[ZIZITOPER]

Not so fast, folks.

September 16, 2005
Seinfeld Who? NBC Pursuing the Heartland

By JACQUES STEINBERG
KENNESAW, Ga., Sept. 12 - The cash register at Goody's clothing store here flashed $106.01 - for a dress shirt and three pairs of Levi's - but as Lori Smith reached for her credit card, a nearby voice brought the transaction to a halt.

"Tell you what, why don't you let me take care of it?" said Scott Evans, his delivery as smooth as a car salesman's as he directed Ms. Smith to a partner brandishing stacks of $1 bills.

Mr. Evans explained that they were there on behalf of NBC, promoting an unscripted show, "Three Wishes," which will have its premiere on the network on Sept. 23. In the series, the singer Amy Grant travels to a different town each week in an effort to fulfill the heart's desire of needy families and community groups.

For a network that dominated the prime-time ratings for a decade with sophisticated urban comedies like "Cheers," "Seinfeld," "Frasier" and "Friends," only to tumble to fourth place last season without them, Ms. Grant's show is a radical departure. "Three Wishes" is aimed, in no small part, at a churchgoing rural and suburban audience. And its marketing plan, evocative of a red-state presidential campaign, bears scant resemblance to any NBC has crafted before.

In advance of the new prime-time television season, NBC sent more than 7,000 DVD's of the show's first episode to ministers and other clergy members, along with a recorded message to their congregants from Ms. Grant. ("At its core, 'Three Wishes' is faith in action," she tells them.) The network has also booked Ms. Grant - a pop singer who vaulted to fame singing Christian songs, crossed over to mainstream radio and recently released an album of hymns titled "Rock of Ages" - for interviews on Christian radio and taken out advertising in small-town newspapers.

And, perhaps most seductively, NBC has been stuffing cash registers at stores here like Goody's and others in or around Nashville, Salt Lake City, Des Moines and Milwaukee with tens of thousands of $1 bills used for groceries and other basics. The dollars are affixed with yellow stickers (removable, consistent with Treasury Department guidelines) that ask, "What's your wish?," and implore people to watch the show. All told, the network expects to give away 150,000 of those dollar bills in 15 cities and towns.

Though NBC hopes the show will have broad appeal - it also took its dollar bill campaign to New York and Los Angeles - Barbara Blangiardi, the network's vice president of marketing and special projects, said that "absolutely the Christian community was a target audience."

Indeed, Ms. Grant brings an established following to NBC, instantly making her one of its biggest stars. Her show is consistent with other efforts the network has made to reach viewers outside major cities, including its telecasts of Nascar races and periodic visits by the "NBC Nightly News" anchor, Brian Williams, beyond the Northeast.

Though NBC is using more conventional tactics to promote much of its lineup - advertisements for "My Name Is Earl," a comedy about a ne'er-do-well who wins a lottery, have appeared in stadiums and movie theaters - it is taking a grass-roots approach to "Earl" and several other shows in addition to "Three Wishes." These include "The Biggest Loser," a returning reality series about weight loss. Last week, the network sponsored parties for "Loser" in 1,000 homes.

Here in Kennesaw, a suburb of Atlanta with 22,000 residents and a Civil War battlefield, NBC had little difficulty finding people who had tuned out its prime-time lineup since its glory days.

"I loved 'Seinfeld,' " said Ms. Smith, 40, who works at a Hobby Lobby store. "I watched 'Cheers' and 'Friends,' " said her boyfriend, Paul Perry, 34, who is out of work while recuperating from shoulder surgery.

But when asked to name a show on the network's prime-time schedule last year, neither could.

Instead, they, along with nearly a dozen other recipients of NBC's largess, cited shows they liked on other networks, including "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" (which "Three Wishes" resembles) and "Desperate Housewives" on ABC; the "C.S.I." shows on CBS; and "American Chopper," a Discovery Channel series about motorcycles.

NBC executives refused to say how much they were spending to raise the network's profile this fall, other than that it was roughly a third more than what they spent last year at this time. (The popularity of "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" on ABC last fall has been attributed in part to the network's targeted marketing, including dry-cleaning bags with the "Desperate" logo.)

One of the architects of NBC's strategy, John D. Miller, chief marketing officer of the NBC Universal Television Group, said the network had organized its priorities this year into two tiers. The first includes "Earl"; "E-Ring," a Pentagon drama; and "Surface," about organisms rising from the deep, which are each receiving more marketing support than any show last year. The second tier, also the beneficiary of heavy promotion, includes "Three Wishes," "Biggest Loser" and the Martha Stewart "Apprentice" offshoot.

Mr. Miller said he expected that "Three Wishes" (to be broadcast on Fridays at 9 p.m., Eastern and Pacific times; 8 p.m., Central time) would play a "sleeper" role in helping improve the network's fortunes. But he also said he wanted to help the show because of his emotional reaction to it. Set in Sonora, Calif., the first episode shows Ms. Grant helping a young girl recovering from a car accident, a boy seeking to thank the man filling the void left by his late father and a high school trying to replace its waterlogged football field. And yes, Ms. Grant sings - twice.

"This show makes me feel good," Mr. Miller said.

At the root of NBC's strategy for "Three Wishes" is raising its visibility in smaller counties.

It has bought advertising for the series in Sunday magazine inserts like American Profile, which appears in weekly and biweekly newspapers. The DVD copies of the pilot were distributed to churches, as well as some synagogues and mosques, through a California public relations firm, Grace Hill Media, that specializes in religious audiences. The $1 bill promotion was conceived by another California firm, this one an advocate of promotional stunts, called Impact.

Though the "Wishes" campaign has been in the works for months, the hurricane that displaced tens of thousands of people has put the network in a bit of a bind: will the wishes the show is trying to fulfill pale in comparison? NBC figures that the hurricane, by touching off a national spirit of charity, could actually draw viewers. (One wish will now concern a family devastated by the storm.)

As luck would have it, one of the people randomly picked to have her Goody's order paid by NBC - at an even $80 - was a woman who said she had promised to help about 100 children relocated to Georgia after the storm. She was Catherine Love, 36, a hairstylist, who said she was struggling to fulfill that pledge.

"I would watch 'Three Wishes' because there's so much bad going on in the world," said Ms. Love, who works at a salon, Kids Kuts, in nearby Marietta. "It's refreshing to see good things happen to people who deserve it."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company