‘WEST 57TH’ DUE BACK ON CBS

CBS News’ “West 57th” newsmagazine series will return to the network’s prime-time schedule the week of April 21, but no decision has been made yet on which night it will resume its weekly run, a CBS spokesman said Tuesday.

The announcement means that CBS will keep “West 57th” out of the prime-time ratings race until after the current season ends April 20. Save for CBS’ hit “60 Minutes,” prime-time news programs generally get lower ratings than entertainment offerings, and thus tend to lower a network’s overall ratings each week.

CBS, the prime-time Nielsen winner for the last six seasons, currently is trailing NBC in the ratings, with ABC in third.

“West 57th,” which premiered Aug. 16, had a six-week tryout run on Tuesday nights and then was taken off CBS’ schedule. It averaged a 10.4 rating, or more than 8.9 million homes each week, during its tryout run.

It has a commitment for at least 13 more shows. CBS probably will announce next week what night “West 57th” will appear when it resumes in April, the spokesman said.

At NBC, meanwhile, a spokeswoman said no decision has been made yet as to when NBC News’ “American Almanac” will get a weekly slot on the network’s prime-time schedule, although the one-hour program definitely will be on the schedule next fall.

“Almanac,” NBC’s 11th attempt since 1969 to air a regular prime-time newsmagazine series, originally was scheduled to start weekly in January, then that plan was postponed until March. The weekly start was postponed again last week because it hadn’t yet built up a sufficient backlog of what NBC News president Lawrence K. Grossman called “compelling stories” for its weekly run.

Anchored by Roger Mudd, “Almanac” premiered last Aug. 6, but has appeared only on a monthly basis.