ABC goes all out on its epic The Winds of War
Before it is through, boasts ABC, it will have reached virtually every American twelve years of age and older. It will have conveyed its message through direct mail, school study guides, a film documentary, TV and radio spots, and newspaper and magazine ads—well over a billion "impressions" in all. If these projections are accurate, then doubtless you already have the word: on Sunday, at 8 p.m. E.S.T., ABC will begin broadcasting the most expensive, most spectacular mini-series ever made, a $40 million, 18-hr, adaptation of Herman Wouk's 1971 novel, The Winds of War.
"Sunday night is the hook," says Brandon Stoddard, president of ABC Motion Pictures. "That's family night, the highest viewing night of the week. By the end of those opening three hours, people will be involved with the characters and interested in what happens to them. After that, the hook gets deeper and deeper every night. Or so I hope."
So hopes everybody at ABC, which is giving a full week of prime time to Wouk's sweeping story of the events leading up to America's entry into World War II. When the show concludes on Sunday, Feb. 13, network executives pray, enough people will have been hooked to push the ratings close to—or, who knows, even past—those of the champion miniseries, Roots. "I think it will be the highest-rated program of the season," predicts George Keramidas, ABC's vice president of TV research, "and among the highest-rated mini-series of all time."
Or is it possible that the quarry, the more than 100 million people who ordinarily hover in front of the screen during prime time in this peak viewing month, will swim way from this costly bait? "hat they may be lured instead by Dallas or Magnum, P.I. on CBS, or Hill Street Blues on NBC? That they may (dire thought) turn to cable or flip on a video game? Or just decide to read Jane Austen? Of course it is. The bottom of the rating charts is Uttered with such failed mini-series as King, The French Atlantic Affair, MacArthur and Beggarman Thief. "Obviously The Winds of War is a high risk," says ABC President Fred Pierce. "But most things that lead to success are risky."