The Verdicts Are In on the Fall TV Season : . . . Ratings Indicate Viewers Lukewarm to New Series

No hits, no outs. Following a week of prime-time programming dominated by baseball playoffs on NBC, the scorecard on the new TV season Tuesday showed neither smash hits nor immediate cancellations.

NBC beat ABC by less than one rating point, 15.2 to 14.4, to win the third week of the official season last week, according to figures from the A.C. Nielsen Co. CBS trailed with an average weekly rating of 12.5. But NBC’s 68-week winning streak will face a severe challenge when ABC begins airing the World Series Saturday.

With post-season baseball games playing havoc with the regular television schedule, network executives said that it is too early to make definitive statements about where the season is headed. Patterns, however, are clearly developing.

While NBC should have no trouble retaining its prime-time ratings crown, ABC appears likely to begin closing the gap. CBS has some medium-range successes among its new series but is facing unexpected problems from some veteran shows.

“We clearly haven’t solved all our problems,” Arnold Becker, CBS’ vice president of TV research, said Tuesday. “ ‘Island Son,’ ‘Major Dad’ and ‘Rescue 911’ are the most heartwarming among the new CBS series--things we might brag about, if you will.”

On the other hand, CBS already is facing significant problems on Fridays, even though NBC has not unveiled two of its three new shows on that night. CBS’ new “Snoops” is not faring well at 8 p.m., the veteran soap “Dallas” is dropping below expectations at 9, and so is “Falcon Crest” at 10.

“Friday night was not supposed to be a problem,” Becker said.

CBS’ new “Major Dad,” which leads off Monday night at 8, appears to be the closest thing to a bona fide hit among the 24 new series on the four networks. The Gerald McRaney sitcom ranks 20th in the season-to-date averages. ABC’s “Chicken Soup” outranks it at No. 11, but industry observers say the numbers for Jackie Mason’s comedy are deceptive.

While “Chicken Soup” is getting the kind of ratings that network programmers usually dream about, it’s actually performing poorly in its particular time slot. The sitcom is preceded by “Roseanne,” the most popular show on TV. While the mega-hit provides a huge carryover audience for “Chicken Soup,” the number is dwindling each week. Last week, about 8 million of the 25.6 million households watching “Roseanne” turned to something other than “Chicken Soup” when it was over.

“Obviously, ‘Chicken Soup’ is disappointing in terms of the falloff,” Alan Wurtzel, ABC’s senior vice president of marketing and research, observed Tuesday. “But it would be premature to come to any conclusions. I think the jury’s still out on ‘Chicken Soup.’ ”

At NBC, executives are still waiting for “Hardball” and “Mancuso, FBI” to debut in their regular Friday slots and for “L.A. Law,” “Hunter” and “In the Heat of the Night” to start their new seasons. Preston Beckman, NBC’s vice president of audience research, said that the network’s strength so far appears to be in its returning shows, many of which are performing at higher levels this year than last.

But the network is not without letdowns. “ ‘Sister Kate’ doesn’t appear to be developing an audience,” Beckman said. He considered it too early to tell whether “The Nutt House” will find viewers.

While the combined network share of the audience is up three points over the first three weeks of last season, there is debate among TV executives whether those figures hold any signifcance. Network erosion--the loss of viewers to cable, independent stations and VCRs--has been a great concern to the networks. An increase in the audience share would normally be a good sign. But because of the writers’ strike last year, there was little new programming available, making comparisons inappropriate, some executives say.