NBC CHIEFS FIRE AT CBS IN A ‘BATTLE OF THE AGES’

In back-to-back press conferences this week, the two most important Mr. T’s at NBC--board chairman Grant Tinker and his programs chief, Brandon Tartikoff--needled first-place CBS for downgrading the value of second-place NBC’s younger audience.

It was vaguely akin to the old radio “feud” between Jack Benny and Fred Allen. But those friendly rivals only made sport of each other’s talent. The NBC-CBS joust, known in some circles as the Great Demographic Debate, concerns whose audience is more appealing to advertisers, older viewers or younger ones.

Not as funny as Benny versus Allen, but of interest to out-of-town TV writers who last week heard CBS executives knock NBC’s demographics. The visitors asked NBC’s top two executives on Wednesday both about that and if NBC will be No. 1 in prime time next season.

Neither Tartikoff nor Tinker, appearing on the closing day of NBC’s annual press tour at the Century Plaza Hotel, would predict Nielsen victory next season.

Tartikoff, jokingly echoing former NBC President Fred Silverman’s ill-advised vow when NBC was deep in third place in 1980, cried, “No. 1 by Christmas!” When the laughter died, he allowed that “I think it’s going to be real competitive.”

Tinker concurred, although he prefaced this by saying he really doesn’t care if NBC is first, second or third in ratings as long as stockholders are pleased and NBC is proud of its programs.

“Obviously, I’d like to have it all, including No. 1,” said Tinker, whose network was third in prime-time ratings for nine seasons until last season, when ABC went in the Nielsen cellar.

NBC’s success, Tartikoff said, was made possible in large part by the hit “The Bill Cosby Show,” but also by solid ratings for the new “Miami Vice” and the continuing strength of such returning shows as “Cheers,” “Family Ties” and “St. Elsewhere.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being No. 1,” Tinker said, sighing--in jest--that “somebody’s got to do it. And now that we’re No. 2, I guess that any red-blooded American would like to be No. 1.” But he declined to issue any forecast on when that will occur for NBC.

Being first in total household ratings is a matter of prestige for the networks. But rivalry over demographics--the age and income of viewers--also now is occurring between upstart NBC and CBS, the latter the prime-time ratings champ for six straight seasons.

Last season’s ratings show that NBC led in children and with viewers aged 18 to 49, while CBS won in total households and with viewers over 50. CBS contends that its older viewers have more money to spend than NBC’s younger witnesses, and thus are more desirable to advertisers.

It is true that NBC is first with teen-agers and children in prime time, Tartikoff said, but he asserted that NBC also is first in two age categories--18 to 49 and 25 to 54--that advertisers adore. The 36-year-old executive said he was flattered that CBS was now raising the demographic issue “because for five years they never mentioned us. They were always talking about ABC.”

Tinker, 59, dryly observed that there “seems to be a little sniping going on” from the CBS officials who met with TV writers at CBS’ press tour last week in Phoenix. During that gathering, CBS Entertainment President Bud Grant said that “much of NBC’s audience is not desired by most advertisers.”

Tinker took umbrage at such talk. “The truth is, we are getting, from age 2 right up to 50, all the audience that really counts,” he said. “That is, we are getting more (of the demographically desired viewers) than the other guys. That is a simple Nielsen fact . . . . “

But he also insisted that NBC--whose lineup next fall includes “Golden Girls,” a comedy about four over-50 women sharing a home in Miami--doesn’t set out to develop programs for specific age or economic groups: “We try to program for everybody.”

A similar sound was heard last week from CBS’ senior vice president for programs, Harvey Shephard, who told reporters: “We go for a balanced audience.”

Not all was demographics, of course, at Wednesday’s press sessions. Among other things, Tinker gave a resounding advance vote of confidence to NBC News’ coming “American Almanac” series that will start airing on a weekly basis in January.

He said he had told NBC News executives that unlike past weekly NBC newsmagazine series which rarely lasted more than a season, “Almanac,” anchored by Roger Mudd, will stay on the network “forever.” He grinned. “I put it in those indefinite terms.”

Despite his joking vow about “Almanac,” he made it clear that NBC will stick with the program for a long time, if not eternity. Part of the reason past NBC newsmagazine programs failed, he suggested, “goes back to the ‘forever,’ ” namely that the network grew too impatient too quickly when the shows failed to get acceptable ratings.

Tinker declined to reply at length on a reporter’s question about talk that it would be a bad thing were cable-TV’s flamboyant Ted Turner to succeed in his proposed hostile takeover of CBS. He didn’t want to get into discussing personalities, he said.

He only would say he considered success by Turner “unlikely.”