Lucas seems to be forgetting his truly terrible track record in television. "It's Star Wars", well so was Ewok Adventure. And Young Indy had a great, amazing roster of talent and still bombed in the ratings. He should understand why the networks would be a little gun shy.
It really is hard to say how Star Wars is perceived these days. I don't think the general population flat out hates the prequels, but I do think they are just getting indifferent to Star Wars in general. I only say that because the same thing happened in the 80s, people move on.