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Did everyone overreact? NBC wouldn't say so. Though the network knew it would take a ratings hit after Seinfeld's departure, it didn't expect that the audience for Frasier, which took over Seinfeld's time slot, would be off by 25% compared with Jerry's numbers; that ratings for the entire Thursday-night schedule would be down 17% from the same period last year; and that NBC's overall prime-time ratings would be down 14%, the greatest slide in a season in which all the broadcast networks--except for the surging WB--have seen their audiences erode. It was TV's version of the domino theory. Hoping, perhaps, to co-opt its upstart cable competitors, NBC eased out programming chief Warren Littlefield and replaced him with Scott Sassa, 39, who earned his stripes as a top executive for the Turner Broadcasting System.
Seinfeld, meanwhile, has enjoyed an eventful "retirement." He appeared on Broadway performing his old stand-up act, which was broadcast on HBO, and he moved to New York City. There, he and his new girlfriend, Jessica Sklar, 26, a publicist, became gossip-column fixtures after it was reported that he had helped break up her months-long marriage to the son of a prominent family of Broadway-theater owners. Another overreaction? "I'm hardly interested in my own life," Seinfeld complained to a reporter from the New York Post. "I don't know how you could be interested." As for the rest of the Seinfeld cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus can be heard as the voice of the princess in A Bug's Life; Jason Alexander will be starring next year as Boris Badenov in a live-action Rocky and Bullwinkle movie; and Michael Richards is in Ireland filming David Copperfield for TNT. He plays Mr. Micawber. --Reported by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles
VIAGRA What Goes Up
In the contest over who or what inspired the most bad jokes this year, it's a neck-and-neck race between Monica Lewinsky and Viagra, with Pamela Anderson a distant third. Otherwise, the impotence pill that was introduced last April has been a bit of a letdown, if only because expectations were so inflated by the drug's initial hype. After racking up nearly $100 million in sales in its first month on the market--making Viagra the fastest-selling new drug ever, outpacing previous phenoms like Prozac--sales have steadily slumped to just over $40 million in October.
In part the downturn may have been a response to the news that upwards of 130 men have died while using Viagra, the majority from heart attacks. The drug hasn't been formally implicated in those fatalities--given its older-skewing patient base, one would expect a certain overlap between Viagra users and the dead--but the FDA issued new guidelines last month saying doctors should be wary of prescribing it to patients with heart conditions or high blood pressure. Because of its vision-disturbing side effects, the drug has also been suspected of contributing to at least one plane crash. Indeed, a Federal Aviation Administration pamphlet recommends a prudent "six hours from Viagra to throttle."