NBC to Debut New Prime-Time Series Beginning Oct. 3

In spite of delays precipitated by the Writers Guild of America strike, NBC will premiere 13 of its fall prime-time series the week of Oct. 3 and five more by the end of that month, NBC entertainment chief Brandon Tartikoff said Monday.

But NBC’s Tuesday-night series lineup, which includes “Matlock,” “In the Heat of the Night” and the new “Midnight Caller,” will be delayed until the last week of November, he said, although not because of the 154-day strike. Rather, Tartikoff said, those shows will be postponed to avoid competition with ABC’s “War and Remembrance” miniseries in mid-November.

Tartikoff, the last of the three network entertainment division presidents to face journalists who cover television as part of the TV industry’s semi-annual press tour here, disputed earlier news reports that suggested the writers’ dispute would cost NBC the opportunity to promote its new programming during its Summer Olympic broadcasts in September--one of the chief reasons the network purchased rights to the Games. Thanks to the strike having ended Sunday, that will not be true now, he said.

“I think we’re in very good shape vis-a-vis the strike and in terms of the Olympics,” Tartikoff said, adding that NBC has “23 series going on within four weeks of the Olympics” that could easily be promoted during the two weeks of programming from Seoul.

NBC is also well prepared to compete with “War and Remembrance” during the November ratings “sweeps” with youth-oriented theatrical movies and the 4-hour miniseries “Goddess of Love,” starring “Wheel of Fortune” alphabet queen Vanna White, he said.

Calling “War and Remembrance” a “very big book,” Tartikoff joked that NBC would instead offer the viewers “nice little books with very big print--and I would say ‘Goddess of Love’ was the biggest print we could find.”

Tartikoff said that NBC will be able to get its new season underway earlier than the other networks--which have predicted season start dates of late October and early November--because NBC prepared for the strike in advance.

Aside from the series that went into production during the strike under interim contracts with the writers guild--”ALF,” “Highway to Heaven,” “The Cosby Show,” “A Different World” and “Amen”--NBC will benefit because there were extra scripts left over from last season to start up this season’s production on “L.A. Law,” “Miami Vice” and “Hunter,” he said.

NBC’s new drama “Tattinger’s” also has several scripts that were near completion when the strike hit, he said.

Also working to NBC’s advantage, Tartikoff added, is that its prime-time schedule is dominated by comedies--14 in all--which are ready to air about 10 days after shooting is completed, while post-production on an hourlong drama takes from three weeks to a month.

Tartikoff acknowledged, however, that the strike had caused some “psychic damage” to the usual momentum of the fall season. Producers, writers and other creative personnel have been sidelined so long “that nobody is in fighting form,” he said.

He said that NBC would not rush production on its new shows despite strike-related delays. “Getting ‘Tattinger’s’ or ‘Midnight Caller’ on the air a week early is not going to tip the balance” in getting good ratings for the fall, he said.

The networks probably will consider midseason to be after the February sweeps, rather than in January, he said.

He said that NBC would not shorten its usual orders of 22 episodes of new series, but said the season will not extend into the summer, since some producers may decide that the strike delays will enable them to make only 18 or 19 episodes of their.

While acknowledging that the network’s only “American Revival” project, a remake of the 1977 series “The Hardy Boys,” is in limbo right now, Tartikoff defended the network’s idea of looking for old TV shows to remake with new casts if the strike had continued, saying it had given his staff a chance to comb through old scripts that might trigger new ideas in the future.

“Not to plug a show by my former boss on CBS, but it was kind of like ‘TV 101’: It gave us a chance to go back through the history of television,” Tartikoff said, referring to the title of a new CBS series produced by former NBC chairman Grant Tinker. “We don’t plan to remake ‘Hazel’ and ‘Flipper’ and ‘Route 66,’ but it was a creative springboard. We realized network TV used to be a much more varied marketplace.”

Tartikoff denied the allegation that his “Americn Revival” plan was a network bluff to put pressure on the writers to resolve their dispute. “I am the world’s worst poker player. I’m not good at bluffing,” he said.

He responded bluntly when asked if NBC’s decision not to honor new interim contract deals with the Writers Guild of America--as a gesture of solidarity with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers--was in fact hypocritical, since the network already had interim deals with some of its hottest shows, including “Cosby,” when it made the announcement.

“Our position on that was quite clear, whether it was hypocritical or not,” Tartikoff said. “We have $1.3 billion in the advertising coffers right now. We could either accept shows like ‘Cosby’ or give back the money. What would you do?”

In other announcements, Tartikoff said that the network plans a joint effort from its news and entertainment divisions called “Destined to Live: 100 Roads to Recovery,” a program to air Oct. 12 exploring the emotional impact of breast cancer on 100 women, including First Lady Nancy Reagan and hosted by actress Jill Eikenberry, who was also treated for breast cancer. In a brief appearance at the press conference, Eikenberry said she found particular sympathy for the project from Tartikoff, who was treated for Hodgkin’s disease in 1974.

And, saying it was an “if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” decision, NBC will air a 2-hour Geraldo Rivera special dealing with the occult on Oct. 7.