From TV Guide Biz:
How Lost Was Found
And other juicy tales of ABC in the new book DisneyWar
Many ABC employees have been stopping by the Barnes & Noble store near Lincoln Center lately, eagerly searching the index of James B. Stewart's new book DisneyWar.
Our guess is that the ones with the fewest page numbers next to their names are breathing a sigh of relief. Stewart had astounding access to the Magic Kingdom, and his book confirms many of the kooky stories reporters have heard over the years regarding Disney's clumsy stewardship of ABC. Did Disney chairman Michael Eisner really frequently make reference to old ABC shows from the '70s during programming meetings at the network? Yup. And we'd like a dollar for every time Eisner allegedly says he could fix ABC if he could devote one day a week to the network.
One very special anecdote in the book shows what a micromanager Eisner can be. After the network decided to continue producing 8 Simple Rules without John Ritter, Eisner wanted Katey Sagal's character Cate to become pregnant with her dead husband's baby — and give birth during the May sweeps. It led to a major blow-up with ABC programming heads Lloyd Braun and Susan Lyne. Weren't there more important things Eisner could have been doing to increase shareholder value?
According to the book, Braun argued that making Cate pregnant was in bad taste. Eisner said that was ridiculous, and we have to side with him on that one. It's a sitcom. Once ABC decided to keep 8 Simple Rules on the air after Ritter died, why not do something to make the audience care about it? (By the way, is it still on?) If you want talk about bad taste, let's talk about Braun backing Jimmy Kimmel to host an ABC late-night show over Jon Stewart, who was all set to join the network in 2002, according to the book.
But DisneyWar eventually vindicates Braun, who was fired along with Lyne last spring. Braun became part of that great tradition of network programming chiefs who look like geniuses after they've been canned. (Once Kim LeMaster was gone Murphy Brown became a hit for CBS. Doug Herzog was whacked and Malcolm in the Middle broke out for Fox. We could go on.) Braun came up with the idea for the hit Lost. He pitched it at a company retreat before the 2004-05 season as a cross between the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away and Survivor.
Stewart describes Eisner, Disney president Bob Iger and even Steve McPherson, then president of Disney's TV studio and now head of entertainment at ABC, as being dismissive of Lost from the start. On a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 being the best, Eisner gave Lost a 2 when he ranked the projects Braun and Lyne had ordered for that season. Braun pushed it through anyway with a budget busting $12 million pilot.
We know the rest of the story. McPherson put Lost on the schedule, and it became a smash hit months after Braun saw the ABC logo get smaller in his rear view mirror. Stewart writes that he only learned of the battle to get Lost on the air in September, when he heard Eisner trash the show while looking at a congratulatory ad in The New York Times that touted the big ratings of its premiere. "Who cares about these people on a desert island?" he said.
This past Wednesday, Nielsen said 18 million viewers did.
How "Lost" Was Found
