ABC's baffling decision

Was ABC just stupid, or was there something more in the decision to create a $30 million "public service announcement?"

It’s little wonder that ABC’s mini-series “The Path to 9/11” drew stinging criticism earlier this month for its invented scenes, fabricated dialogue and unsubstantiated accounts of how the Clinton and Bush administrations conducted themselves in the years encompassing the World Trade Center attacks of 1993 and 2001.

A more puzzling question is why ABC spent $30 million on what, since it lacked commercials, amounted to a five-hour public service announcement.

While the two-night docudrama was shown without a sponsor, ABC did not always intend it to be so. As recently as July, ABC was discussing the possibility of running the program with limited commercials from one or two major sponsors.

The network also saw a potential market in schools. It hired Scholastic Inc., the educational publisher, to create a study guide for high school teachers to go along with the mini-series, a move that implied the network saw a future in DVD sales of the mini-series to schools.

In the end, however, Scholastic scrapped its original study guide and no sponsors stepped up to help ABC defray the cost of the program. While the network did sell foreign rights to the show in a few markets, including Britain, Australia and New Zealand, it was left to shoulder nearly all of the cost by itself.

Once it became clear that it would have to go without sponsors, ABC began to promote the mini-series as a public service. That decision left the network open to a weighty question: Is it truly a public service if it alienates a significant part of the audience?

The mini-series drew respectable ratings, coming in second to a football game on NBC on its first night and winning the night on Sept. 11, its second night. But despite drawing an estimated 12 million to 13 million viewers each night, ABC was unable to capitalize on its large audience.

Typically, big productions like “The Path to 9/11” serve as vehicles for networks to promote their new fall lineup. But by excluding not

If I were a Disney stockholder I'd be wondering how ABC execs could be so stupid, or wondering if the "docudrama" furthered longer term interests of the company by defraying culpability for the September 11, 2001 attacks away from the administration then in office. Just sayin'.

UPDATE: Ah, no. It wasn't advertisers who punished ABC for "The Path to the 8/6/01 Presidential Briefing," it was lefty Communist Islamists.