It's been years since I've seen one — I'm not sure they still do them — but I used to enjoy network preview specials. Each year, they'd do these little half-hour promos promising you that every show of the new season was sparkling and wonderful and sure to become a part of your life each week. And I guess I should have known this…but as I started working in the TV business, I learned that no one (repeat: no one) at the network ever thought that most of their new shows would be successful.
In the mid-seventies, my then-partner Dennis and I were doing Welcome Back, Kotter…and the same company (Jimmie Komack's) was producing a new series called Mr. T and Tina that starred Pat Morita. We were over at the ABC exec offices one day talking to folks in the comedy department about a pilot that we were being considered for as writers and someone there made a comment that they might want to hurry production up so that if the pilot came out right, the new show could go into the Mr. T and Tina time slot. In my naivete, I muttered something about, "Well, if it gets canceled…" and one could hear the ABC brass chuckle. As far as I recall, it was the only thing I said in the entire meeting that got a laugh.
As far as they were concerned, Pat Morita's program was already canceled. I'm not sure it was even on the air yet but there were zero people in the building who thought it had any chance of survival. Why had they even bought it then? Well, because they had to buy something. I don't recall the specific numbers but it went something like this. They had eight time slots that needed to be filled that September with new shows. They'd developed 14 contenders via pilots and presentations. They'd wound with five shows that anyone there thought had a reasonable shot at success. Ergo, they had to buy three stiffs.
How did they pick the three shows that no one liked? Sometimes, it was a matter of betting on a longshot but more often, it was a matter of nurturing relationships. Kotter was a huge hit for them at the time so they gave Komack the pickup to keep him happy and so he might be less inclined to take his next project to NBC. A few weeks later, Mr. T and Tina was indeed axed but until then, one had to marvel at the robotic hype…at the promotion and planted press reports that made it out to be the surefire smash hit of the new season. Several of the shows you'll glimpse in our video link below were probably in the same category: Canceled before they got on the air.
Years later, I was friendly with the main man who'd programmed CBS prime-time for several years. I asked him what percentage of the series he put on the air were shows that he knew would not make it. He said, "A third, I thought had a good shot at success…a third had an outside chance…and a third, we knew were flops by the time the second episode was delivered to us. Usually, we knew well before that." I asked him if any of the kinds of shows in the third category ever turned out to be surprise hits — for him or anyone else in his position. He said, "I'm sure it's happened somewhere at some time but I don't recall an example."
(Parenthetically, I also asked him this question: "How many times did it happen that someone walked in and pitched you a show…and you were 90% certain just from the pitch you had a hit there?" He said twice: Magnum, P.I. and the Newhart series where Bob N. had the inn in Vermont. That's twice out of several hundred presentations.)
I don't know that this happens as much these days. Networks are no longer committed to the notion that all the new shows have to debut in September, plus they order new shows in smaller increments. Still, I find it interesting to watch these old preview specials and to try and separate the shows into those three groupings that were just mentioned. Never mind which ones disappeared after 13 weeks. Which ones did they think might make it? This preview special is from 1979 and like everything else on ABC that year, it's narrated by Ernie Anderson. It's about a half hour in three parts which should play one after the other in the little player I've embedded here for you…
