By Kevin Downey

   It all started out so promising.
    ABC’s "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" was a weapon that seemed to arrive from nowhere almost a year ago, and quite quickly, its power perceived, was mounted as a sure-fire spoiler for ABC to bash its way to victory in the November and February sweeps.
    The wave of excitement was palpable. The numbers quickly came in and "Millionaire" was delivering some of the biggest audiences network TV had seen in some time.
   All of network TV benefited. It seemed that cable’s erosive impact on the broadcasters had been stemmed.
   CBS came out with "Winning Lines," NBC had "Twenty-One," and Fox had "Greed." The game show trend had begun.
   But as we at Media Life predicted in early April, the trend is now coming to an abrupt end. 
     "Winning Lines," "Twenty-One" and notably "Greed" are now all canceled.
   Moreover, "Millionaire" is fast loosing its magic.
    It is most certainly losing its special power as a spoiler during sweeps, as the show ABC could throw against any competitor's offering and be assured of a swamping.
   This is in no small part the result ABC's decision to put it on a regular schedule of three nights a week and, come fall, four nights.
   The show is now simply another show that performs well. 
    That makes it a lot easier to out-stunt, as we saw last week when the  season cliffhanger of "Frasier" beat "Millionaire" in the ratings. 
    Original episodes of "Frasier"  have been beating "Millionaire" for some time on Thursdays. But the show’s final episode last week pushed "Millionaire" to new lows. "Frasier" delivered a 23.7 in a one-hour special compared to "Millionaire," which only managed a 12.5.
    The week before, Julianna Margulies’ last appearance on "ER" helped NBC scored an 18.7 for the night compared to ABC’s 9.5.
   The same story occurred last Sunday when the first part of CBS’ "Jesus" miniseries beat "Millionaire." The mini pulled in a 15.5 to "Millionaire’s" 14.3.
    While many were pondering the wisdom of ABC in scheduling "Millionaire" for a fourth night in the fall, the more immediate issue is whether it will even lead ABC to a sweeps victory for May.
    It's certainly been a seesaw between ABC and NBC for adults 18-49, and just a week ago it looked as though "Millionaire" would finally win it for ABC. But that's turned around.
    NBC has regained the lead among the advertiser desired target of adults 18-49 ,with a 5.7 to ABC’s 5.5, as of Thursday.
    The sweep and the season come to an end on Wednesday, making it doubtful that ABC can reclaim its lead. Especially in light of the peacock’s one-hour season finales on Tuesday of "Will & Grace" and "Just Shoot Me," the two shows anchoring the network’s "must-see" Thursday at 9 p.m. next season.
   "Millionaire’s" decline is relative, of course.
    Even with 22 million viewers last Thursday--about two-thirds what it scored with its celebrity specials--the game show is still a powerful force. 
   It is inexpensive to produce, ABC makes about a half-billion dollars off the show, and four nights of 20 million or so viewers is a lot better than virtually everything else on ABC’s schedule.
        The question is just how long those viewer numbers will last. Predicting the speedy demise of "Millionaire" has made a lot of otherwise sage-like people come up wrong over the last eight months, including Media Life TV critic Andrew Wallenstein.
    Just because the show has lost its spoiler status during sweeps doesn't necessarily mean its going to die tomorrow. Three shows a week may seem like overload, and four may seem preposterous. But then again, life is full of marvels and "Millionaire" has been one of them even before it came to this country, when it was a hit show in Britain.
   
     

-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.

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