
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 23, 1994                   TAG: 9407300007
SECTION: SPECTATOR                    PAGE: 8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ED BARK DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                 LENGTH: Medium

ABC SAYS GOODBYE TO TV THEME SONGS

Hum 'em while you can. TV theme songs, benchmarks of shows ranging from "Leave It to Beaver" to "Cheers," are being tuned out by ABC, beginning with the network's six new fall series.

Entertainment president Ted Harbert said Monday that he wants to dissuade viewers from changing channels while a show's opening "main title" credits and theme song are dovetailing with commercial breaks. To him, these two- to three-minute interludes are an open invitation to shop elsewhere. He'd rather get right into the week's story and stay there.

"The amount of zapping is so prevalent that I should be doing anything that might reduce it," he said. "And so this is primarily an intuitive gut call of mine that it just makes logical sense to not give the viewer the chance to zap around."

Returning ABC shows can keep their theme songs if they want, although Harbert has tried to get some to stop the music. He admitted failing with the producers of "Coach," who insist on retaining the show's distinctive marching-band fanfare.

Many ABC series, including the controversial but successful "NYPD Blue," tease the upcoming storyline before cutting to the theme song and opening credits. But Harbert said this will be unacceptable under his "mandate" for new series. He wants five or six minutes of uninterrupted drama or comedy before the first commercial break. If a show never has a theme song, viewers won't know what they're missing, he said.

"They're not gonna say, `I'm upset. All I'm seeing is show.' That doesn't make sense to me. And you know what, I betcha my `upside' beats my `downside' on this one."

Most latter-day TV theme songs are forgettable anyway, Harbert said. "What theme song from 1988 on are you whistling these days?" he asked. (How about "Northern Exposure"? "Blossom"? "The Simpsons"?)

Asked whether he was "robbing a future generation of theme songs," Harbert replied, "If that ends up being my biggest sin, I guess I'll just have to live with that."

No other network so far has announced any plans to silence theme songs. But ABC bookkeepers and some producers can live without the extra costs of paying songwriters, Harbert said.

"I've got a lot of people saying, `Good news, this is a big chunk of change I just saved.' "

Harbert does, by the way, have a favorite old TV theme song of his own. It's from "The Rockford Files."

Lucky him.

by CNB