CBS Is in the Dark With ‘Midnight Hour’

TV or not TV. . . .

LATE SHOW: CBS looks totally inept in the way it’s presenting its new insomniac talk series, “The Midnight Hour.”

The show is pushed back very late so that it follows reruns of action series. It’s a rotten way to showcase such tryout hosts as Joy Behar and Peter Tilden--immediately assuring them of smaller audiences.

In fact, “The Midnight Hour” is even mistitled: It starts closer to 1 a.m.-- beginning at 12:40 a.m. to be exact, according to the listings.

The series, which is in its second week, was quickly thrown together (and looks it) as yet another desperate move to keep CBS affiliate stations and viewers from defecting following the flop of “The Pat Sajak Show.”

Scheduled for a two-month run, “The Midnight Hour” is supposed to hold the fort until other action shows and a Norman Lear comedy take over this fall.

But even if the idea of the late nightly start was to protect the tryout hosts from competing against Johnny Carson and Arsenio Hall, the scheduling looks amateurish.

Aside from “Wiseguy” reruns, CBS late-night is now reminiscent of Fox TV after it fired Joan Rivers and staggered from one formula to another before giving up altogether in the wee hours.

Meanwhile, ABC’s new late-hour entry, “Into the Night Starring Rick Dees”--which debuted June 16--was a ratings bomb in its first week.

Dees, who follows Ted Koppel’s “Nightline” and is seen from midnight to 1 a.m., scored an anemic 1.7 rating and attracted just 8% of the national audience. NBC’s Carson and David Letterman whipped him with a combined 3.7 rating and 16% share of the viewing audience for the hour.

“Nightline,” with a 3.7 rating and 11% audience share, gave Dees a respectable lead-in, but he couldn’t hold it.

At that rate, it could be good night sooner than expected for the Los Angeles radio personality in his TV fling.

SPLIT DECISION: KCBS Channel 2 commentator Pete Moraga wrote a letter to station general manager Robert Hyland saying he’s “shocked” that his fee was cut to “one third” because of belt-tightening.

“I will no longer do the weekly commentary at the arbitrarily reduced fee you have offered,” he wrote.

Hyland fired back a letter saying that “financial constraints” are a fact and that “you opted to arbitrarily remove yourself from the broadcast.”

In his letter, Moraga asked Hyland: “If KCBS is in such dire straits that it needs to scale back its expenses, I think that chipping away at the big megabucks being paid elsewhere would be a much better way to go.”

He couldn’t mean high-priced anchors like Jim Lampley and Bree Walker, could he? Naaah. But who knows? Hyland wrote that budget cuts “have forced reconsideration of talent salaries for several of our respected personnel, including yourself.”

Added Hyland: “We never suggested removing you from our air. Only that you cooperate with us during this period of fiscal restraint.”

A PEAK AHEAD: Emmy nominations will be announced Thursday, and you wonder if TV academy voters will indicate agreement with the Television Critics Assn., which gave top honors to “Twin Peaks” in its recent annual awards ceremony.

The ABC series begins its summer reruns Sunday with the two-hour premiere that turned TV on its ear and had the nation talking the morning after.

TRIBUTE: Lovely gesture by the KCBS news staff in honoring Bill Stout, who died in December, by planting a tree in his memory in the courtyard of the station’s headquarters on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

The New Zealand Christmas tree was planted in June and a plaque was installed. There was no ceremony for the memorial because, as KCBS news anchor Chris Conangla aptly put it: “Bill wouldn’t have wanted any fuss.”

Added Conangla: “This is a way for us to remember every day a man who had a great influence on us all.”

Indeed he did.

HOME MOVIES: Denzel Washington, who stars in Spike Lee’s new movie “Mo’ Better Blues,” is on view at 10 tonight on Cinemax in “The Mighty Quinn.” He plays a Caribbean police chief, and there’s some nice byplay between him and Robert Townsend as well as a nifty reggae score.

BLUES IN THE NIGHT: What a revelation to see comedian Paul Rodriguez--wearing shades and curiously reminiscent of John Belushi--singing and jamming on harmonica with a hot band on Spanish-language station KMEX Channel 34. Too often, Rodriguez is brittle and superficial, but not this time as he sang “The Chicano Unemployment Blues.” Encore.

FREE ENTERPRISE: So there was Jessica Hahn in a TV promo telling how you can call her at a 900 number for only $2 and get her view of things. Sounds like a worthwhile investment to me.

FAST COPY: Strong casting in Grant Tinker’s new, fall CBS series “WIOU,” about a failing local TV news department: Helen Shaver, Mariette Hartley, John Shea, Harris Yulin and Dick Van Patten.

MONEY IN THE BANK: Suzanne Pleshette as Leona Helmsley in a TV movie tentatively titled “The Queen of Mean,” set for CBS Sept. 23.

SWINGTIME: MTV-style music videos from the big band era begin this week on the American Movie Classics channel, hosted by famed disc jockey Al (Jazzbeaux) Collins.

Say good night, Gracie. . . .