NEW CBS FALL LINEUP--NO. 2 IS TRYING HARDER

CBS, which lost last season’s prime-time ratings race to NBC after six straight seasons as No. 1, announced a fall schedule Wednesday with seven new series totaling five hours. It also renewed 16 other series, moving 10 of them to new time periods.

The lineup offers three new shows that, like the returning “Kate & Allie,” are about women in contemporary America: two Monday-night sitcoms, “Taking the Town” and “Designing Women,” and a one-hour Thursday series, “Kay O’Brien, Surgeon.”

It also moves “Magnum, P.I.” to a new Wednesday-night slot, thus permanently retiring it from its Thursday battles against NBC’s hit “The Cosby Show” and “Family Ties.” That battle now will be waged by CBS’ returning “Simon and Simon.”

The “Magnum” move may offer some consolation to the show’s producer Don Bellisario, whose “Airwolf,” a 2 1/2-season veteran, got the ax. Two other veteran one-hour series also were dropped, “Crazy Like a Fox” and “Trapper John, M.D.,” which premiered in 1979.

However, Stacy Keach, whose “Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer” of 1984 went into limbo when he pleaded guilty to cocaine possession in England last year, will be back in a new version of the series when it starts life anew on Saturday nights this fall. A two-hour TV movie based on the series recently was aired, and old episodes of the program have been rerun on Tuesday nights.

Only two of the 14 new series that premiered on CBS last season--”The Equalizer” and “Twilight Zone”--were renewed for next year.

The rookie casualties, some axed well before CBS unveiled its new schedule, include “Mary,” a mid-season flop that starred Mary Tyler Moore in a newspaper city room setting. However, CBS said that a new series is being prepared for her “for future broadcast.” It didn’t specify a date or give details of the new effort.

Five of the other canceled newcomers had aired on CBS this year on a short-term tryout basis, but failed to make the ratings grade--”Fast Times,” “Tough Cookies,” “Bridges to Cross,” and a Fred Silverman project, “MorningStar/Eveningstar.”

CBS’ shortest-lived series last season was “Melba,” starring Melba Moore. It was canceled after only one show, although a second one was aired.

In trying to regain the A.C. Nielsen ratings crown from NBC, CBS added four new sitcoms and three new one-hour series to its schedule. Pam Dawber, late of ABC’s now-defunct “Mork and Mindy,” and Elliott Gould are among the better-known stars of the new entries.

Dawber will star in “Taking the Town” as a free-lance photographer who lives in San Francisco. The show will follow “Kate & Allie” on Monday nights, when another new series, “Designing Women” joins the two veteran series on that evening--”Newhart,” returning in a new time period, and “Cagney & Lacey.” CBS said that “Designing Women” stars Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts and Jean Smart as the owners of a new decorating business.

Gould will return to TV in “Together We Stand,” a domestic comedy airing Wednesday nights. The show is about a couple with two children who want to adopt a toddler and wind up with an Asian-American teen-ager. The teen-ager asks them to consider his younger “sister”--who turns out to be black.

In “Kay O’Brien, Surgeon,” a Thursday-night series, Patricia Kalember plays a 28-year-old second-year surgical resident who, CBS says, works at a New York hospital and “is trying to excel in the male-dominated world of surgery.”

CBS’ other new series are:

--”Better Days,” a Wednesday-night sitcom about a boy from Beverly Hills (Ralph Sbarge) who moves to Brooklyn.

--”The Wizard of Elm Street,” a Tuesday-night fantasy-adventure series about a toy maker (David Rappaport) who specializes in solving “unsolvable” problems.

--”Downtown,” a one-hour Saturday-night series starring Michael Nouri as a tough Los Angeles cop who, CBS says, “has stepped out of bounds one time too many and received a unique comeuppance: the supervision of four parolees.”

As expected, no new prime-time soap operas are on CBS’ fall schedule, although the durable “Dallas” and “Falcon Crest” will be back on Fridays and “Knots Landing” returns, but in a new Thursday-night time period.

Other returning series that will appear on new nights are “The Equalizer,” shifting from Tuesday to Wednesday; “Scarecrow & Mrs. King,” moving from Monday to Friday, and “The Twilight Zone,” which is moving from Friday to Saturday next fall.

CBS also will have two nights of made-for-TV movies next season on Tuesdays and Sundays.

While CBS News’ jazzy new “West 57th” is getting a 13-week spring-summer tryout run, it isn’t on next fall’s schedule, although the news division’s high-rated “60 Minutes” will again be on CBS’ Sunday lineup, followed by the entertainment division’s popular “Murder, She Wrote.”

ABC, which last season was third in prime-time ratings for the second consecutive season, plans to unveil its new fall lineup Tuesday. NBC will make public its full nightly schedule for the fall next Thursday (See above story).

Here is the CBS schedule:

Monday: “Kate & Allie,” “Taking the Town,” “Newhart,” “Designing Women,” “Cagney & Lacey.”

Tuesday: “Wizard of Elm Street,” “The CBS Tuesday Night Movies.”

Wednesday: “Together We Stand,” “Better Days,” “Magnum, P.I.,” “The Equalizer.”

Thursday: “Simon & Simon,” “Knots Landing,” “Kay O’Brien, Surgeon.”

Friday: “Scarecrow & Mrs. King,” “Dallas,” “Falcon Crest.”

Saturday: “Downtown,” “Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer,” “The Twilight Zone.”

Sunday: “60 Minutes,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “The CBS Sunday Night Movies.”