SWITCHING SIDES

After some 12,000 columns and 36 years on the TV beat for the San Francisco Chronicle, Terrence O’Flaherty, 67, has defected.

Probably one of the last of America’s pioneer TV critics, O’Flaherty will move back to his native Los Angeles in August to devote himself to several projects: a little-screen something set in Hawaii for Mark Harmon, his TV treatment of Irene Burns Miller’s “Profanity Hill” and three books--”The Network Years,” “Nouvelle Grand Opera” and a biography of his mother set in 1920s SoCal.

Chron exec editor Bill German won’t tell us who the paper’s approached to fill O’Flaherty’s spot, but management’s looking for the “best, the brightest, most interesting, most reader-friendly columnist it can find.”

Meanwhile, Chron TV writer Scott Blakey admits he wants “the job and they know it. I thought I was replacing O’Flaherty and O’Flaherty thought I was replacing him, but management has decided to look around. . . . I guess I’m in the running with 60,000 other gerbils.”