only two into the top ten. NBC, the granddaddy of
all the networks, was able to place only one on those elevated rungs. Translated into Nielsen points, the language TV people are most fluent
in, ABC had a Nielsen average of 21.5, compared with 18.7 for CBS and
18.0 for NBC. Since each Nielsen point means a million viewers and is
worth about $36 million in advertising revenue on a full-season basis,
ABC’S lead was equal to $100.8 million —and that is a language anyone
can understand. There is no parallel in the history of broadcasting—and few in any
well-established industries—to ABC’s sudden rise. It is as if, in the
space of two years, Chrysler had surged past General Motors and sent
Ford reeling back to Dearborn. Or —to stretch the truth only a bit—as
if China had discovered some mysterious, all-powerful Z-bomb and in
victorious glee ordered both the White House and the Kremlin dismantled
and shipped, boards and nails, to Peking. ABC has raided the other networks for affiliated stations, convincing
station owners that they will be able to ask more money from local
advertisers if they are connected with ABC hits. One month the
NBC affiliate in San Diego or Charlotte, N.C., makes the switch. Another
month it is the CBS station in Providence or Albany, N.Y. In the past
two years ABC has added 15 stations to its web, for a total of 195. CBS
and NBC are still ahead in the number of stations, with 204 and 208
respectively, but no one will guess how long traditional loyalties will
survive the siren lure of ABC’s Nielsens.
