Abc Making Changes To Prime Time
Seeking to breathe life into its struggling prime-time lineup, ABC will make a number of scheduling moves to boost its new midseason series, which include a comedy starring Arsenio Hall and a drama from “Picket Fences” creator David E. Kelley.
Network executives also have confirmed that this will be the final season of “Roseanne,” with the 9-year-old sitcom’s finale to air in May, and that a two-hour revival of “The Wonderful World of Disney” will play at 7 p.m. Sundays, beginning in September.
To make room for the untitled Hall romantic comedy (co-starring “Independence Day’s” Vivica Fox as his newlywed wife) and for Kelley’s legal series “The Practice,” ABC will bench “Ellen” and “NYPD Blue” from late February until May.
Officials stressed that both established shows will then return in their current time periods.
In other scheduling moves, ABC will apparently try to piggyback on the success of NBC’s “ER” by slotting a reality-based show about medical emergencies, “Vital Signs,” at 9 p.m. Thursdays in the hour prior to NBC’s medical smash. That show premieres Feb. 27, with the network to air action movies Thursday nights through February.
The drama “Murder One,” which airs in that spot now, leaves ABC’s schedule after Jan. 23, with the show’s final six episodes to be presented over three nights in mid-April. In that story line, the attorney played by Anthony LaPaglia will defend a vigilante serial killer.
“Wonderful World of Disney” will be introduced each week by Michael Eisner, chairman of ABC’s parent company, just as Walt Disney did with the original show, which aired both on ABC and NBC. The franchise will feature a mix of original and theatrical movies, including some Disney classics. The studio allowed “The Lion King” to play in the time slot during November.
Airing the Disney show Sunday means ABC’s “Lois & Clark,” which has seen its ratings plummet this year, and “America’s Funniest Home Videos” will be looking for new time periods next fall, assuming they return.