The Networks’ New Season : In Risky Move, CBS Makes Monday Night a Quest for Laughs

Consider the plight of CBS. Comedy is king on prime-time television; laughs are what healthy profits are made of these days. But the third-place network has been unable to make much headway in the funny business.

Aside from “Murphy Brown,” which debuted to critical acclaim and modest ratings success, CBS was unable to build any comedy programming last season. “The Van Dyke Show,” with Dick Van Dyke and “Annie McGuire,” which starred Mary Tyler Moore, were removed quickly from their Wednesday night slots and “Close to Home” bombed on Saturday night.

So when CBS programmers began plotting their 1989-90 lineup last spring, they decided to gamble with a highly unusual strategy. The network has scheduled all six of its comedies on one night, Monday, starting Sept. 18.

The lineup begins with newcomer “Major Dad” at 8 p.m. and ends with veteran “Newhart” at 10:30 p.m. In between are “The People Next Door” at 8:30, “Murphy Brown” at 9, “The Famous Teddy Z” at 9:30 and “Designing Women” at 10.

The move is a break from traditional programming strategy, under which comedies are sprinkled throughout the week and never shown after 10 p.m. Longer shows--movies or hourlong dramas--are believed to work best at keeping viewers glued to the set when it’s late, the theory being that each time a program ends, viewers may change the channel or go to bed.

“According to the old rules, it’s a no-no,” Young & Rubicam advertising executive Paul Isacsson says of the CBS plan. “It’s like drinking alcohol at breakfast. You just don’t do it. But nobody’s sure what the rules are anymore.”

Regardless of whether it is aggressive programming or last-resort desperation, the three-hour comedy block is widely viewed as the riskiest network move of the new season.

There are a handful of other programming and scheduling moves that contain a degree of risk, TV and advertising executives say. NBC and CBS are bucking conventional wisdom by scheduling nights with nothing but new programs--NBC on Fridays with “Baywatch,” “Hardball” and “Mancuso FBI,” and CBS on Tuesdays with rookies “Rescue 911,” “Wolf” and “Island Son.” The networks generally feel safer when there’s at least one show familiar to viewers.

At ABC, the inclusion of a regular character with Down’s syndrome in its new series “Life Goes On” has been widely applauded, yet is still considered a chancy casting decision that may alienate some viewers.

But none of these moves represents as big a gamble as CBS’ Monday lineup. If the comedy scheme works, observers inside and outside the network say, it could start the network on the hard climb out of the cellar. If it fails, CBS could suffer a further loss of ratings, revenues and prestige. The results will be determined in the coming weeks.

“The most difficult thing we’re doing is rebuilding a comedy base,” says David Poltrack, senior vice president of marketing. “That certainly is the one element that will have the greatest long-term and short-term impact on CBS.”

“Right now, CBS has little identity with comedy,” admits Peter Tortorici, the network’s vice president of planning and scheduling.

When CBS programmers met last spring to set the fall schedule, they were faced with the difficult task of finding good time slots to launch their new shows. While there was no shortage of space--the network had plenty of available slots left over from failed series--locating time periods that would protect and nurture fledgling comedies proved frustrating.

When NBC and ABC want to ensure good ratings for a new show, they schedule it behind an existing hit. NBC turned “A Different World” into a winner by scheduling it behind the megahit “The Cosby Show.” ABC’s hit “Who’s the Boss?” is routinely used as a launching pad for the network’s comedies, with “Growing Pains,” “Perfect Strangers,” “The Wonder Years,” “Full House” and “Roseanne” among the shows that have aired behind it. And now that “Roseanne” is flying high, ABC is using it to launch the new Jackie Mason sitcom, “Chicken Soup.”

But CBS, lacking the hits that make that strategy work, has had no such opportunity. “We’ve been beaten back more times than the Charge of the Light Brigade,” Tortorici says.

Rather than schedule their new comedies in the Valley of Death once again, competing with hit sitcoms on the other networks, CBS decided to try the all-comedy night. “To challenge a lot of existing comedies might have been a greater risk,” says the CBS executive.

NBC had used the same technique last February, scheduling episodes of the network’s top comedies under the title “Night of a Thousand Laughs” to counter program the CBS miniseries “Lonesome Dove.” Although NBC’s programming stunt failed to beat “Dove,” CBS executives were intrigued by the concept and tried the same thing three weeks later. The network continued to experiment with all-comedy-night scheduling before finally deciding to use the strategy for the new season.

CBS executives hope that by clustering their sitcoms on Monday night, they can attract an audience uninterested in the non-comedy programming offered by the other networks. NBC is airing the only other sitcoms that night with “Alf” at 8 p.m. and “The Hogan Family” at 8:30. The top-ranked network airs movies at 9 p.m. ABC’s lineup consists of “Monday Night Football” and the action-drama “MacGyver.” Fox Broadcasting is expanding its schedule to Monday nights, with “21 Jump Street” set for 8 p.m. and a sci-fi drama, “Alien Nation,” at 9.

“We think we’ll be particularly effective against football,” says CBS’ Poltrack. He is optimistic that CBS will even pick up viewers who are watching the football game when they go channel-hopping during the halftime show.

The CBS plan is designed to work in steps.

The first step, of course, is to get the audience into the tent. “It’s a very tangible thing to promote to viewers,” Tortorici says. “ ‘Comedy Night’ is (a concept) people can (grasp) pretty quickly.”

If the new shows click with viewers, CBS intends to move them from their Monday slots and transplant them elsewhere. The eventual goal is to establish beachheads. CBS yearns for its own “Who’s the Boss?”

The network opted to start the night with “Major Dad” because “we think (it’s) probably the best 8 o’clock show we’ve been able to put together in a long time,” says Tortorici.

He acknowledges that winning the time slot against NBC’s successful “Alf” will be difficult. “There’s no doubt there’ll be formidable competition,” he says. But he believes “Major Dad,” which stars Gerald McRaney as a Marine who marries a newspaper reporter (Shanna Reed) with three daughters, will have a broader appeal than the predominantly youth-oriented “Alf.”

Luring viewers to “Major Dad” is crucial for CBS because ratings figures show that a significant portion of a TV show’s audience will stay with the same network for the next program. Establishing 8 o’clock beachheads is one of the primary tenets of network programming. When CBS runs a special program promoting its new season this Sunday, the second half will present clips from the network’s new series and interviews with the stars. The first half will consist of an entire episode of “Major Dad.”

After “The People Next Door,” which focuses on a cartoonist (Jeffrey Jones) with a wild imagination, comes what CBS refers to as its “adult comedies.” “Murphy Brown,” starring Candice Bergen, will return at 9 p.m., followed by a new sitcom, “The Famous Teddy Z.” That series, about a young man (Jon Cryer) who unwittingly becomes a big-time Hollywood agent, will have to carry viewers over to veterans “Designing Women” and “Newhart.”

The “Newhart” producers are eyeing their new 10:30 p.m. slot with some trepidation.

“Whatever is on at 10:30, the ratings tend to go down,” says executive producer Mark Egan. Chimes in the show’s other executive producer, Mark Solomon: “People go to bed then. We hope we can stay awake.”

But “Designing Women” executive producer Harry Thomason, who was disgruntled when CBS moved his show five times its first year, is optimistic. “I’ve been studying it,” he says. “I don’t think there’ll be a problem.”

He believes his show, which is being pushed back half an hour from its former 9:30 slot, may benefit because it won’t have to compete with Fox Broadcasting’s new night, which ends at 10.

Advertising executives who have seen the new CBS shows view the network’s comedy plan as bold, but question how fruitful it will be.

“Putting six comedies back to back is aggressive,” says Betsy Frank, senior vice president at Saatchi and Saatchi. “I think they can make some gains.”

But while she sees the comedy plan as a “positive step” for CBS, she adds, “If you’re asking me if CBS is going to win the night, I don’t think so.”

“If ‘Major Dad’ clicks, the whole night might do well,” says Jack McQueen, general manager of FCB Telecom advertising. But he, too, considers it unlikely that CBS can top the competition. Whether CBS’ plan will prove successful may depend on how success is measured. The network’s Tortorici believes it is relative. “Do we want to win the night?” he asks. “Absolutely. Do I think we will? Realistically, I think it’s a long shot. But if we can improve our overall circulation, it will be a start.”