ABC's Potpourri

For ten years, NBC'S Johnny Carson was the undisputed king of late-night television. During part of that time, CBS and ABC scarcely bothered to try to topple him from the peak of the Nielsen ratings. When they did, as in CBS'S venture with Merv Griffin in a Carson-style format, they flopped. CBS eventually gave up and last year opted for the sizable audience of insomniacs who want nothing more than to watch old movies. Now ABC thinks that it has found still a third audience with what it calls its Wide World of Entertainment.

Wide World is a rotating sequence of four formats--a week each of Jack Paar, Dick Cavett, comedy and mystery, with two nights of rock music thrown in as a fillip. The package includes just about everything, it seems, but trained seals beating out The Star-Spangled Banner on the xylophone. Its first six weeks have ABC executives glowing--and crowing. Says Michael Eisner, vice president in charge of program development: "Philosophically, I am wildly enthusiastic. And it is working." Translation: Eisner likes the format and so do a lot of viewers.

Whereas the old Dick Cavett Show was picked up by only 145 stations (and as few as 130 on many nights), the new potpourri is carried by 165. ABC'S share of the ratings has shown a commensurate improvement. Shortly before the end of his weekly show, Cavett was watched by an average of 3 million viewers (v. 7.5 million for Carson and 6.1 million for the CBS movie). According to the most recent Nielsens, Wide World's week of comedy was watched by 5.9 million people and CBS's late movie by 6.6 million. NBC's Tonight Show was down to only 6.7 million viewers. The other three parts of Wide World have not fared so well. Their audience has ranged from 4.5 million for Paar to 5 million for the week of mystery shows to 4.1 million for Cavett. But all--including Cavett--have done better than the old Cavett show alone. It remains to be seen whether viewers, normally creatures of almost daily habit, will opt for a less varied format on some other network once Wide World's novelty wears off.

Some of the shows deserved their success. In Concert, ABC's innovative effort to bring rock to TV, was beautifully staged and photographed, while "Suspense Week" provided standard but diverting TV mystery.

Even Wide World's disasters and near disasters have had some merit. Jack Paar's feeble comeback was a little like raising the Titanic only to have it sink again, but he is still an alternative for those weary of Johnny Carson. Although some nights of the comedy week were mind-numbing in their amateurishness, others, like those given over to a humorous look at the news, with such performers as Mort Sahl and Marian Mercer, were as funny as the early Laugh-In.

In part because production costs are only a quarter to one-third what they would be in prime time, ABC feels it can afford a few flops. "With Wide World we have found a new place where we can develop new concepts, new talents and new forms," says Eisner. "It gives us the ability to fail--and without this you will never succeed."

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