NBC Calls Up Ohlmeyer to Deliver Hits

Smoke fumes from Don Ohlmeyer’s office. Open packs of Marlboros litter his desk. He bangs an outsize ashtray into the garbage can, then calls to an assistant for a glass of ice water. “I gotta take my vitamins,” he apologizes, knocking back the tablets with a couple of gulps.

Only eight weeks into the job, the new president of NBC West Coast is trimming his usually full social calendar to be in the office at 7 a.m. Each night, Ohlmeyer is lugging home a tote bag stuffed with half a dozen scripts.

He lights another cigarette.

“This business is driven by home runs,” sighs Ohlmeyer. “NBC hasn’t had a home run in three years. We’re down. So it’s in vogue to beat up on us. But this business is cyclical.”

A onetime sports producer for NBC and later a protege of ABC’s legendary Roone Arledge, Ohlmeyer ran his own independent production company for 10 years before returning to NBC in February. He took over from Warren Littlefield, who lasted two years in the job.

It struck many as an odd choice. Ohlmeyer, occasionally seen tooling around town in a white Rolls-Royce, seemed to be a throwback to the era of high-rolling network brass. Described as a “man’s man,” Ohlmeyer is a regular of TV producer Gary Nardino’s Thursday night poker club, a circle that includes such industry bigwigs as lawyer Ken Ziffren and Lorimar TV President Leslie Moonves.After Ohlmeyer took the NBC post, Nardino jokes, he got a dozen calls from people seeking to be listed as “alternates” for the club. Ostensibly, Ohlmeyer’s sole concern at NBC is the network’s 22 hours of prime-time programming each week. In fact, the financial success of the whole corporation rides on his gambles.

The NBC TV Network still accounts for 65% of NBC’s $3.3 billion in annual revenue. Last year it earned $50 million--hardly a hemorrhage of red ink, but still a steep decline from the more than $400 million in profit the network earned at its ratings peak in the late 1980s.

“NBC has lost one-third of its audience in the past four years,” Ohlmeyer notes. For next fall, Ohlmeyer thinks NBC may need as many as 10 hours of new prime-time programming. And Ohlmeyer has instructed that the number of specials--quick fixes to grab attention--be doubled from 40 to 80.

NBC got into its current predicament, he says, by promising time periods to studios in exchange for the services of their star producers. Such “giveaways,” Ohlmeyer says, cost NBC more than $100 million--and delivered no hits.

Now, with the exception of “Empty Nest”--which is contractually locked into its 9:30 p.m. Saturday slot--NBC again has total control over its schedule, assures Ohlmeyer.

The network is betting on past hit makers such as Bill Cosby, Henry Winkler and John Larroquette to develop and star in new programs for the fall. There are also two spinoffs from “Cheers” in the works.

Ohlmeyer is interested in more fully sponsored programs, is open to sharing ad revenue with producers in exchange for a share of syndication profit, and wants to introduce new series year-round.