ABC’s Coverage Is Caught in Hollywood Reshuffle

The major effect that the rescheduling of the World Series will have on ABC-TV is that the network must now do some more reshuffling of programming.

With the Series tentatively planned to resume Friday instead of Tuesday, the biggest dilemma could occur next Sunday if a Game 5 is necessary, and starts at 5:30 p.m. On the ABC schedule that night is a heavily promoted, made-for-TV movie, “The Final Days,” based on the book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The overlap could be avoided if the game is changed to an afternoon start.

Rescheduling because of World Series is not something completely foreign to the networks. There have been rainouts, such Game 7 of the 1986 Series.

Originally scheduled to be played on a Sunday, the game, televised by NBC, instead was played on a Monday. And that hurt ABC the most.

Game 7 in 1986, with the New York Mets facing the Boston Red Sox, went up against ABC’s “Monday Night Football,” which had the New York Giants playing the Washington Redskins.

The result was the football game got an 8.8 national Nielsen rating, by far the lowest ever for “Monday Night Football.”

One obvious reason why Commissioner Fay Vincent would select Friday as the new start date is that it accommodates ABC. If the San Francisco Giants, down two games to none, rally and force a Game 6, it wouldn’t be played until next Tuesday in Oakland, with Monday as an off day.

If a Series game were played on Monday night, ABC would be faced with presumably having to preempt “Monday Night Football.”

Meanwhile, announcer Al Michaels will remain in San Francisco and miss tonight’s football game in Cleveland between the Browns and Chicago. Frank Gifford and Dan Dierdorf will work the game without Michaels, as they did last Monday night.