ANOTHER FIRST FOR FRONT-RUNNER NBC

NBC-TV, first in the prime-time ratings last season, Wednesday became the first network to unveil its new fall line, announcing five new series, moving the hit “Family Ties” from Thursdays to Sundays and renewing 21 current series.

The newcomers are three one-hour dramas, “J.J. Starbuck,” “A Year in the Life” and “Private Eye,” and two comedies, “Who’s Dad?” and “A Different World,” the last a spinoff of the top-rated “The Cosby Show” that will follow that comedy on Thursdays.

Among the series being renewed was “Crime Story,” the 1960s crime-fighting saga that had been thought on shaky ground because of lackluster ratings. Its home base moved from Chicago to Las Vegas, it will start life anew next fall in a new Tuesday slot at 10 p.m.

The canceled casualties included Loni Anderson’s “Easy Street,” the only one of NBC’s seven new series from last fall to get the ax; Steven Spielberg’s costly, two-year-old “Amazing Stories,” the sophomore “Stingray” and the comedy “Gimme a Break,” which had been running since 1981.

Also failing to win renewal were four midseason entries: “The Tortellis,” “Nothing in Common,” “Roomies” and “Sweet Surrender.”

Second-place CBS said it may announce its fall schedule on Friday, while third-place ABC is expected to announce its new program roster early next week.

There were no major surprises in the 1987-88 lineup unveiled by NBC Entertainment President Brandon Tartikoff, which he presented, with a few quips, to more than 1,000 advertising executives at a breakfast held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel here. The lineup contains 12 comedies, 12 dramatic series and two movie blocks.

However, he did spring news of a three-series “designated hitter” plan that among other things will give ex-Lt. Buntz of the canceled “Hill Street Blues” a temporary home this fall.

Tartikoff’s plan is to play these series on a once-a-month basis, instead of weekly, with the possibility that they could join the schedule on a full-time basis if another show develops ratings problems.

Buntz, again played by Dennis Franz, will reappear as a private eye in “Beverly Hills Buntz,” a half-hour series that initially will air every fourth Thursday.

Another “Blues” graduate, Bruce Weitz, formerly the scruffy Detective Belker, also will return on a monthly basis, but this time as as sportswriter whose mother (played by Nancy Walker) moves in with him in “Mama’s Boy,” airing every fourth Saturday after “Golden Girls.”

The third “designated hitter” is “The Bronx Zoo,” which, with Ed Asner starring as a high school principal, had a short run this spring. No night for it has been picked yet.

Tartikoff, expressing pleasure at such an embarrassment of program riches, drew laughter when he suggested the new schedule was so solid that instead of a presentation, “We could be showing that Donna Rice episode of ‘Miami Vice.’ ”

(Rice, who had a bit part in one “Vice” episode, is the actress-model whose association with former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart precipitated Hart’s withdrawal last week as a Democratic presidential candidate.)

Tartikoff’s shift of “Family Ties” from its Thursday slot after “The Cosby Show” to Sundays against CBS’ hit “Murder, She Wrote” had been expected. He said that he thought “Ties” would do well in the new slot, noting that it drew high ratings when aired on a one-time basis on a Monday, then a Friday, last season.

It will be joined in its Sunday fight against “Murder” by “Who’s Dad?,” a sitcom about two men--one a yuppie, the other a bohemian artist--who wind up with custody of a 12-year-old girl after uncertainty over which of the men is her father. Paul Reiser, Greg Evigan and Staci Love star.

“A Different World,” the Cosby spinoff replacing “Ties” on Thursdays at 8:30 p.m., stars Lisa Bonet as Cosby’s daughter, Denise, now off at college.

“J.J. Starbuck,” a Tuesday-night series from producer Stephen J. Cannell, returns one-time “Tales of Wells Fargo” star Dale Robertson to weekly TV as a good-natured, crime-fighting billionaire, whom Tartikoff described as “sort of Ross Perot-meets-Ted Turner, with sort of a country Columbo” thrown in.

“Private Eye,” from “Miami Vice” creator Anthony Yerkovich, is a private-eye series set in Los Angeles during the mid-1950s, and will follow “Vice” on Friday nights. The cast features Michael Woods and Josh Brolin, the son of “Hotel” star James Brolin.

The new “A Year in the Life,” a family drama starring Richard Kiley, first appeared last September as a miniseries. It will air Wednesdays at 9 p.m. after “Highway to Heaven.”

Early in his presentation, NBC’s program chief spoke only partly in jest in noting that next fall, A.C. Nielsen Co. will start its new “people meter” ratings system that will replace the current combination of viewers’ diaries and meters.

The new system employs a remote-control device on which individual viewers in each Nielsen-monitored home “log on” when they watch TV. It thus provides not only data on which program is being watched, but also a simultaneous report on who is watching it--a demographic breakdown of great importance to advertisers. With the new system, advertisers will get the demographic data overnight, rather than having to wait two weeks for it as they do now.

Many audience-research experts expect that the new system will result in at least a 5% drop in recorded household-viewing levels in prime time the first season--not because viewing patterns have changed, but because the method of measurement has changed.

Tartikoff, using a baseball analogy in referring to this expected drop, said it’s like having a fine season batting, then in the next season “being asked to hit 30 more homers.”

Still, after his presentation, a sampling of advertising executives present indicated a positive reaction to NBC’s new lineup and expectations that the Peacock Network would win the 1987-88 prime-time season, just as it has done the previous two seasons.

“It’s a strong schedule,” said James Cunningham, a vice president at Foote, Cone & Belding here. “I’m not surprised at it. . . . It’s well balanced.” He hasn’t seen the CBS and ABC wares yet, he noted, “but it looks like it’s going to be tough for them to take NBC.”

Another advertising executive, Betsy Frank of DFS Dorland, agreed that it was a well-balanced schedule and noted that 82% of it consisted of returning series and nearly 70% of that was in the same time period, “which I think represents something of a record for a network” and indicates that NBC is trying to avoid disruptions in its schedule next season.

“I think they’re being much more careful this year,” Frank said, although she, like others interviewed, had no doubt that NBC would win the coming season.

Here is NBC’s night-by-night schedule for the fall (subject to change before the season begins in September).

Monday: “ALF,” “Valerie,” “Monday Night at the Movies.”

Tuesday: “Matlock,” “J.J. Starbuck,” “Crime Story.”

Wednesday: “Highway to Heaven,” “A Year in the Life,” “St. Elsewhere.”

Thursday: “The Cosby Show,” “A Different World,” “Cheers,” “Night Court,” “L.A. Law.”

Friday: “Rags to Riches,” “Miami Vice,” “Private Eye.”

Saturday: “The Facts of Life,” “227,” “The Golden Girls,” “Amen,” “Hunter.”

Sunday: “Our House,” “Family Ties,” “Who’s Dad?,” “Sunday Night at the Movies.”