• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 6, 2006

It's time for television and video content providers to pull out their respective "get out of the way" strategies.

ABC will be getting out of the way of "American Idol" at 9 p.m. on Wednesdays--by putting "Lost" in a more natural and dramatic 10 p.m. time slot. To "Lost"'s credit, it hung tough going straight against the "Idol" results show on Wednesday night over the last two years, still getting strong 6 and 7 rating points among 18-49 viewers.

But now with "Lost" losing some 15% to 20% in ratings this year--due in part to getting dinged by CBS' "Criminal Minds"--ABC doesn't want to take a chance on further hurting one of its three mainstay prime-time shows.

Sent to be a sacrificial lamb is "The Knights of Prosperity," the show that was formerly called "Let's Rob.... (Mick Jagger)." A little cowardice is a mark of honor: Live to return another day.

Yahoo is also using a "get out of the way" strategy this year, telling some executives to step aside. Among those is ex-CBSer David Katz and Lloyd Braun, who headed up the Yahoo Media Group and was the former chairman of ABC Entertainment. The connecting dots here are that Braun came up with the original idea for "Lost," asking producers to "make a scripted and fictional  'Survivor.'"

At Yahoo, all eyes were on Braun--figuring that he would move the Web company into a whiz-bang game plan in putting on original video programming. But he balked, saying the economics didn't quite work yet.  Braun was merely getting out the way of getting into the traditional expensive TV production game--one that still has question marks on the Internet. Yahoo says it will resume working on media that includes user-generated content and social networking.

Braun's departure has been expected for some time. And now that the Yahoo stock price and perception are fading behind bigger competitors such as Google, the company needed to shake things up. Google's video plans now rely in large part on its $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube. Along with News Corp.'s MySpace, both are leaders in their respective user-generated content and social networking areas, two businesses where Yahoo is way behind.

Yahoo Chief Sales Officer Wenda Harris Millard says it's still tough to monetize user-generated content. No doubt, not all advertisers have figured out how to work their messaging in and around short scenes of human beings crashing into trees, cars, and office cubicles.  At the USB media conference, she had this to say about YouTube's success: "A lot of page views. What was their revenue this year?"

Not much. Perhaps Yahoo should take note and get out of the way.