For the broadcast business to be successful, viewers need to be not merely interested in our political melodramas, they have to be in an absolute state about them - emotionally invested in the outcome and frightened not to watch what happens next.
I've never made a show that goes right on the air and is perfect. People don't remember, but the original 'Goldbergs' pilot was poorly received, and I had to retool that for ABC, where it eventually became a hit.
It is a fact of broadcasting that you've got to get the big audiences for the channel that you're on.
I suppose popularity is measured by ratings. If a broadcaster is known as the leader because of ratings, then that's where people most want to be seen and heard, so there's no question that there's an advantage.
I started in local news in South Carolina, so viewers there supported me. We had a morning show that we put to No. 1, and then I moved to San Antonio, Texas, and we became the No. 1 morning show there, too.
When 'Real People' aired in 1979, we did OK in Los Angeles and New York. What kept that show from being canceled were the ratings from the middle of the country, and that's what kept us in the top five. I learned then from co-hosting that it was important to focus on the country between Los Angeles and New York.
This is my third ABC show over the last four years, so we were afraid that nobody would find it. ABC was really struggling and so we just weren't very confident that it would find an audience.
You make shows, and you don't go into it thinking, 'Our show's going to be number one'; you go into it hoping to stay on the air.
I knew on the day that I accepted my job at CNN that a ratings victory at 8 P.M. was going to be a formidable challenge. As I have been told over and over, this is the toughest time slot in cable news.
It was doing very well; it was doing particularly well outside of England. It was a very big seller for Carlton Television. But it was getting more and more expensive to do.
And so they pitched the show to me. It sounded like a good idea. We pitched the show back, and got it sold and got it on the air. And that's kicking the tail.
Imagine if you have a million views on a show and they say it's a hit on some cable networks. I could put out a piece of content that has 20 million views.
