What else is on?
BUSH RETOOLS
HIS SCHEDULE
By Charles Van Doren
Television Editor with David Bloviator in Washington
Confronted by a disastrous decline in ratings for the sixth year of Bush TV, the Administration is retooling its lineup with fresh faces and new shows. However, the revamped lineup has failed to catch on with an audience jaded by years of shoot 'em ups.
The Administration's pilot episode of its revamped new Iraq permanent government show was action-packed, but viewers complained the story was hard to follow.
Among the most serious ratings problems arise from the Administration's long-running "Combat: Iraq." Originally intended as a 13-week mini-series culminating with a dramatic presidential landing on an aircraft carrier, the series has stumbled in recent years due to its large number of inconclusive but grotesquely violent plotlines.
Administration programmers believe that the latest incarnation of the long-running drama, featuring a permanent Iraqi government, will do better with viewers than the previous interim regime and the Coalition Provisional Authority, both regarded as ratings disasters.
Skeptics note, however, that the Administration has failed to cast appealing, or indeed, any figures for the lead roles of Defense and Interior Ministers. Without compelling leads in those parts, they say, the show is fated to flop as badly as its predecessors.
At home, the Administration's long-running "Savior of 9/11" has also shown signs of ratings weakness, which began last August when it was crushed in the ratings by "Katrina: Heck of a Job, Brownie!" Other viewers still regret the unexplained cancellation of "bin Laden: Dead or Alive!", the number-one rated show in 2002.
Some media experts note that the Bush Administration's ratings woes go well beyond their prime-time marquee shows. "They've failed to generate successful personality-based programming," said one commentator who requested anonymity to avoid having his phone tapped.
The critic pointed to the failure of much-ballyhooed "personality" shows such as "The Condi Show" and "Snow, U.S. Treasury." The only successful personality-driven show in the Bush lineup is the long-running Saturday-afternoon sleeper hit "Chivas Regal's Wild Kingdom with Dick Cheney."
Last year, the Administration thought it could plug the holes in its schedule with sci-fi horror titles such as "Human Cloning" and "Terri Schiavo: Fight for Survival." However, such shows failed to garner a significant following in key demographics, including viewers who can read and write and television households with flush toilets. In addition, the Administration never recovered from the world-historical flop of its much-anticipated high-stakes quiz show "You Bet Your Social Security."
Bush Administration impresarios hope that viewers will be intrigued by the many challenges facing contestants in Who Wants to be an American?
Nonetheless, the Bush team has high hopes for its revamped summer schedule including a reality-based show, "Who Wants to be an American?" and a high-tech spy thriller, "Gen. Hayden is Listening."
Bush administration programmers also point to fresh faces that they feel will have greater appeal to the viewing public, including telegenic Tony Snow in place of tele-tubby Scott McClellan and the vaguely Carsonesque Josh Bolten, whose sophisticated blend of comedy and tax cuts for the rich will alternate with the little-watched "What's Cooking with Karl Rove?" White House insiders have sought to dampen speculation that Bush will seek to boost ratings by replacing curmudgeonly Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon with proven crowd-pleaser Ashton Kutcher.
Fundamentally, media critics agree, it's hard for Bush TV to generate big ratings after six years of what one Washington insider termed "more of the same old shit."
Volume CCXXXVI, Number 127 May 26, 2006
