Heavenly Content Lifts Ratings For ‘Touched By An Angel’

The ratings success of CBS’ “Touched by an Angel” it was TV’s best-rated drama last week, albeit with NBC’s “ER” temporarily off the schedule should come as no surprise.

“Touched” has been TV’s No. 2-ranked drama pretty much since the start of the season last September. In fact, “Touched” and “ER” are the only two dramas in the top 10 of Nielsen’s season-to-date ratings, with “Touched” displacing ABC’s “NYPD Blue” from that particular popularity chart.

The reasons for the ratings ascent of “Touched” are many, the most obvious of which is time slot. “Touched” spent its first two seasons developing a core audience in the low-viewership environment of Saturday nights.

Last fall, it moved to Sundays at 8 following “60 Minutes,” the spot successfully occupied by “Murder, She Wrote” for 12 years.

Not only are there more people watching TV on Sunday nights; there’s also a larger available pool of older viewers, who happen to form the show’s core audience. And there’s no denying the power of “60 Minutes” to attract viewers and pass them along to a compatible show that follows it.

But as important as these factors are to the ratings performance of “Touched by an Angel,” they overlook the most essential element of all: content. At its most basic level, that content revolves around a fundamental faith in God, a God concerned about and involved in the affairs of individual human beings and who, as far as this show goes, acts through three angels played by Roma Downey, Della Reese and John Dye.

CBS Entertainment President Leslie Moonves said the show taps into what he called an attitude of “reverse cynicism” in the country and satisfies the longing for an “uplifting, feel-good show” among a sizable segment of the audience.

Delivering such a show in an entertaining package each week is neither easy nor uncomplicated. For example, Martha Williamson, the show’s executive producer and guiding spirit, has said the angels, especially Downey’s Monica, are messengers sent to intervene, not to interfere.

She’s fudging a little there, but the rules governing the show’s plots generally forbid direct angelic action.

Instead, Monica’s assignments require her to coax, prod, persuade and sometimes even trick the episode’s human protagonists into discovering or rediscovering the faith that will help them resolve whatever difficulty they’re facing - or, at least, come to peace with it.