NBC’s Littlefield Steps Out From Tartikoff’s Shadow : Programming: Entertainment division’s No. 2 man wanted to be No. 1, and got the job. He makes it clear that he’ll be calling the programming shots for the No. 1 network.

Warren Littlefield went to his boss back in January and told him that he wanted to be president of NBC Entertainment.

He was prepared to leave NBC if he didn’t get the job.

As it happens, his boss was the president of NBC Entertainment, Brandon Tartikoff.

Littlefield, who had been head of the network’s prime-time programming since 1987, also made his wishes known to NBC President Robert Wright.

This week, Littlefield got the job, just days before the Aug. 1 deadline on his contract.

And Tartikoff was moved upstairs as chairman of the NBC Entertainment Group, remaining his successor’s boss.

“I articulated back in January to Brandon and also to Bob that I had goals and aspirations for moving into this position at NBC,” Littlefield told The Times in an interview. “And the sense that I got from both of them was that it could work.

“Brandon clearly said to me, ‘I’m ready to get into a new transition also. I don’t think you should leave this company. I think we can work this out.’ That was all I needed to hear.”

Littlefield, who is 38, bearded, genial and looks like perfect casting for “thirtysomething,” says he “probably would have” quit NBC if he didn’t get the job.

He had, in fact, paid his dues for a decade at NBC, working closely with his friend Tartikoff and helping to take the network from the basement to the penthouse in the ratings.

In the five years Littlefield headed the comedy department, NBC developed such hits as “Cheers,” “The Cosby Show,” “The Golden Girls” and “Family Ties.”

“If you go through every half-hour on our prime-time schedule today,” he says, “there’s nothing on it that hasn’t been developed under my aegis. Every time period, every program.”

Tartikoff agrees.

The thing is, Tartikoff has cast such a giant shadow in TV in his 10 years at the top--and has become such a well-known personality--that it is easy to overlook his lieutenants.

Littlefield is only human. “It’s painfully clear to me,” he acknowledges, that some people “don’t have a clue” about his major input. “But the production community does.”

The considerable task of filling his boss’s shoes was all too clear when Tartikoff passed the baton to Littlefield on Thursday at a news conference for the nation’s TV columnists during the summer press tour at the Century Plaza.

Tartikoff tried to remove all doubt that Littlefield would be in command, saying flatly: “Ultimately, the buck will stop on his desk.”

Yet there was something else in the air for many in the packed house--a certain wistfulness, rare in a business gathering, over the outgoing NBC Entertainment president who has been so central to TV history.

Littlefield knows he has a tough act to follow. And if he has a secret weapon, it is his directness about NBC, including criticism of the network’s mistakes.

He admits, for instance, that ABC, with such series as “thirtysomething” and “Twin Peaks,” has taken away NBC’s reputation for unique shows.

“Yes,” he says. “The fact of the matter is, we did to some degree lose the mantle of innovation and the mantle of quality. We want it back.”

He does not, however, think that the aging of NBC’s three top hits--”The Cosby Show,” “Cheers” and “The Golden Girls”--is a danger to the network’s dominance.

Sizing up the 6-year-old “Cosby Show”--which will be challenged head-on by Fox’s “The Simpsons” in the new season--he says he doesn’t know how much longer it will last.

“I’ll have a better sense--and this is the way Bill looks at it--once we start the season,” says Littlefield. “We’re introducing new characters. We’ve got an entirely new writing staff. And we have a very energized Mr. Cosby. To be honest, the way we’ve approached it with Bill is one year at a time. That’s OK.”

Which means, says Littlefield, that there’s no guarantee that “Cosby” will return after this season.

“That’s right. I think Bill wants to feel that there are more stories to tell.”

And “Cheers”?

“I think ‘Cheers’ can go forever. America is delightfully comfortable with the concept. ‘Cheers’ moved into first place in the ratings after 40 weeks of this 52-week season. It will most likely finish the season as the No. 1 show.”

But what if “Cheers” star Ted Danson leaves the series?

“Well, I’d cross that bridge when I got to it. But if you said, ‘Could I envision “Cheers” without Ted Danson?’--yes, I could, though I’d prefer not to.”

As for “The Golden Girls,” Littlefield says simply, “I don’t see a weakness creatively.”

To Littlefield, these three hits “are important tent-poles to our schedule,” but he thinks NBC will be well served for years to come by such other series as “Unsolved Mysteries,” “Empty Nest,” “Dear John,” “Midnight Caller,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Carol & Company.”

What worries NBC’s new top programmer is that the network, in Tartikoff’s recent years, may not have been receptive enough to Hollywood’s creative community because of its filled-up, successful schedules.

Tartikoff admitted this week, “What was getting harder and harder for me was saying no to people who helped NBC to get to the position” that the network has today.

“There’s a little history to that,” says Littlefield. “One of the things that (former NBC President) Fred Silverman taught us was, ‘You create your own ideas. You must be the master of your own destiny. You can’t wait for someone to knock on your door and hand you a hit.’ It was a great message. We were all thrilled, and no one more than Brandon.

“What happened, though, is that as we got successful, I think there’s been a sense among creators that ‘Well, these guys know exactly what they want to do and therefore maybe they don’t want to hear our ideas.’ As I look at how we can improve who we are and how we do business, that’s an area I think we can improve in.”

Tartikoff is famous for supposedly jotting down two words, “MTV cops,” and then having that concept turned into the series “Miami Vice.” And at Thursday’s news conference, he brought down the house by coolly doing a rap number (in dark suit and tie) about NBC with rap music star Will Smith, the star of the network’s big sitcom hope for fall, “Fresh Prince of Bel Air.”

But Littlefield says quietly that he’s also plugged in. No, he says, he doesn’t rap--”I haven’t tried. But I’ll tell you one thing: When (producer) Quincy Jones pitched ‘Fresh Prince,’ I had seen Will Smith on MTV. I knew who the guy was. And nobody else in the room did.”

Not even Tartikoff, who’s been touting Smith and his series like crazy?

“No,” says Littlefield.

The new NBC Entertainment chief was appointed to his job effective immediately. A native of Montclair, N.J., he is married and has two children. Asked what he’d like to do that Tartikoff didn’t, Littlefield says his boss “did a lot,” but he adds:

“I think the challenges now are far greater--and not just things like cable. We’re competing for America’s leisure time, and life has gotten far more complex, far more rushed. What we have to do is put on something that’s important enough, or entertaining enough, for the audience to say, ‘I want to seek that out.’ Somehow, our programming has to make it into that list of priorities.”