CBS PLANS SIMILAR SERIES : LOW-RATED ABC ‘WORLD’ ISN’T HISTORY

ABC News executive Av Westin on Wednesday needled CBS News for developing a contemporary history series, calling the project a “carbon copy” of ABC’s “Our World,” a contemporary history series.

He referred to CBS’ announcement earlier Wednesday that a pilot for a one-hour prime-time series, tentatively entitled “The Way We Were” and anchored by Charles Kuralt, would be made this spring.

Westin also said the installation of “Our World” on ABC’s prime-time schedule this season shows that there is a “silver lining” in an era of heavy cutbacks at the network because of lean economic times.

It demonstrates that executives of Capital Cities, the new owners of ABC, “have come to the conclusion that prime time doesn’t automatically go to entertainment,” he told a luncheon meeting of the New York Television Academy.

Westin is executive producer of “Our World” and ABC’s “20/20,” both of which air on Thursday nights. The former usually is among the nation’s lowest-rated network programs because its chief competition is NBC’s popular comedies “The Cosby Show” and “Family Ties.”

Industry observers, however, have noted that ABC is saving money and perhaps turning a profit with “Our World” because it is produced for $350,000 per episode, far below the cost of an entertainment series that probably would fare just as badly against NBC.

By conventional standards, Westin said, ABC’s “show is doing dreadfully in the ratings.” Had those standards been applied, he said, “This program would have been dead long ago.”

Westin, who shared the speaker’s podium with Linda Ellerbee and Ray Gandolf, co-hosts of “Our World,” said the fact that their one-hour series is on the air in prime time signifies a “new era” of hope for news divisions, at least at ABC.

Ellerbee also joined in the joshing of CBS and its new prime-time news pilot, to be produced by Robert (Shad) Northshield.

(Northshield has been reassigned from the critically praised “CBS News Sunday Morning,” anchored by Kuralt. The producer developed that program and has been its executive producer since its premiere in 1979.)

But she also used the opportunity to jab at her former employer, NBC, which canceled her late-hour, irreverent “NBC News Overnight” in late 1983 because of low ratings.

She was glad to see that CBS liked “Our World,” she said, dryly saying that she found that quite interesting “since I’ve read that NBC News is going to do a late-night irreverent news program.”