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NBC executives knew, of course, that Seinfeld would not last forever, but they were hoping to have another year to nurture a successor hit. The network made an extraordinarily generous deal with Bright/Kauffmann/Crane, the creators of Friends and Veronica's Closet, to develop a comedy about a single mother. With the schedule in flux, that show will have a tougher time finding an audience. Fortunately for NBC, it still has the rest of the season to experiment. It could build up Frasier or 3rd Rock by putting them after Seinfeld. Meanwhile, Just Shoot Me, a modest success starring Laura San Giacomo as an editor who works for a women's magazine owned by her father, is being given a Thursday tryout, as is NewsRadio, a clever show that in three seasons has never lived up to its ratings potential.
Compared with figuring out all these permutations, keeping ER may look easy--just pay whatever it takes. If NBC loses ER on top of Seinfeld, says an industry source, "They will be dust. They will lose the demographics and the households. It would be a disaster." NBC has a window from Feb. 1 to March 1 to negotiate a renewal deal with Warner Bros., the studio that produces the show. If the two sides fail to agree, then Warner Bros. can negotiate with the other networks. Leslie Moonves, the president of CBS, developed ER when he was a Warner executive and is particularly eager to land it. Reportedly the studio will ask for $10 million an episode, a huge increase over the nearly $2 million NBC now pays. Of course, Seinfeld's demise only makes Warner Bros.' bargaining position stronger. (Castle Rock, which produces Seinfeld, is also part of Time Warner.)
The connection between Seinfeld and the ER negotiations, however, does not end there. As part of a deal, Warner Bros. is likely to demand that NBC replace Seinfeld with another one of its shows. To further complicate matters, Paramount, which produces Frasier, may insist that if that show is moved to Thursday, it must be followed by a new comedy the studio is developing around Nathan Lane, who is currently starring in the film Mouse Hunt. In formulating its post-Seinfeld strategy, NBC will have to take into account all these demands, as well as the other scheduling dilemmas caused by shuffling its shows and whatever tricks its competitors have in store.
That may sound daunting, but Don Ohlmeyer, the head of NBC's West Coast operations, will tell you the network has gone through all this before. "At the time Cheers announced it was going out of production," Ohlmeyer says, "there was the same kind of jabberwocky about NBC's vulnerability. Unfortunately we're in a business in which opinions are like TV sets--everyone's got one." There's a difference, though, between five years ago and now. Back then, the show waiting in the wings to take Cheers' place was Seinfeld.
--Reported by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles