CBS Shows Faith in Its Future With ‘Designing Women’ Deal

The significance of this week’s huge CBS deal with the producers of “Designing Women”--to create five more series over eight years--goes well beyond the vast sum of money involved.

There are, to begin with, lessons here about sticking with a show that has potential. “Designing Women” was almost dumped by CBS shortly after it debuted five seasons ago, despite good reviews.

But viewer protests helped save the half-hour situation comedy, which stars Dixie Carter, Delta Burke, Jean Smart and Annie Potts as operators of a decorating service in Atlanta.

And what might have been a disastrous cancellation turned instead this week into a deal worth an estimated $45 million to $50 million for “Designing Women” creator Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and her producer-director husband, Harry Thomason.

All that is in addition to “Designing Women” blossoming this season into CBS’ top-rated entertainment series--and the Thomasons coming up with another promising sitcom, “Evening Shade,” starring Burt Reynolds.

CBS also clearly wasn’t dissuaded from its deal by the well-publicized feud between the Thomasons and Burke.

In fact, it would not be surprising if the headlines generated by their differences--Burke, for instance, pleaded her case on a recent Barbara Walters TV special--are only helping the ratings of “Designing Women,” which now is a frequent visitor to the charmed circle of Top 10 shows.

On the CBS side, meanwhile, the deal with the Thomasons was significant because it came only one week after the financially troubled, last-place network announced a $2-billion buyback of its own stock from shareholders, but also declared its intention to come up with hit shows that would turn its fortunes around.

The Thomasons’ deal thus can also be interpreted as a statement of CBS’ faith in its future. It is a bold bargain--the first of several planned by CBS with top producers--that could help assure the network’s survival if the Thomasons’ series turn out to be lifesavers.

Or, at worst, success by the Thomasons could make CBS more financially and creatively attractive to a potential buyer or merger candidate if the broadcast organization decides it can no longer risk going it alone in the new world of giant entertainment conglomerates.

Whatever happens, CBS has acted quickly and impressively to follow up on an important promise it made during last week’s buyback announcement. CBS said of itself at the time:

“The company is committed to providing the viewing public with the most appealing television programming possible in order to improve its national ratings and thereby generate advertising sales.”

And in its announcement of the Thomasons deal, CBS specifically continued this train of thought--and affirmation of its future--by saying that the husband-and-wife team “is now a primary architect in our long-term rebuilding of the network.”

The network said it was “the largest and most comprehensive production commitment CBS has ever made with a single production company.” Some sources said the financial arrangement could reach as high as $65 million, with, of course, hundreds of millions more possible if one or more of the five planned series--probably all comedies--are hits.

The very fact that the deal is for eight years certainly shows that, at least on paper, CBS’ entertainment division is optimistic about its chances of still being around. In fact, Jeff Sagansky, president of the division, pointedly said in the announcement that “Evening Shade” is “showing the way to what the network hopes to be in the future.”

But what must be immensely satisfying to the cast, crew and production staff of “Designing Women” is Sagansky’s comment that the series “is among the best of what CBS is today.”

For if CBS has had to be tenacious to hold on to its hopes in its recent depressing years, “Designing Women” had to be equally tenacious just to persuade even this losing network that it was a show worth keeping around.

When “Designing Women” was threatened with cancellation at the start, it was just the beginning of its frustrating quest for acceptance--as indicated by the ongoing back-of-the-hand treatment it has received in Emmy Awards competition.

The show became the Rodney Dangerfield of sitcoms--for some reason, it just didn’t get respect in the TV industry, let alone at its own network. “Murphy Brown,” which precedes “Designing Women” on Mondays, was the CBS sitcom to which the industry paid homage. “Murphy Brown” star Candice Bergen was CBS’ golden girl--and an Emmy winner.

In fact, though, in both last season and the current one, “Designing Women” has been outdrawing “Murphy Brown” in the ratings--no doubt benefitting from the lead-in of the Bergen series, but the winner nonetheless.

While ratings are certainly no indicator of excellence, admirers of “Designing Women” can make their case that it has earned plenty of praise--including support from the grass-roots organization Viewers for Quality Television, which went to bat for the show during its early crisis.

And those early days--and even later ones--were a nightmare for “Designing Women” as CBS bumped it around from one time slot to another, apparently steering it to the garbage heap. At various times, it was broadcast on Mondays at 9:30 p.m., Thursdays at 9:30 p.m., Sundays at 9 p.m. and Mondays at 8:30 p.m.

As recently as last season, CBS gave it the brush again as “Designing Women” was dropped into the 10 p.m. Monday slot following the network’s big hope, “The Famous Teddy Z,” which died.

But finally, CBS found the magic it was looking for when “Murphy Brown” and “Designing Women” teamed up.

“Designing Women” also had the misfortune to arrive at CBS in 1986, when executives at the network had little feel for creating comedy series.

CBS, which had thrived on such dramas as “Magnum, P.I.,” “Simon & Simon,” “Dallas,” “Knots Landing” and “Falcon Crest,” was about to go into the ratings dumper because comedy, reinvigorated by NBC’s “The Cosby Show,” was hot again, and CBS was barely competitive in this area.

The Sagansky team, however, has targeted comedy--the backbone of network success--as a top priority. “Designing Women” now has an honored place at CBS. What’s more, CBS also is clearly hoping the Thomasons’ coming series will help solve the network’s worst problem for years--the inability to come up with big 8 p.m. comedy hits that hook viewers for the night.

CBS figures to finish last again this season. But it’s a close race this time, and the network has opened its wallet wide, betting on creative people, which is, after all, the only way to go. And if the Thomasons’ tenacity with “Designing Women” is an example of their determination, CBS could well have made one of its smartest moves.