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...news executives are already looking back at Campaign '88 and wondering where they went wrong -- and what they can do differently in 1992. "We have got to reevaluate how we cover campaigns," says Roone Arledge, ABC News president. The networks are considering paying less attention to the made-for- TV conventions, dropping the requirement for daily sound bites and concentrating on long-range issues...
...that TV historians may one day call the Age of the Mini-Series began in January 1977. That was when ABC telecast an eight-night adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots and changed the face of television. Roots proved that TV dramas, once confined to neat two-hour blocks, could draw huge audiences when stretched into week-long programming "events." Not all the mini-series that followed Roots were hits, but a few -- Holocaust in 1978, Shogun in 1980, The Thorn Birds in 1983 -- have been among the most watched TV programs ever...
...event that TV historians may one day call the Last Gasp of the Mini- Series will come next week. That is when ABC launches the biggest, most expensive, most just-about-everything-else mini-series in TV history: Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance. A sequel to Wouk's The Winds of War, which drew vast ratings back in 1983, the drama will spend 32 hours (17 1/2 this month, an additional 14 or so next spring) recounting America's experience in World War II, mostly through the eyes of a fictional naval officer, Victor ("Pug") Henry, and his family...
...fact that they usually do badly in reruns -- have made them poor investments. The networks, as a result, have largely abandoned them in favor of more modest four-and six-hour dramas. War and Remembrance is an anachronism even before it airs. "It's hard to say 'never,' " says ABC Entertainment president Brandon Stoddard, "but it's very unlikely we'll ever see a story told with this magnitude again...
...Some ABC executives may regret that they are telling this one. In selling ABC the rights to his 1,042-page tome, author Wouk (who also co-wrote the teleplay) demanded stringent restrictions on advertising. No commercials for personal-care products such as laxatives and foot powder. No commercial breaks longer than two minutes. Perhaps most galling to the network, no promotional spots for other ABC shows except at the beginning and end of each episode...