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Patrick Duffy of Dallas Interview
PR4 & PR5 Pages for ads - CHEAP!
Actors working in the South / Southern Actors
Hi Billy; I was going through my audio clip files, and found something that you may find particularly interesting. In 1980, NBC had the contract for the Olympics. This event was to be their savior, as it had been for ABC in 1976. The idea was heavy program promotion during the games. NBC, then in third place, went to Joey Levine/Crushing Enterprises who wrote the Proud as a Peacock jingle for them - a high energy, catchy "BIG" promotion campaign. This was at the direction of Freddy Silverman (who had just recently taken over programming duties at NBC). From that season came such disasters as "Supertrain" but the story doesn't end there. As you may know, the 1980 Games were boycotted by the U.S., so there was no extensive coverage - despite the huge sum of money NBC paid the Games Committee, they just ran little drop ins through the day. Hardly anything the US audience cared about. Nonetheless, they had this BIG campaign called, "We're PROUD." Unfortunately this was pretty much all in vain, as their primary vehicle for presenting it did not happen. NBC continued to slide...and slide...and slide. Due to the exorbitant chunk of change laid out for the Games coverage, and absolutely NO advertiser return therefrom, the future of NBC was in question. I recall doing a crossword puzzle from that period. The clue was "NON-Profit TV network." I honestly wasn't sure whether they meant NBC or PBS. BUT!!! On the air, they were BIG BIG B I G!!!!!!! And PROUD! This lead to an internal lampooning of the 'Proud As A Peacock' campaign - the recording of "We're LOUD," a severe parody of the "We're PROUD" campaign song, expertly executed. They laid the blame at the top; Fred Silverman. Poor chap. Who could have predicted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? - Dan Ferreira (with thanks to Tad S. Davis for the original jingle.) MORE EXAMPLES: Here is a montage of ABC IDs from the 80s and Nineties. The intro to the ABC Movie of the Week was designed to build anticipation and create the experience of 'going' to the movies.
TV
on DVD
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A less downhome variation on - You & Me and ABC
Again
animation mixing with live-action was a key component, and it's flawlessly
executed. I don't know what kind of budget these agencies were working
with twenty years ago, but it would be considerably cheaper to produce
this kind of animation with today's technology. Must have cost a fortune
back then!
ABC squeaked out
a win for the 81-82 season - once again thanks to strong numbers for
mid-season entries (like Joanie Loves Chachi and T J Hooker).
Lots of gleaming skyscrapers with suit-and-tie yuppies appeared in this
spot to reflect the changing face of television viewership, along with
the requisite 80's flag-waving. By the end of the video, it's hard to
tell if they were selling a TV network or a patriotic theme park.
The biggest moneymaker for ABC in 1981 was their killer daytime lineup,
known collectively as 'Love In The Afternoon' - with General Hospital
(remember the wedding of Luke and Laura that year?), All My Children
and Ryan's Hope.
Special Feeling on
ABC By
1983, ABC was taking a beating in the ratings as their older hit shows
ran out of steam and new offerings failed to catch on. Promos focused
on adorable children, puppy dogs and tender family moments. The
soft focus and old fashioned look of the 'Special Feeling on ABC' ads
made it seem as though there had been a death in the family. The
slogan for 1984-85, "We're With You",
was just wishful thinking with only two shows
landing in the top twenty that year.
In 1985 (with
production by Frank Gari) Randy
Newman recut his hit song "You'll Love
It" as a tribute to ABC. Dynasty and Who's The
Boss were the network's top-rated shows that year.
In a similar vein,
1986 was the year of "We Belong Together" with none other
than Aretha Franklin on the desperately shrill vocals. In 1987, the season
slogan was 'Something's Happening At ABC'
as Growing
Pains, Who's The Boss and The Wonder Years were the network's
only primetime hits that year.
For
1989, the network got even funkier with a new version of 'Something's
Happening At ABC' - and happening it was, thanks to Roseanne,
the number-one show in the country.
Disney bought ABC in 1996, reuniting Michael Eisner with ABC, in a sense.
The network moved away from family favorites like Roseanne and
Home Improvement, attempting instead to appeal to the urbane,
Friends and Frasier audience. Entries like Sports Night
and Gideon's Crossing bombed. For the 1999-2000 season, led by the unexpected success of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, ABC became the first network to bounce in the television ratings from third place to first place in a single season. That show also sparked the reality TV craze. Two years later, Millionaire had lost its luster and only The Practice, My Wife & Kids, NYPD Blue and The Wonderful World of Disney were delivering the numbers - but where are they now? Without any solid hits, ABC was entrenched in fourth-place by the summer of 2004, with ratings down 10 percent from 2003. Still, in an environment where one hit show can turn around an entire network schedule (and the net has a few winners this season, Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters and Lost among them), ABC may once again sail into first place.
PREVIOUSLY: PART
TWO: PROMOTIONS IN THE 70s
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Soaps
like Dallas and Dynasty ruled in primetime, the Happy
Days/Laverne and Shirley sitcom formula that propelled the network
to number one six years ago was chugging along but clearly spent
- even the promising
By
1990, ABC was up to second place overall with a host of new hit comedies
like Coach, Doogie Howser, Full House and Perfect Strangers
propelling massive
ratings. The network slogan that year was in sync with the audience
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