More details of ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson's comments at the TV Critics Association convention have become available, including his explanation of why the network decided to air Grey's Anatomy in its regular time slot after the Super Bowl rather than shuffling the schedule to include Desperate Housewives.

As previously reported, McPherson said of Desperate Housewives that the hit had "got away from the heart and soul of that show" at the beginning of the season, but he believes "there's momentum getting back into it." Now The Futon Critic has posted his comments in full. "We answered so many questions at the end of the year," he noted. "I think through the fall they built momentum...I don't look at it as a slump, because clearly America still loves this show."

Asked how involved he was personally in the development of the show, McPherson said, "Generally the process is that we meet probably once every couple of months and they pitch me long-lead story arcs. But then we have executives day to day who are working on current programming, who are really the liaison between the studio and the creative." He said that the show was "incredibly diligent" about mapping out its future in advance, preparing "for multiple episodes, multiple arcs, multiple years."

Asked about why Grey's Anatomy was chosen to follow the Super Bowl on ABC this year, McPherson said that the network wanted the experience overall to be "kind of a representation of ABC Network", and Grey's Anatomy is "one of the best shows on television, and it's gaining momentum...we wanted to expose it to a larger audience and keep that momentum growing."

Grey's Anatomy, added the executive, is "doing some of the most amazing work in drama that I think is being done anywhere right now." He said that the network wanted to air the show in its time slot following the game, which he believed was the first show that would ever do that. "It's really our belief in the show and our belief that it's going to be a huge part of our future, and so we wanted to give it every boost we could."

The full text of McPherson's comments, including what he had to say about Alias and Lost, is at The Futon Critic.

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