Abc Television Network

ABC will kick off the New Year with a new comedy lineup on Wednesday nights and a new time slot for "Lost," which will no longer have to face off with Fox's juggernaut "American Idol" or CBS' rising star "Criminal Minds." "According to Jim" returns to the schedule at 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., beginning Jan. 3, followed by two new comedies, "The Knights of Prosperity" at 9 p.m. and "In Case of Emergency" at 9:30 p.m. "The George Lopez Show" will move in at 8:30 p.m. as of Jan. 24.

The sweeps numbers are in -- let the spinning begin. Days before the quarterly ratings battle officially even ended, both ABC and CBS issued news releases celebrating their triumphs. ABC touted its first-place finish in the highly desirable 18-to-49 age demographic, while CBS trumpeted its top-ranked 13.04 million overall viewers for the ratings period.

ABC has pulled "The Nine" from its schedule. The first-year serialized drama struggled to retain viewers of "Lost," which preceded it. Various ABC News programming will replace "The Nine" on Wednesdays from 10-11 p.m., beginning this week with "Cheap in America," a special edition of "20/20" on charitable giving. "The Nine," an ensemble series about a bank robbery's effect on hostages and other involved parties, will return to ABC at an as yet-to-be determined point, a network executive said.

ABC is moving its first-year drama "Men in Trees" to Thursdays at 10 p.m. beginning Nov. 30, hoping it will retain more "Grey's Anatomy" viewers than another freshman drama, "Six Degrees." "Six Degrees" will return to ABC's schedule in January with original episodes. The hourlong drama about the growing connection of six New Yorkers who initially did not know each other has not received a full-season order.

ABC executives don't have to cringe anymore when the topic of Thursdays comes up. Thanks to "Grey's Anatomy" and now "Ugly Betty," the network is beginning to unlock CBS' grip on TV's showcase night. "Ugly Betty," an Americanized version of a Colombian soap opera about an unglamorous but resourceful young woman who finds work at a snooty fashion magazine, premiered on Thursday as the most-watched new show of the fall, averaging 16.

For the first time in 36 years, "Monday Night Football" won't be in ABC's starting lineup for the official kickoff of the new television season tonight. But the network's parent company's game plan could soon look like third and long. By dispatching the venerable weekly football event to its ESPN cable sports channel, Walt Disney Co. has exacerbated ABC's existing programming challenges, according to several advertisers.

Walt Disney Co. on Wednesday said it had reached an agreement with ABC television affiliates to include local advertising in the network's online offering of seven prime-time TV series, including "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost." Disney plans to reintroduce its free, ad-supported broadband video player software at ABC.com this month after a test showed that viewers could recall the interactive ads at far higher rates than on TV airings.

SURVEYING the smoking ruin that is ABC's reputation after the "The Path to 9/11" debacle, it's hard to know whether you're looking at the consequence of unadulterated folly or of a calculated strategy that turned out to be too clever by half. At the end of the day, it probably doesn't make much difference because, either way, the lacerating controversy surrounding the network's docu-dramatic re-creation of events leading to Sept. 11 is an entirely self-inflicted wound.

Walt Disney Co.'s ABC is forging ahead with plans to air a miniseries starting Sunday despite controversy over its efforts to dramatize -- and some say unfairly politicize -- the events leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

A miniseries about the events leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks is "terribly wrong" and ABC should correct it or not air it, a group of former Clinton administration officials said in letters to the head of the network's parent company. But in a statement released Thursday afternoon in apparent response to the growing uproar, ABC said, "No one has seen the final version of the film because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible."