Battling It Out in Syndication : THE NEW TV SEASON : Joan Is Back; ‘Jeopardy’ and ‘Wheel’ on KCBS

While his talk show flounders late at night on KCBS Channel 2, Pat Sajak and that colorful “Wheel of Fortune” arrive today to try to spin the CBS-owned station out of the early evening ratings cellar where it has languished for more than a year.

Channel 2 swiped “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” from KCOP Channel 13, which had used the two game shows to dominate the 7-8 p.m. hour for the past several years--a programming coup that appears to be the most significant local development in a new syndicated season that will also see the return of Joan Rivers to daily television, the daily proliferation of big-time network sitcoms such as “Who’s the Boss?” and “Night Court” and the birth of a physical, action-packed game show genre, appropriately dubbed “Crash TV.”

While considerably more attention is paid to how the networks program and counter-program each other in prime time, the local stations also slug it out for viewers with first-run syndicated fare and network repeats during key, locally programmed time periods. The 7-8 p.m. time slot, for example, when every local station carries some form of syndicated product, is the local stations’ most lucrative hour in terms of ad revenues.

Though Channel 2 would not reveal how much it paid to acquire the two top-rated syndicated shows in the country, officials there predicted that “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” will instantly vault their station from seventh place to at least second in the time period. Ed Spray, KCBS’ director of broadcasting, said that luring such a sizable audience to the station during this one hour should also rub off on other time periods.

“It was important for us to acquire these shows just to get watched again after a rough few years,” Spray said. “If we can get the mass viewer coming to our station--and we have not been successful at that at any time period for the last several years--we can get our promos for the local news and even for CBS prime time seen.

“And if people start watching Channel 2 again in large numbers, maybe they will develop an affinity for Channel 2 and maybe the habit of watching us will return again.”

Channel 13, which last year paid a record sum to secure reruns of “The Cosby Show,” plans to fill the void left by the departure of its top-rated game shows with a 6-8 p.m. weekday lineup of reruns of “Night Court,” “Growing Pains,” “The Cosby Show” and a second episode of “Night Court.”

One reason that KCOP may have let “Wheel” and “Jeopardy!” get away is the astronomical sum it paid for “The Cosby Show,” which has been airing at 6 p.m. for the past year and should bring a larger return when it begins airing at 7 p.m. next week. But Rick Feldman, KCOP’s station manager, said that though “Jeopardy!” is still a “hot” show, his station dumped the game shows because they both play mostly to an older audience.

Both shows are still highly rated, “but the name of the game is demographics, not household ratings,” Feldman said. “Advertisers want to buy adults 18-54 and ‘Wheel’ has been getting older and older and now the audience is predominantly 50-plus. KCBS had no alternative but to pick them up, but if they think it will help CBS play to young viewers, they’re crazy.”

Feldman predicted that with the two-hour block of high-profile sitcoms, Channel 13 will be No. 1 in every half hour from 6-8 p.m. Plus, he said, the sitcoms’ younger audience will be more receptive to station promotions for “The Arsenio Hall Show” and the station’s prime-time movies than the older audience of the two departing game shows ever was.

Disney-owned KHJ Channel 9 and Fox-owned KTTV Channel 11 will also compete in the early evening with popular network reruns. KHJ will go with “Who’s the Boss?” and “Kate & Allie” from 6-7 p.m. while KTTV counters with an hour of the old “Batman” series at 5:30, “Mr. Belvedere” at 6:30 and “Family Ties” at 7 p.m. as a lead-in to its ratings smash, “A Current Affair,” at 7:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, KTLA Channel 5 will rely on the first-ever reruns of the hourlong network dramas “Highway to Heaven” and “Hunter” from 5-7 p.m. and then will continue with its time-tested hour of first-run sitcoms until 8 p.m. Starting next Monday, original episodes of “Charles in Charge” will air daily at 7, followed at 7:30 p.m. by a checkerboard of original sitcoms--”Out of This World,” “My Secret Identity,” “Punky Brewster,” “The New Leave It to Beaver” and “The Munsters Today.”

KNBC Channel 4, the top-rated local station, will insert only one new show in its daily lineup, another tabloid news/entertainment magazine called “Hard Copy.” The new program, which is co-anchored by former local newswoman Terry Murphy, premieres at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 18, bumping the once ballyhooed “USA Today on TV” to 2 a.m. daily.

The highlight of the local daytime scene will be the return of Joan Rivers to the world of talk television for the first time since her disastrous stint as the host of Fox’s “The Late Show” ended more than two years ago. “The Joan Rivers Show” will enter the already heated afternoon talk wars Tuesday at 3 p.m. on Channel 2 opposite both “Oprah” and “Donahue.”

Another Joan, “Good Morning America’s” Joan Lunden, will also try her hand at a daytime talk show every weekday at 1 p.m. on Channel 9 beginning Sept. 18.

Tonight at 7, Channel 13 will premiere “Inside Report,” a new half-hour news magazine in the tradition of “A Current Affair” and “Inside Edition.” (The show is reviewed by Howard Rosenberg on Page 1.) “Inside Report” will move to its regular 5:30 p.m. time period next Monday. Channel 13 will also carry a new courtroom program, “Trial by Jury,” every weekday at 4:30 p.m.

Late-night television will also be filled with a few new faces. Former CBS newsman Ike Pappas will host “Crimewatch Tonight,” a nightly program filled with sensational crime stories and crime prevention tips that premieres Sept. 11 at midnight on Channel 13.

“After Hours,” a glitzy magazine show that is designed as an alternative to the late-night talk shows, will air nightly at 11:30 on Channel 11 beginning Sept. 18. Press releases for the show characterize it as “zapless television,” because the program “presents stories and personalities in such a quick fashion, the viewer gets the impression that the channel changing is being done automatically.”

And beginning next week, Channel 5 will broadcast Showtime’s hit sitcom “Brothers” every weeknight at 11:30.

Byron Allen, formerly of “Real People,” gets his own weekly late-night talk show this Saturday at 11:30 on Channel 7. And KNBC weatherman Fritz Coleman gets a Saturday night show of his own on Channel 4 at 1 a.m. beginning Sept. 30.

Channel 4 will also broadcast “Missing/Reward,” a weekly syndicated program about missing persons that offers rewards for their return, every Saturday at 4:30 p.m. beginning Sept. 23.

Crash TV comes in with a bang Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. as “Rollergames,” a slam-bam game of brawn, roller skates and skimpy costumes that includes such hazards as the “Wall of Death” and a “Swamp” filled with live alligators, debuts on Channel 5. “Rollergames” will then move to its regular weekly time slot, Saturdays at 11 a.m., on Sept. 16.

Meanwhile, “American Gladiators,” a show that features regular Joes and Janes from around the country battling trained athletes in contests of strength and speed, bows on KHJ Channel 9 Saturday, Sept. 23 at 10 p.m.

A more traditional sports show, “Insport,” a weekly program that profiles both the personal and professional sides of such sports stars as Magic Johnson, Chris Evert and Mike Tyson, premieres Sunday at 12:30 p.m. on Channel 4. The program will move to its regular time period, Saturdays at 4 p.m., on Sept. 23.

“Lassie,” a remake of the beloved series starring the world’s most famous collie, will also air Saturdays beginning Sept. 23 at 6:30 p.m. on Channel 9.

“Inside Edition,” the tabloid news show that Channel 2 dumped to make room for “Wheel of Fortune,” will also turn up nightly at 8:30 on Channel 9. If the station goes ahead with its planned nightly three hours newscast in January, “Inside Edition” will be bumped again.