Stephen McPherson: I don’t have any huge announcements this morning.  The one thing I am really excited about, obviously, is we’ve got Millionaire coming back, and it’s been great to get back on the set with Regis [Philbin], and it’s been both nostalgic and kind of energizing.  Michael Davies called me, actually, from the set end of last week, and the way the show works, you don’t always know what moments you’re going to get over the run of it, and we’re incredibly excited that he feels we literally have the best million-dollar-moment question that we’ve had for the entire run of the series, including the old show on broadcast.  So we’re really excited to get that, and I think you had a chance to meet the Shark Tank people, and we feel like that’s going to be a lot of fun too.

Emmanuel Itier: What is your reaction to Ben Silverman’s departure over at NBC?  Do you think that makes NBC more or less of a threat?

SM: I don’t know.  I don’t really have a big reaction.  I think NBC is in transition right now.  I think we’re all anxious to see what happens with Leno and that big prime-time move. I haven’t had a chance to see a lot of their new development, so I don’t have a real competitive sense in terms of that.  We all want a vibrant network system and so, as competitive as we are, we want to be great competitors and we want the broadcast business to be really vibrant, so I hope they can get it back there.

EI: I’m curious about your take on the state of TV drama today.  I’m wondering if you’re zigging where some of the other networks are zagging. You’ve got a big-budget, wide-screen, new drama on TV this fall in Flash Forward and, as we all know, NBC has sort of opted to take away the 10:00 hour. Over the years, ABC has consistently mounted programs like The Nine, Day Break, and Pushing Daisies, which are very expensive and maybe don’t make their money back and only last a season or so, yet you do seem to be determined to find that next really big thing. I’m just wondering what your philosophy is and how it may differ from an outfit like, say, NBC and and their Jay Leno experiment.

SM: I think we have to remain ambitious.  I think we have only succeeded when we’ve been ambitious and taken chances and really pushed the limits, whether it was Desperate Housewives, where people said, “Boy, 40-year-old women…” or it was Lost, which was this incredibly high-concept, very expensive drama.  All of those shows have obviously been very fortuitous for us, both on the creative side, ratings side and financially. I think you have to start with the creative, and there’s no question that production cost is a major issue, given all the other economic pressures we have. But I think you have to be looking at each show differently, because I think there are certain shows, like Flash Forward, that absolutely demand that kind of cinematic feel and the production value.  There are other shows that can absolutely be as successful or more so, but on a much larger scale, because the creative doesn’t demand it.  We’ve used this term “portfolio approach,” where, as we’re looking at all of our development, we would like to make sure that we’ve got some kind of each size, if you will.  Or if we’re getting out of balance with too much expensive stuff or we feel like we’re really not keeping the production values up, we’re going to try to adjust here and there.  But I think, for me, there is so much great drama out there, you have to be ambitious.  You have to break through the clutter.

EI: Are you looking at 10:00 then, as somewhat of an opportunity for you because there’s going to be one less competitor, or are you somewhat concerned that Leno may draw away from some of the shows that you have that hour?

SM:  We’re really interested to see what Leno does there, because obviously it’s an experiment that none of us have lived through before.  We do see 10:00 as a major opportunity for us, and we think there’s going to be a lot of viewers thrown up, no matter what Leno does, and we feel like a lot of those viewers are compatible with our dramas, so we’re definitely targeting it with some of the stuff we’re doing in the fall, and then we’ll also target it this year from the development and marketing standpoint.

EI: What personally appealed to you about the Eastwick pilot, outside of the obvious appeal of Rebecca Romijn?

SM: When we first heard that Warners was going to go out with that title, we honestly were kind of like, “Huh. I don’t know what that would be.”  But then, when we heard the take, we felt like it was just a really great, fun way to do some interesting, compelling female relationships that we hadn’t seen before.  I think the heightened level of it really, for us, felt like it was in our brand.  I think the whole cast is terrific, and Rebecca did that role about an hour and a half after having twins. I think she just did an amazing job. The rest of the cast is terrific too — some unknowns that I think are going to really surprise people.

EI: As far as some viewers having a reluctance to commit to something because they’re afraid you’ll pull it — now, you’ve done a good job on Lost, of sticking with it and having an ending point, but you’ve pulled stuff like Day Break and things like that, and gotten people hooked and then taken it off the air.  What kind of a commitment do  you make to viewers now?

SM: I think it’s one of the biggest challenges that people in my position face, is how patient can you be?  And really, that becomes a question of how much information do you have about the show?  Is it being rejected?  Is it slowly building? Is it stable at that level?  And then you do, at some point, have to look at how is it affecting the rest of your schedule?  How does it affect the overall network?  We want to try to be as patient as we can. We feel like, with some pretty ambitious shows — Pushing Daisies and stuff — the strike really derailed us, and then we came back and had them on for a little while there.  It’s hard.  When you have a show that you love and you feel like creatively it’s wonderful, there’s nothing harder than seeing it not get traction on the air.  Canceling shows is the worst part of my job.

EI: You’ve tried some alternatives. You’ve let some shows at least end their series in the summer, like Dirty Rotten Secrets, and some people move stuff to cable or something like that.  So are there no alternatives so that you can maybe tell viewers, “Don’t worry.  We’re going to finish this”?

SM: I think that the various platforms do offer us some opportunities sometimes to fulfill the promise for that core group of fans that maybe isn’t enough to keep it going as a big network show, but you really want to get that material out there.  Sometimes we can do it on broadcast, if it’s summer, et cetera.  It really becomes such a year-round programming that summer isn’t a time where you just kind of say, “Okay, let’s just take care of things that didn’t quite work.”  So we’re going to look at all those opportunities, whether it be abc.com or other platforms, and other ways to, again, I think, fulfill that promise that you try to make to the audience.

EI: Scrubs is coming back, but it’s such a different show now.  Should we consider this the ninth season of Scrubs?  Should we consider it a spin-off?  Have you decided on a title, since we’ve heard it might slightly be altered?

SM:  Yeah, it’s going to be Scrubs. Somebody mentioned something about a change in title, but we’re not changing the title.  I think it’s going to be different in the sense of the kind of construct of what is going on in terms of hospital versus teaching, et cetera, but you’re going to see the same character dynamics that you’ve seen before. I think it really is allowing Bill to introduce some new characters and spend some more time with them — some people that were in the show already and that he was excited about, and some new people as well.  But you’re going to have some of the core.  Obviously, Zach [Braff] is going to be there for a limited period of time. We’ll try to convince him as much as we can to get him to do more, but it’s going to be the same tonal show, same kind of comedy, same kind of storytelling that you’re used to.

EI: Given the fact that Fox just perhaps lost Paula Abdul, would it make sense for you to try to pursue someone like that for Dancing with the Stars to bring some of the audience from American Idol over?

SM: Absolutely. I would love to have it.  I was a little stunned by the decision, and we would love to have her on Dancing, whether it’s as a contestant or participant of some sort, judge, et cetera.  I think she’s a huge talent.  I think there’s a lot made about her in terms of who she is, and I think there’s a sensitivity and there’s an emotion to her balancing out Idol.  We’d love to get a piece of that.  It would be great.

EI: With the advent of HDTV now and 5.1 stereo, more people are staying home and they have that kind of movie experience at home.  Why doesn’t ABC go back to its bread-and-butter Movie of the Week and miniseries?

SM: It really is a very tough business.  Financially, incredibly expensive — huge opportunity costs.  When you factor in the marketing side of it as well, it really has become a proposition that, without real sponsorship or some kind of deferment, whether it’s a partnership internationally, et cetera, it’s just a very difficult business to pull off.  We’ve looked at it.  Quinn Taylor does a great job with the limited stuff that we do, and he’s continuing on in that role. We actually were talking recently with the Humanitas people about that very fact — that some of these great movies and minis have disappeared from the landscape, and there are some on cable.  HBO certainly does a good job with that.  We’d love to figure out a way to make it a business again, because I think, creatively, it is a part of what should be the broadcast landscape.

EI: A thing like Jay Leno’s show on prime-time won’t have the advantage of producing additional revenue after it airs through syndication, reruns even, and, of course, DVD and Blu-ray sales.  What does make more money — a show like Lost that has that additional revenue coming in, or another show like Leno that won’t have the same opportunities of reruns to make additional money?  And if a show like Lost does get quite a bit of additional revenue, is there some shortsightedness on NBC’s part to have something like Leno take up five days a week?

SM: Well, they’ve spoken to it.  I think the decision really was a cost-containment effort.  You’re absolutely right.  I think you have to look at shows in a complete system economics, where it’s not only what it’s doing for the network, it’s what it’s doing for the studio and your international business and domestic syndication. I think it’s all about either maintaining some upside or completely eliminating your downside.  I think it’s obviously going to be riskier to put on ambitious dramas, but the upside potential is huge.  I think as much as we’re all waiting to see what Leno does, I don’t think anybody anticipates it could do a five-rating.  A hit drama, we would all hope, would.  So we’ll see.  I think they’re just two very different strategies.  NBC seems to be doing their own thing, and the other networks seem to be following the tradition of trying to put on great material. [Laughs]

EI: Can you talk about the decision to snap up Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton?  They were on a failed sitcom on another network last year.  I’m just wondering why you went with those two veterans of the comic wars to try to revitalize your comedy stable.

SM:  They’re two very different circumstances.  We had previously developed The Middle and shot it, and we really liked it.  We just collectively didn’t feel that the pilot got to where it needed to be.  And then, over the summer, when Patty became available, she struck us as the perfect person for that show, and she sparked at the script.  So we went into development and production on that early in the process. In terms of Kelsey, they came in and just pitched that as a full show with him attached, et cetera, and we felt like it was really in the zeitgeist and a great character for him to be playing.  I also feel like the success and failure of comedy is not based on how many cameras are rolling at the time you’re shooting, and it’s great to see just a really funny, sophisticated multi-camera.

EI: Lost has obviously been a phenomenon. There seems some element of similarity in Flash Forward.  Is that one of the hopes around Flash Forward — that it might become that sort of phenomenon?

SM: We would love to have even a part of the success that Lost has had, but they weren’t developed in that way.  That was a spec script that they had done originally, I think, for HBO, and it became available.  Suzanne Patmore, who was running our drama department at that point at the network, knew about it and had been tracking it, and was friends with Jessika [Borsiczky Goyer], and we were just thrilled to read it.  So it wasn’t like there was any kind of development of, “Hey, let’s try to make the next Lost” or something.  It was really just about great material.  And then I think there are similarities in terms of the epic nature of it, the inciting incident, etc., but they’re very different shows.  I think when you see them unfold, they’ll be very different.

EI: I’ve got the annual Grey’s Anatomy question. Major cast changes.  Katherine Heigl may or may not be back either as a real person or a ghost. [Laughs] Could you lay out what’s going to happen…?

SM: Katherine is back.  I don’t think there’s any big secret about that.  And obviously, T.R. [Knight] has left, but I think it’s a show that’s evolving.  I think these large ensemble casts evolve over time for a variety of reasons: some of them creative, some of them business, some of them just personality issues.  But we feel like Shonda [Rhimes] really hit her stride again at the end of last year, and the early stuff we’ve seen this year we’re really excited about.  We made some additions to the cast last year, and I think you’re going to see some more additions this year.  I don’t foresee any giant other changes that are going on. Ellen [Pompeo] is going to have a baby, which we’re all really excited about, so that will probably take her out for a couple episodes, but that really is the big goings-on right now.

EI: You’ve been pretty vocal in the past about Nielsen — some of your concerns over the ratings. Do you feel like Nielsen is addressing some of the networks’ concerns, or are you still concerned about how they’re reporting numbers these days?

SM: I’ve come to not really worry about it.  I can’t do anything about it, so I’m just going to worry about what I can, which is trying to put on great shows.  We have really great people in our company who are working with them, and hopefully they’ll address as much as they possibly can.

EI: Can you talk about putting an entire block of new comedies on Wednesday nights and how you’re going to launch that?  Also, anything you can say about Romantically Challenged — where and when you think it might arrive on the air?

SM: Romantically Challenged – we’re really excited about that.  Ricky [Blitt] has been someone we’ve been dying to be in business with, and Alyssa [Milano], as well, is fabulous.  We, at the eleventh hour, were able to cast Kyle [Bornheimer], who is just phenomenal, so we’ll look at that for mid-season.  Not sure where that would be.  Obviously, going with all of our other comedies either on Wednesday, or with Scrubs and Better Off Ted.  So we’ll see where that transpires. In terms of Wednesday we realize that it’s absolutely a challenge, let alone to launch one new show but to launch a whole new night of shows.  That said, we had tremendous success doing exactly that when we launched Pushing Daisies, Private Practice, and Dirty Sexy Money.  It was really the strike that derailed it.  We had gone from being fourth on the night to being first.  It actually allows us to get back to a little bit more of the marketing strategy that we had when we launched Desperate and Lost, which it’s really focused on that night.  While we’ll be touching on other stuff, that’s going to be a giant priority.  I think it’s our responsibility to just try to get as many eyeballs as we can in there.  There are a lot of different ways.  There are some recognizable names, obviously.  Modern Family, while there are recognizable names, we think that, creatively, is just a wonderful comedy.  We want to make sure we get people to see that pilot.  We’re doing some early screenings of that with early adopters and disseminators because we feel like word of mouth on that would be great.  Courteney [Cox] — we already know the tracking on that show is huge because of her and excitement to see her back in a comedic form.  Kelsey, obviously, his name on something helps us.  But it’s going to be a creative challenge, and it’s a marketing quandary about how do you break it up? How do you promote the whole night?  We tend to feel that you really should promote shows, because I think that’s the way people pattern their viewing, and not whether they make an appointment to just watch a show on a night.  So I think you’ll see very targeted and focused marketing on Wednesday, and it will very much seem like one of our top priorities.

EI: Was this just an unusually good development year on the comedy side, or was it more of a conscious decision to get more half-hours on the air?

SM: It was definitely an exceptional year in development.  That’s without question.  Part of that was by intent.  We spent more on it.  We really pushed and did more comedies than we’ve done. We didn’t cut our budgets in the wave of cost-cutting that was going on, and we knew we needed to launch some comedies.  We needed to get a foothold in there.  We had some minor hiccups and some success with Samantha Who? but were never able to get real traction.  So when we looked at all of our development, it was really a question of would we have an hour block, would we have a two-hour block, and where would it be?

EI: When one of your major stars seems like annually is saying things that get the press angry, and it’s basically stuff about her show — and her name kind of rhymes with “Schmeigl” — [laughs] — is this a situation where, as a network president, you’ve got this triage, all hands on deck, ready to have the PR machine try to smooth this over, or is this just something, “They’re going to say what they’re going to say, and we’ll have to deal with it when it comes”?

SM: I think it’s unfortunate. It’s not something you want to let consume you or your people, because it is what it is.  People are going to behave in the way they choose to behave.  I think there are so many people who work unbelievably hard on Grey’s, and all of our shows, and go without any notoriety or credit for it. I just think it’s really hard for them to hear it the most. Those are the people I would be the most concerned about — not the public really, but the people who are really busting their tails every day and feeling like they’re either being looked down upon or criticized, etc.

EI: With a show like Flash Forward and, of course, Lost and together with Fringe and the upcoming Day One and V, there are certainly going to be quite a few dramas this season with that deep mythology, high-concept, and nonlinear storytelling.  Do you have any fear that the marketplace will be diluted with this type of story and that it will make it harder for those shows to succeed?

SM: I think it’s funny, the way development often works like that.  There tends to be something in the water, and you often get, in one season, certain kinds of shows together.  I think it’s all going to come down to what are the great ones, what is the best material, what is the best show, and we have to absolutely focus on ours, do the best job we can producing them, and then be marketing them and breaking them out individually and have a specificity to what we’re messaging to the audience about why should you watch this show and make an appointment for it, as opposed to the other competitive shows in that area.

EI: When you do have a star that goes on a talk show and talks about a 17-hour workday, is she trying to get released from the show so she can go on to a series of mediocre romantic comedies or…? [Laughs]

SM: I don’t know.  I’m not going to begin to try to explain someone else’s behavior.  As I say, it’s just unfortunate.

EI: CBS and NBC have set up some procedurals that seem to be unending spin-offs.  Has ABC just not found something it can do that with, or is that something ABC is not interested in doing?

SM: It certainly is something we’re interested in.  We’re really excited to be back in business with Bruckheimer this year for that very reason.  We feel that nobody does a procedural better than him.  When they came to us with The Forgotten, we felt like they had a fresh new concept that really could pop for us.  It’s something that obviously has its benefits in terms of the repeats, and then the franchise potential for those shows is great.  When you can get some traction with something, you’re not really getting one hit.  You know you’re going to get at least a couple more swings at the plate from that very show, so we’d love to have it.  We’re certainly trying to find our own version of it.  I often say we’re kind of a character network, even within the high concepts.  Lost, I think, would have been over in Season 1 if it hadn’t had these incredible character stories and the flashback storytelling.  I think we have to find, within our procedure, what is the underlying character work that can compel our audience.

EI: Is it going to be the last season for Ugly Betty, since you guys did cancel it and it came back?  And how much did ABC have to do with the Jimmy Kimmel basket the other night at the premiere of G.I. Joe going over? Did you guys know about that?

SM: Ugly Betty was never canceled at all.  We just took it off of Thursday so that we could spell in with Samantha and Motherhood, and we have great plans for Ugly.  We think it’s terrific.  It’s staying in New York another year.  We’ll see where the tax situation goes after that, but I think America [Ferrera] and that whole cast and crew is doing some of their best work.  If you watched the season last year, creatively, it was incredibly strong, so that’s the first part. Then, in terms of the basket, you mean the crane?

EI: Yeah, the crane that was used to pick up Jimmy Kimmel and Sienna Miller and bring them up and over. And I couldn’t hear what he was saying out of the megaphone he was using, but I didn’t get to watch the show.  Was that the opening of the show?

SM: Yeah, that was how we got her to come on the show, basically.  It was something Jimmy thought of and seemed like a lot of fun, and I know it went over big…

EI: Private Practice has turned into a high-class telenovela of sorts.  Are you happy with the creative direction of that show?  What are your plans for Season 3?

SM: It’s interesting.  I think the end of last year of Private Practice is really a good lesson for an executive, because when I first heard the story with Amy[Brenneman], I was like, “Wow.”  I was frightened by it.  And the response to it, while it has been polarizing, really has gained an excitement about the show and her character, and the potential for where we could go.  I think the fact that it’s at 10:00, it can go a little bit edgier.  I think we can tell those kind of stories, and I think we want it to be a different show than Grey’s and we want to grow it.  So for me, it was really a lesson to trust great show-runners. Shonda had an idea for it and felt like it would work, and she really executed it, so my hat’s off to her.

EI: You chose to put the remaining on-air Better Off Ted episodes from Season 1 on in summer as opposed to holding them in reserve for the regular season.  Given the performance, do you think that was the right move to make?

SM: Summer was tough in general.  We felt like where we wanted to go creatively with the show, we really wanted to get that start, and we’ve tabled a couple episodes and feel like we’re in really good shape there.  So I don’t know.  Hindsight is 20/20.  We would have definitely liked a better performance, but I do think we’re going to put on really good shows in the fall, or after the Dancing run, and I think that’s going to be what is going to determine whether the show works or not.

EI: Summer has been kind of tough for everybody, in terms of putting on original scripted programming.  Do you think it’s almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point, that viewers are just not expecting it from the broadcast networks so they’re not going to look for it when it’s there?

SM: I don’t know. You look at cable.  I still think that there is an audience for it.  I don’t know that we’ve all collectively done the best job, either creatively or from a marketing standpoint, in terms of launching stuff.  We’re certainly going to look at it as a continued possibility.  We’d love to have a more scripted balance, if you will, in the summer as opposed to just kind of wall-to-wall reality.

EI: The other networks put on a lot of stars that are from other lands, and they come here and speak to us, and everybody is surprised at their accent.  You seem to have at least one recognizable either movie or TV star in every one of your shows. Is that just a coincidence, or do you do that on purpose?

SM: No, we cast the best actor or actress for the role, and casting has become a global thing now, from England to Australia.  And now, with some of these roles — like Lost, I think, blew the top off of how international a cast could be. It really is about going out and finding either that great young talent or that recognizable talent that you feel can be reinvented or can invigorate a concept or a show that you believe in.

EI: Is it a coincidence this season that it’s really so full of recognizable faces?

SM: Kelsey Grammer came in with that show as a producer and really working on it, whereas Joseph Fiennes, it was out of blue — we were able to cast him.  Frankly, when we offered it to him, we really didn’t have great hopes that he would do it, so we were just ecstatic when he decided to, because he responded to the material.  But those are completely different scenarios.  And because of that, you have recognizable stars on both shows.

EI: You talked about how you’d like to have Paula.  Will you reach out to her?  A lot of people want to talk to her right now.

SM: Yeah, I definitely have reached out to her, and we’re friends from way back, so I gave her a call, first and foremost, just to say I was sorry about the situation and also that we’d love to see her on ABC.