Reports of Stephen McPherson's Anger Have Evidently Been Greatly Exaggerated

So you know how everyone has gotten themselves into a great big ol' lather about how ABC's decision to put "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" up against NBC's telecast of the Primetime Emmy Awards on Aug. 27 clearly had to be a revenge counterprogramming move -- as charged by NBC and the journalistic community? About how ABC Entertainment maven Stephen McPherson was mad as hell over the exclusion of "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" from the top series and major performer category lists, and this was his way of striking back?

Well, McPherson swears it ain't so. In a conversation this morning, he accused NBC of spinning this in a negative way against both he and ABC (as have I, in the interest of full disclosure), maintaining that this is ABC's second airing of "Pirates" and thus isn't exactly being counted upon to be a viewer juggernaut. "We had the movie scheduled long before the Emmy nominations were even announced," McPherson said. "This is business as usual for Emmy night. NBC ran 'Titanic' last year against our Emmy broadcast and you didn't hear a lot of complaining. But for some reason, NBC is spinning this as our reaction to being upset. It's just not true."

One of the most vocal critics of ABC's "Pirates" move has been Emmy host Conan O'Brien, whom McPherson says he has tried to contact repeatedly "but he won't return my calls."

My suggestion is that, in the interest of helping generate the largest possible audience for such an important industry event, ABC simply go dark for three hours. In fact, let's have every other network aside from NBC on both broadcast and cable go dark. Then if the Emmy ratings tank, imagine the statement that would send. I can see the headline now: "Staring At Test Pattern Beats Emmys."