In This Case, ‘So-So’ Makes Headlines

“Keep it simple” is a frequent refrain in the media and politics, a mind-set that dictates boiling ideas down to snappy sound bites or headlines in order to grab an easily distracted audience.

This doctrine has seemingly guided recent coverage of ABC and Disney. Before the TV season, the press was ready, even eager, to write one of two compelling, easy-to-follow stories: ABC hits rock bottom, with Walt Disney Chairman Michael Eisner cast as the ogre (remember speculation he inspired “Shrek”?) who mismanaged his early-career stamping ground into ruination; or Eisner and his minions magically rescue ABC, mollifying cranky stockholders with a storybook turnaround worthy of an electrical parade down Disneyland’s Main Street.

Yet two weeks into the fall TV campaign, all you can say definitively is that ABC is by no means a complete disaster, as some pundits and rivals anticipated, nor an out-of-the-woods success, as its daily press releases seem to imply.

Of course, “so-so” and “OK” don’t make for sexy headlines, especially with all the networks in frantic public relations spin mode--a smokescreen journalists sometimes inhale in our rush to identify trends, given that such spin invariably mixes heavily scented potpourri with a substance that helps your lawn grow.

About the only more creative claims, in fact, are found in network promos, which make remarkably liberal use of the word “hit,” as in ABC running ads referring to “MDs”--which ranked No. 70 last week and third in its time slot--as a “new hit drama.”

Newsflash: Labeling “MDs” a hit at this point is tantamount to calling the tallest of the seven dwarfs a giant.

Ultimately, the fate of broadcast networks and those who earn big fat salaries from them still hinges on building nights--think NBC’s “Must-See TV” Thursday roster, or CBS’ Monday--which can then (in theory, anyway) dispatch their progeny to other nights. The trick is to be a powerhouse in a couple of places and keep the lights on elsewhere.

So taking inventory of ABC’s lineup and seeking to separate fact from fiction, one finds a few bright spots, some places for cautious optimism, problem areas and a couple of black holes where the network could run bar mitzvah videos or an accordion player in a Mickey Mouse suit and deliver roughly the same audience for a lot less money.

On Sunday, “Alias” appears to have locked in a modest but loyal following--despite the encroachment of HBO’s “The Sopranos” on all the networks’ turf--and “The Practice” is weaker than in its heyday but still formidable. “Monday Night Football” remains ABC’s most-watched show.

Perhaps most significant, the network has so far established a respectable presence Tuesday and Wednesday nights, with the new sitcoms “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter” and “Life With Bonnie” exhibiting promise and the Damon Wayans vehicle “My Wife and Kids” cementing its hit credentials versus “The Bernie Mac Show.” The second edition of “The Bachelor,” God help us, also appears to be drawing from the available pool of gullible women age 18 to 49.

Even ABC’s legitimate crowing regarding those nights should come with a brief disclaimer. Fox, after all, has virtually sat out the ratings game while televising playoff baseball, preempting programs that would compete more directly for the attention of women and younger viewers, thus freeing them to graze in the fields of others.

Still, if the week ended there, ABC would be OK. No such luck.

It’s still early, of course, but ABC is reeling Thursdays under fire from NBC and CBS, has minimal traction Fridays and, like NBC, runs a low-impact Saturday movie only as good as the titles available.

“Dinotopia” hasn’t premiered yet, but ABC’s experience with its new dramas--”MDs,” “Push, Nevada” and “That Was Then”--also underscores that while the major networks can still reach staggering highs, as in 30 million people watching “Friends” or “CSI,” the lows have never been lower. Simply put, now that the average home receives nearly 90 channels, people don’t show up strictly by default.

Suffice it to say that if ABC officials could go back in time, the premise “That Was Then” posits, they would have passed on that show and been a bit less starry-eyed about “Push,” a project from actor Ben Affleck’s production company that proves there are indeed programs people wouldn’t watch for a million bucks.

(Someday, too, someone will rationally explain how networks can sift through hundreds of scripts, produce 30 series prototypes, wean them down to seven through focus-group testing and still introduce a couple so roundly rejected by viewers they have to consider yanking them after two telecasts.)

Add it all up, divide by seven, and ABC has made a little headway in addressing problems and planting seeds for the future but still has a long way to go. The network certainly isn’t the Cinderella story the studio’s Anaheim Angels have become, but as rebuilding processes go, the game is far from over and at least the network didn’t fall on its face taking the field, which seemed a distinct possibility based on how ABC stumbled last year.

As for viewing the network’s performance as a referendum on Disney’s stewardship, while the live-for-today exhaustion of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” still haunts ABC, just looking at the fall, it’s premature to ride the bums out of town on a rail or carry them off in triumph.

But that sort of mealy-mouthed appraisal doesn’t exactly sizzle as a press release or banner headline--in the same way gubernatorial candidates Gray Davis and Bill Simon wouldn’t air ads that say “Mediocre Leadership for California” or “Gray Davis: Because We’re Doing OK, Considering,” as refreshing as that might sound.

So what does ABC’s back-to-school progress report say at this stage? Actually, it isn’t terribly different from overall grades for the TV industry in general, which basically read as follows: Not bad. Not great. Needs improvement. And not as simple as ABC.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.