ABC is turning to a publicity-seeking broadcast team that features comedian Dennis Miller in an effort to recreate the early success of Monday Night Football.

	Howard Cosell entertained MNF viewers with his color commentary until 1983.

But according to one expert, the network is merely trotting on a treadmill of futility because of the way television has changed since the 1970s.

"If they think whoever they name is going to bring Monday Night Football back to where it was their first decade, they are mistaken," said Bob Thompson, founder of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. "They could name Moses to this, and it wouldn't have an effect."

The network on Thursday stopped short of Moses -- or Charlton Heston, for that matter -- and named Miller for comic relief and Dan Fouts, a Hall of Fame quarterback, for analysis. Al Michaels returns to do play-by-play.

Earlier ABC brought back Don Ohlmeyer, the show's producer in the 1970s.

While the search for a successor to analyst Boomer Esiason and the return to the three-man booth generated lots of publicity (particularly with regular references to Rush Limbaugh's candidacy), the reality of TV 2000 means little impact can be expected.

According to Thompson, there are simply too many options, like cable and the Internet, for any network or show to consistently gather eye-popping ratings numbers. Thompson admits new entries like "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" and "Survivor" both "give us a little taste" of the past. But he can't see a return to glory for MNF.

"What ABC does still matters to an extent," said Thompson. "Monday Night Football is still 'playing the Palace.' It's still somebody determining that this game is important because it's on prime time.

"But nothing is going to bring it back like it used to be with the network. In the 1970s, if you left your TV on and walked out of the room, there was still a one-in-three chance that ABC would be the beneficiary of your nap or whatever. Now, you leave the room and leave the TV on and you have a one-in-80 chance that ABC will be the beneficiary."

	“	Monday Night Football will never be the center of a cultural evening like it was back then. That has not much to do with who's hosting. It's just that with Howard (Cosell), you only had two other options. ”
		— Bob Thompson, TV expert

Monday Night Football's ratings have dropped each of the past five seasons, from an average of 17.8 in 1994 to 13.7 last season. In the '70s and early '80s, the show had ratings in the 20s and shares in the 40s. (A rating point represents 1,008,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 100.8 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.)

"A 32 (share) today would be a blockbuster," said Thompson. "Right now, if you get 25 percent of the audience you are jumping for joy.

"When (the late) Howard Cosell and company were doing Monday Night Football, that was more than a game. It was an entertainment broadcast. Monday Night Football will never be the center of a cultural evening like it was back then. That has not much to do with who's hosting. It's just that with Howard, you only had two other options. In the late 1970s, you had the three networks sharing 90 percent of the audience."

In naming Miller, a standup comedian who first gained public attention on Saturday Night Live, ABC obviously is aiming for entertainment.

But the show is still football. ABC may have been the first to take the game to prime time and, in a way, even paved the way for the World Series to move to prime time, but for the most part football fans are going to watch, says Thompson.

"In many ways, TV invented football as we know it today," he said. "And (MNF) is not unimportant to ABC and the game."

But adding a non-football element such as Miller, said Thompson, "is the John McCain factor: If you bring a certain person in, you hope he carries his constituency with him."

Thompson said networks need to remember that sitcoms today are getting ratings that would have gotten them canceled 20 years ago.

"For programmers to get fired because that (ratings) number keeps going down is not to recognize what TV is about today," he said. "You could have healings on live and the numbers would still go down."