Leo: Much Ado . . .

By Stephen M. Silverman

Monday September 28, 1998 12:00 AM EDT

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Despite the hubbub, the ABC Earth Day special on Saturday, "Planet Earth 2000," offered very little Leo and generated very low ratings. Leonardo DiCaprio's much-fussed-about 20-minute interview with President Clinton about global warming and the greening of the White House was relegated to the final 10 minutes of the show and had been whittled down to two minutes. ABC News staffers had protested the interview, saying that the network was letting a movie star do a job that should have gone to a seasoned journalist. Despite the publicity, in the preliminary Nielsen ratings the special came in last among its major network competitors, trailing CBS's "Early Edition," a repeat of NBC's "Pretender," and Fox's "Cops." "Planet Earth" earned a 3.6 million rating overall, but during the show's second half hour that number fell to 3.1 million, reports The New York Times.