Don Ohlmeyer and the second coming of network TV. (head of NBC's West Coast operations profiled) (Cover Story)

Don Ohlmeyer says he didn't take over the top job at NBC on the West Coast to "be airlifted to the Titanic just before it hit the iceberg." Along with his mandate to return NBC to number one, Ohlmeyer brings with him an enthusiasm that he hopes will reenergize an entertainment staff that "has been pounded and pounded" over the past three years. Four weeks ago, Ohlmeyer divested himself of Ohlmeyer Communications--the company he founded and helped turn into one of the biggest producers of sports programing--to accept the challenge of reinventing network television. In an interview with Broadcasting & Cable's Steve Coe, Ohlmeyer discusses the practice of assigning producers specific time periods, the future of the late-night post-Letterman spot and his optimism for the future of TV.

Given NBC's current situation, and the fact that you were running your own successful business, what was it about this job that attracted you?

I saw the challenge; that's really what it came down to. I've always been very challenge-oriented. Obviously, NBC has some problems it needs to address. Three-and-a-half years ago people were writing CBS's obituary almost like they were about to go out of business. Three-and-a-half years later they're number one. I'm coming in, and I'd like to raise NBC's ratings as much as Clinton will raise taxes, and everybody will be happy.

There are some definite parallels between CBS three or four years ago and NBC today.

It's always been a cyclical business. I want at ABC in the sports division when they went from third to first. I was at NBC when they were starting to come alive again. You see this happen. one of the things that seems to have happened a lot in the last 20 years in that the network that's number one seems to become more reticent and more status quo-oriented; that the shows start to age, and all of a sudden they wake up one day and they've started to drop and it's like they begin to free-fall. That's what happened with NBC. I think the difference today, as opposed to historically, is that the business has changed so dramaticaly. Fifteen years ago you'd be number three and you still had roughly 30% of the audience. Today you're number three and you have maybe 15%, 16%. Ten years ago the competitors of NBC were ABC and CBS. Today they are Fox, all the basic cable channels, the pay services, and the mini-networks--Paramount with Star Trek, for example. The level of competition is so much more intense. In 1981 we were doing a study about starting a pay sports service for NBC. We went to Pittsburg, where they had one of the first interactive services, and they could tell at any given moment what any one of their 75,000 households was seeing. I remember the guy making the point to me that the week before, during …