Prime-time TV giving women a big hug

By Joanne Weintraub --

In the beginning there was Ally.

Women's TV

Then came Felicity, the college freshman, and Sydney, the glamorous Hollywood plastic surgeon who returned to her native Providence, R.I., to work as a humble family physician.

Before long they were all over the place - not just the angels, witches and vampire slayers of past seasons, but the judge and the social worker of "Judging Amy," the female attorneys of "Family Law," the sister act that runs the bookstore in "Once and Again" and the best girlfriends - one's a lawyer, one's a mom - of "Any Day Now."

Woman-friendly programming? Chick shows? SheTV?

By any name, the emergence of female-centered series in a prime-time environment long dominated by men is both inevitable and surprising. Inevitable because women are 52% of the population, surprising because it happened when everyone was looking the other way.

Lifetime's Achievement

This season, in an unusual arrangement, Lifetime, which is half-owned by Walt Disney Co., shows reruns of "Once and Again" on Fridays, just four nights after the freshman drama airs on Disney-owned ABC.

Created by "thirtysomething's" Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, "Once and Again," about the romance between two divorced people and the way it affects their families, is another of the season's surprise hits. Though its male characters get roughly as much air time as its women and girls, the series' ABC audience is 65% female.

For one of the show's writers, Winnie Holzman, that's a mixed blessing. Holzman, who was acclaimed for her work on "thirtysomething," went on to create 1994's "My So-Called Life," which won extravagant kudos but not enough viewers, thanks in part to the perception that it was strictly a show for teenage girls.

Elated about the success of "Once and Again," Holzman is less thrilled with what she calls "the ghettoization of show business."

While acknowledging that dramas about relationships nearly always appeal to more women than men, she says: "As a writer and a viewer, I'm not really drawn to something that's described as 'women's TV.' What interests me is (stories about) both of the sexes."

Like essayist Prose, Holzman believes that the "TV for women" concept is largely ad-driven - "a very market-y kind of thing."

Whatever is behind the growth of these shows, whether it's the ascension of women in the ranks of TV creators or simply a belated recognition of women's buying power, ad man Cella believes it's not necessarily an irreversible change.

"This season, (series about women) are very strong," he says. "Next season, who knows?"__Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Feb. 24, 2000)