When it comes to the extremely short-lived "Emily's Reasons Why Not," ABC entertainment president Steve McPherson has plenty of reasons why the show's not here anymore.

Asked a few minutes ago how the network could have so quickly killed a show that it had promoted so heavily, McPherson explained -- with what seems like unusual frankness for a guy in his job -- that they'd paid for the promotions before they'd seen the scripts.

"Creatively we just didn't get the show where we needed it to be," he said of the Heather Graham series.

Asked if he couldn't have seen this one coming -- wasn't there early testing? -- McPherson continued with the candor.

"Testing is a pretty dysfunctional tool," he said, citing the legendary tale of "Seinfeld" and its miserable performance before test audiences.

"Desperate Housewives" might be another example.

"It tested OK," McPherson said. "No men said they would ever watch it."