So you'd think he'd be the last guy to countenance ABC cramming his show with 19 minutes 13 seconds per hour of crass commercialism. But, according to the latest study of TV "clutter" by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, that's just what's appened. And that made "Sports Night" the most cluttered TV show in broadcast prime time television in 1998.
AAAA defines clutter as all "non-programming content" -- ads, promotions, public service announcements, program credits not run over continuing program action, and other miscellaneous gaps. For its '98 survey, AAAA looked at one week of the May '98 sweeps ace, which fell in the 1997-98 TV season, and one week of the fall '98 derby, Nov. 9-15, which falls in this TV season.
Since "Sports Night" was a brand-new sitcom and has never packed 'em in since its start-up, ABC probably didn't set out to load it up with non-programming content -- that's what you do to established hit shows.
In fact, ABC says it added extra stuff to the episode of "Sports Night" that aired during that November week because it came in one minute and five seconds short, which is not hard to imagine, what with Sorkin nixing anything that smacks of a TV sitcom --ike jokes.
But even at the right length, watching all 22 "Sports Night" episodes that ABC ordered this season would mean sitting through three mind-numbing hours of sales pitches.
Or, you could simply watch one week of ABC's "Good Morning America" and accomplish the same thing. Yes, "GMA" was the most cluttered broadcast morning news show in '98, says the AAAA, with 17 minutes 36 seconds per hour. A full week's worth of "GMA" is lo ed with nearly three hours of pitches.
Prime-time clutter among the broadcast networks hit a record high of 15 minutes 44 seconds per average hour in 1998 -- no surprise there. But prime time, the most watched period in broadcast TV, remains the least ad-infested period of programming.
More good news: Broadcast late-night shows collectively shed 35 cluttered seconds from '97's all-time high of nearly 19 minutes per hour. That's 35 seconds less of luxury car ads and 35 seconds more of sucking up to celebrities and telling snarky jokes.
Okay, maybe that's not good news.
Then, there's daytime -- the clutter mother lode. Both leader NBC and runner-up ABC set record clutter counts here last year. How bad was it? While you thought you were sitting down to watch Susan Lucci deliver another Emmy-nomination-worthy performance o hour-long "All My Children," what you actually saw was nearly 21 minutes of pitches.
Cable TV's no better than broadcast. Among the 19 monitored cable networks, E! and TBS tied for first place in November, and they're up to 18 minutes per hour -- a cable record.
Ironically, your biggest champion in the fight against clutter may be the advertisers themselves. They are, the AAAA says, increasingly concerned that the sea of non-programming content may impact the effectiveness of television as an advertising medium.