Lear Scraps ‘Jody’ Plans

Norman Lear has dropped plans to produce “Jody Gordon and the News,” a five-night-a-week late-night show that had been scheduled to debut on CBS in late October and was to have marked his return to television.

A CBS spokesman said Wednesday that Lear, the former producer of “All in the Family,” “Maude” and a bevy of other successful sitcoms during the 1970s, wants to concentrate on another series he is producing for CBS’ prime-time schedule, “Sunday Dinner,” starring Robert Loggia. That series, currently being taped in Hollywood for midseason scheduling, involves the family life of a successful widower who marries a younger woman.

What will fill the late-night time slot is “to be determined,” the spokesman said.

“Jody Gordon and the News,” which had been billed as “a potentially breakthrough show,” was supposed to have followed the life of a female news producer during the first 15 minutes of the program, then switched gears to follow the doings of a character she watched on television every day.