Moment of Silence

With two hours of pregame activity, roughly 3 1/2 hours of football and a 30- minute postgame wrapup, Super Bowl Sunday, Jan. 26, promises to be another marathon day of TV viewing. But NBC has come up with a new gimmick to ease the strain. Halfway through the pregame show, at around 4 p.m. E.S.T., the network's analysts will lapse into unaccustomed silence for one minute. As a clock onscreen ticks off the seconds, viewers will be able to race to the refrigerator or bathroom without missing any of the action -- or the commercials.

The break is the brainchild of the executive producer of NBC Sports, Michael Weisman, who "thought it would just be nice if everybody could kind of take an intermission." Advertisers applaud the idea, he claims, because viewers will more likely stay put for the commercials. And since the minute will come out of program time, not commercial time, NBC will forfeit no ad revenue ($400,000 per minute on the pregame show; a record $1.1 million per minute during the game). Nor is Weisman concerned about shortchanging viewers. "The universal criticism of Super Bowl pregame shows is that they're too long," he says. "In two hours, there are only so many X's and O's you can talk about."

Rival network executives may scoff, and environmental officials may fear that some sewer systems will not be able to take the drop in water pressure from so many toilets flushing at once. Still, NBC's pause sets an intriguing precedent. Who knows? The next step may be a minute of silence during surgery on Trapper John M.D. Or how about a few time outs when Love Boat is becalmed? One day, bloated Super Bowl pregame shows could even be cut to 90 minutes, or an hour, or . . . Naaah.