Free The Inheritors by Harold Robbins Page B

the flash Nielsens.

CHAPTER TEN
    I took a pill to sleep on the plane, but it did no good. I couldn’t turn off my head. There was still so much to do. One show, one night even if it did turn out a big winner didn’t make a network. And in the back of my head a trouble was ticking.
    It was nothing I could put my finger on. It was all too easy. Maybe that was it. The hostess came up. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Gaunt?”
    I turned on a smile. “You can get me another double martini.”
    “But you already had one double, Mr. Gaunt,” she said. “Regulations allow only two drinks per.”
    “I know that,” I said. “But the way I look at it, we’re not breaking any rules. I still had only one drink.”
    She hesitated a moment, then nodded. I watched her walk away and giving up the thought of sleep, I opened the attaché case. I placed the papers on the table in front of me.
    The drink was cold and dry. I lit a cigarette and dragged on it. If only I could lose the feeling I had that something was wrong. I stared at the papers without really seeing them.
    On the top, everything seemed okay. The fall schedule was shaping up. It would be the best that Sinclair had ever put on. Maybe not the best, but the most commercial. I had kept all the solid shows, the good ratings, but the problem had been there were not enough of them. About seventy percent of the fall programming would have to be new.
    It had meant a complete change of direction for the network. It also meant a change of thinking for most of the executive personnel and more than half of them couldn’t cut it. That meant in addition to everything else I would have to find replacements for them if I wanted to take advantage of the resignations locked in my desk.
    To this point, Sinclair had been proud of the fact that their programming won the most kudos and critical acclaim. They boasted of more Peabody Awards than any other network. What they didn’t brag about was the fact that they also had the lowest ratings and billings. The new fall schedule was designed to change all that. I never knew any Peabody Award that sold an extra cake of soap.
    From now on, the critics could cry in their beer because there would no longer be such shows as “Great Adventures in American History.” How many times could Washington cross the Delaware and who cared? Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, all three of them together if they came down from heaven or wherever they were and conducted the weekly “Sinclair Philharmonic Hour” couldn’t entice a single viewer from “Gunsmoke” or “77 Sunset Strip.” “The Classic Repertory Theater” didn’t stand a chance against Red Skelton or Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca.
    The critics would have to be satisfied with such programs as Chic Renfrew in the “Park Avenue Squatters” (a story of a Kentucky moonshining family who inherited a fortune); “The Flyboys” (a new kind of private-eye story involving jet pilots who fly their plane to adventure); and “The Sandman,” a story of a western bounty hunter.
    There were other goodies in store for them too. An hour-long country and western music program, originating in Nashville beamed right at the heartlands; “White Fang,” a dog story designed to yap at the heels of Lassie and Rin Tin Tin; and last but not least, “Sally Starr’s Family,” America’s favorite daytime soap opera now moving to prime time, three nights a week in color.
    It was commercial all right. That was the one thing I was sure of. As each program was carefully leaked to the advertising agencies on Madison Avenue, the interest mounted. Already we had more unofficial commitments for billings than we had ever had before in our history. All that remained to firm it up was to have the pilots ready in time for the buying season. And that began next month. February.
    Sometime in those weeks, each network would publicly announce its schedule for the coming fall and begin the rat race after sales. From