Dharma to ABC: Help!

Faced with sinking ratings on an ultra-competitive Tuesday night, Dharma & Greg is limping through November sweeps with viewership down 30 percent compared to last year. Now, the show's yoga-loving lead wants some extra promotional nudging from the ABC honchos.

"I think that our show, Drew Carey's show and Spin City are the anchors of the comedy mantle of ABC," Elfman told the New York Daily News. "We have the responsibility of making a great show. The studio has to support us in helping us make the show, and it's the network's responsibility to promote us. If everybody does their job, you have success."

Unfortunately, that's not what you have from ABC's Tuesday comedies. Dharma & Greg began its fifth season by moving from 9 p.m. to 8 p.m., anchoring what became a night rife with ratings clunkers such as the now-defunct What About Joan and Bob Patterson. NYPD Blue has since shown up to boost ABC during sweeps, but it's getting little help from Dharma and Spin City, which are averaging less than 10 million viewers apiece.

Although Elfman embarked on New York media rounds this week to trumpet her sitcom, the actress isn't the only one wondering what's up with the Mickey Mouse network. TV analysts are scratching their heads over the downward spiral of ABC, which has gone from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? to "Who cares?" in just three seasons.

Once the top-rated network in 1999 and champion of all things Regis, ABC is now a lowly fourth place behind CBS, NBC and Fox. Millionaire's multiple weekly airings caused the show to tire out quickly, and the Regis quizzer has seen its audience drop from 17 million viewers last season to 10.7 million this year.

On Fridays, ABC just yanked its new news magazine America.01, which was supposed to replace The Mole II--a reality show that suffered in its second go-around. Both shows opened an unimpressive night that still includes ho-hum rookie series Thieves and the returning Once and Again.

All told, ABC has averaged 10.4 million viewers, down 21 percent compared to last season. The network is down 15 percent among adults 18-49, the demographic prized by advertisers.

On the bright side, ABC does have a couple semi-promising performers in its fall lineup: The Wednesday Jim Belushi comedy According to Jim and Sunday spy thriller Alias, which got off to a strong start earlier this season before getting overshadowed in its timeslot by NBC's Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Meanwhile, ABC Entertainment cochairs Stu Bloomberg and Lloyd Braun are touting a drop in the median age of its viewers (from 47.1 last year to 44.6, a plus when it comes to wooing those age-obsessed advertisers).

At least in interviews, the pair remain optimistic.

"We have some really strong comedies, and it's energizing to look and say 'Okay, this is where we are, but now let's just embrace it, redefine ourselves go back to some of our core values of family comedies,'" Bloomberg tells the Associated Press.

Of course, one program that probably won't be showing up alongside Disney's list of "core values" anytime soon was last Thursday's lingerie babefest, The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

While the spectacle seemed like a harmless (but skimpy) November sweeps stunt, the FCC now says it will look into whether ABC broke broadcast indecency standards by airing all those G-strings on prime-time television. (Investigators will no doubt need to oh-so-closely examine that footage to determine if any flesh-baring rules were broken.)

FCC commissioner Michael Copps told reporters Friday he received 50 emailed complaints from viewers, and asked the FCC's enforcement bureau to look into the highly important matter.

For its part, ABC says it complied with broadcast standards, airing the 9 p.m. special with a TV-14 parental rating label. "As with any other program, viewers have a choice to tune in, or not," the network said in a statement.