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..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Update November 12: Diane Sawyer's prime-time interview with Lynch, Tuesday night on ABC, did slightly better in the rating than NBC's telefilm. The special edition of Prime-Time averaged a 5.9/15 in the key demographic, with an audience of 15.68 million. As such, it became the most-watched prime-time news show of the still-young TV season, and the leading performer in its timeslot.

Although Prime-Time narrowly defeated CBS' The Andy Griffith Show Reunion in the ratings -- they both logged a 13 share, incidentally -- the team from Mayberry easily won the hearts of viewers in all age groups. The audience of 21 million sounds impressive, especially when the publicists brag of Reunion being the most-watched show in its timeslot since 1995.

Big deal. The show it beat was a repeat of Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer. That's the best CBS could do at 8 p.m. on a sweeps Tuesday? As Archie Bunker was wont to say, "Whoop de doo."

Clearly, network TV is in more trouble than anyone cares to admit.

In the entertainment sections of most American newspapers Tuesday morning, it will be reported that Sunday night's match-up of made-for-TV movies, documenting the plights of victims du jour Jessica Lynch and Elizabeth Smart, ended in a virtual dead heat in the ratings race.

CBS executives will crow over numbers that show The Elizabeth Smart Story attracted an average rating of 4.9, meaning that viewers in 16.9 million American households -- in the "key" 18-49 demographic group, at least -- stayed with some or all of the telefilm over its two-hour length. In approximately the same timeframe, NBC's Saving Jessica Lynch weighed in with a household audience of 14.9 million, representing a rating of 5.4.

When rounded off and combined -- again, in the most-valued 18-49 "demo" (no one else really counts on Madison Avenue) -- these numbers show that viewers in nearly 31 million American households wanted to visualize Lynch and Smart's traumatic experiences, which, of course, already had been extensively documented elsewhere. Together, the much-hyped telefilms held the whole or partial interest of viewers in 25 percent of all homes in which the primary television set actually was in use.

Not bad, huh? NBC and CBS will take them.

According to Variety, "These are the best 18-49 scores for a movie on any net since a repeat of theatrical The Santa Clause on ABC last November and the strongest for an original movie since the opening night of ABC's Dinotopia, in May 2002."

Wow. Better than a repeat of a movie that already had been shown once on network television, not mention airings on cable and a video release? Better than a mini-series that was largely seen as an expensive underachiever? Now, that's impressive.

Here are some other numbers to peruse:

** Viewers in 75 percent of all American households in the key demo were watching something else, with a double dose of the The Simpsons actually grabbing a higher share (14) than either movie.

** Even when combined, the total audiences for the Lynch and Smart sagas wouldn't have equaled the viewership for the sixth installment of Roots, which, on Jan. 28, 1977, piled up a rating of 45.9, a share of 66 and non-parsed audience of 32.7 households. The primary televisions in two-thirds of all American homes, where that set actually was in use, were tuned to the same show!

** Combine NBC and CBS' numbers with the ones logged by Fox over the same two-hour period (9.3 million, 4.3/11) and ABC (9.2 million, 3.2/8), and you have a total network audience of just under 50 million and a share of 44 (add the UPN and WB weblets and it jumps to 46). The combined rating in the key demo for the entire bunch is 18, or thereabouts.

** That combined rating and share -- six networks! -- barely registers a blip in the list of most popular single-episode television shows, specials, telefilms and televised sports events, at least according to information found at www.chez.com/fbibler/tvstats.

** In the modern, 500-channel universe, the final episode of Seinfeld -- which aired on May 14, 1998 -- became the 64th highest-watched program of all time by grabbing a 41.3 rating/58 share. The viewers haven't all gone into hibernation.

None of this math would be worth a bucket of warm spit if it weren't for the fact that the American media have steadfastly refused to quit banging the drum on either story, Lynch or Smart, even as consumers were starting to gag on the often-contradictory coverage. Newspapers pretty much have had to follow the lead of television and mass-circulation magazines, as slickly choreographed marketing campaigns and time-release gossip capsules only started to kick in on Lynch, at least, in the last couple of weeks.

Thanks to some ham-handed synergizing at ABC and NBC, during the build-up to the Lopez/Affleck wedding travesty, we were able to learn just how cozy the news divisions of the major networks have become with the self-promoting junket whores at Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood and Extra. In Saturday's Los Angeles Times, Elizabeth Jensen provided further evidence of the lengths networks and magazines will go to secure an exclusive interview or, failing that, trash the competition's "get."

Yes, it's ugly out there. And, all for a 14 share.

Monday, this month's edition of Vanity Fair -- the queen bee of show-biz courtesans -- arrived with yet another Lynch sort-of exclusive: photos of Jessica Lynch at home. It was timed to coincide with Diane Sawyer's 90-minute interview Tuesday night on ABC, and more photos in Parade. This, only days after Lynch herself essentially pissed all over the Pentagon's manipulation of her rescue, and her other comrades-in-arms finally were given an opportunity to tell their stories, gratis. Then, there was the nasty business about a rape that might or might not have occurred and topless photos sold to former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Flynt. Apparently, Lynch also agreed to appear on some kind of an awards show Monday night, and, almost certainly, will get a chance to host Saturday Night Live when she's fully recovered.

Enough already!

As long as advertisers continue to support this mass exploitation of the momentarily famous, the media will dish it out to a chronically jaded public. Then, the public will do something really crazy, like elect some anti-politician celebrity to statewide office, even against the advice of the same publications that put the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jessie "The Body" Ventura in the spotlight in the first place. Or, will thumb their collective noses at highbrow reviewers, by flocking to see movies given the same critical respect exterminators usually reserve for rats.

In an article published in Sunday's New York Times, Robb Walker described some research ABC shared with its booger buddies at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It began:

"The network, which has broadcast the Academy Awards since 1976, gathered viewers in groups of 20 to ask them a few questions. For starters: how many members of the focus group had seen all five films nominated for best picture? No hands went up. O.K., how about four out of the five? Again, nobody. This continued, Bruce Davis, the academy's executive director, told me recently, until the researchers discovered that most of them hadn't seen any of the nominated films."

Jack Valenti and Peter Chernin would have us believe that these consumers were waiting at home for the opportunity to download the nominated pictures, once they hit their friendly neighborhood file-sharing service.

Actually, it's Davis' fear that this survey furthers the theory that the only purpose served by the annual Oscar-cast is to provide nourishment to the celebrity-starved public. Instead of promoting the accomplishments of the artists in the motion-picture industry, the ceremony exists primarily to replenish the photo inventories for glossy magazines, keep newspaper editors happy and provide walking billboards for fashion designers.

The devaluation of television ratings, as evidenced by the ho-hum response to the Lynch and Smart telefilms, tends to go hand in hand with this relative lack of interest shown most movies nominated for Oscars. Every Monday, newspapers and broadcast outlets routinely report one new box-office record or another, invariably ignoring the fact that fewer tickets were sold in the process, and those that were cost several times more than they did in 1939 or 1976, when Gone With the Wind and Jaws rewrote the books.

Walker's article didn't speculate as to why ABC would go to such great lengths to bust the academy's bubble, however. My guess is that the network was making the argument that Oscar ought to cut back on the technical awards and short-subject stuff, and give the public what it wants: more stars in impossibly expensive clothes, over the span of no more than three hours. The more celebrity exposure, the more ABC can charge for its advertisers; the more ABC charges, the more money goes to the academy; the later the hour, the lower the ratings.

Never mind that by moving up the Oscar-cast a month, the academy already has made more than a few folks on the west side unhappy. It's one thing, after all, to squeeze promoters of competing awards shows, but it's quite another thing to suck a month's worth of revenues from a long list of businesses that normally benefit from a long and orderly awards season. And, just as the academy couldn't care less about stiffing the critics organizations and guilds on screeners, it is equally blase about the possibility that theater owners will be given the shaft, as well, by shortening the period they can exploit the presence of nominated titles in their multiplexes.

At theaters, newsstands and on television, media conglomerates and advertisers are waging a vicious, cutthroat battle over the right to devour ever-thinner slices of a continually expanding financial pie, baked in the ovens of Hollywood. If consumers suddenly refuse to serve as pawns in their game, all that will be left are the smoke and mirrors.

- by Gary Dretzka

November 11, 2003