The directors have had a fixed residual payment when prime-time programs are syndicated to independent television stations.

The pre-empted prime-time programs will run in their entirety after the games and the 10 o'clock news.

The typical hourlong prime-time program costs $800,000 to $1 million a week to produce.

"It's not easy doing a weekly prime-time program that is all my reponsibility," she said.

Now, the advertising market has fallen off the stove and "Millionaire," while still among the top-rated prime-time programs, is no longer the phenomenon it was.

"Monday Night" has remained a top-10 prime-time program.

What is more, they could be produced for about a fraction of the cost of an American prime-time program.

But 29 years into his second full-time career, he's still here, still the mainstay of last season's seventh-ranked prime-time program.

Last week Bill Clinton demonstrated how little concerned he was that the networks would broadcast every bit of his prime-time program.

"60 Minutes," the longest running prime-time program in television history, has also been among the medium's most profitable.