Sorting Out the New Season : CBS, ABC Duel NBC for the Ratings Crown

Powered by the top two shows, “Murphy Brown” and “Designing Women,” CBS staked a fast claim to leadership in the new TV season Tuesday with a solid ratings victory for last week’s official start of the 1991-92 competition.

CBS, which had boasted it would win the championship after four years in the ratings basement, said it now had “television’s best night” with its Monday lineup of “Evening Shade,” “Major Dad,” “Murphy Brown,” “Designing Women” and “Northern Exposure,” all of them hits.

NBC, which has had TV’s strongest lineup with its Thursday schedule that includes “The Cosby Show,” “Cheers,” “A Different World,” “Wings” and “L.A. Law,” has won the ratings competition for six consecutive years. But many in the TV industry think its aging shows will have a hard time retaining the network’s crown against both onrushing CBS and comedy-heavy ABC.

With ABC and NBC yet to present a number of their new-season premieres, CBS executives challenged their increasingly youth-targeted programming, saying that the way to preserve the declining networks is to appeal to as many viewers as possible.

“The name of the game is still hits,” said Peter Tortorici, executive vice president of CBS Entertainment.

“We believe in networks--programming for the biggest and widest audience and not worrying too much about demographics. If you believe just in demographics, that means that nobody else in the audience has to watch. Viewers want to know, ‘What are you giving us to watch? Where’s the showmanship?’ ”

For last week, CBS averaged a 14.5 rating in prime time and attracted 25% of the audience. NBC was second with a 12.4 rating and a 21% audience share. ABC was third with an 11 rating and a 19% share. And Fox TV, only 5 years old but bolstered by such hits as “Married . . . With Children” and “The Simpsons,” was within hailing distance of the Big Three with a 7.8 rating and 13% of the audience. (Each ratings point represents 921,000 homes.)

“It’s a very satisfactory start for us,” said David Poltrack, CBS’ senior vice president for planning and research. “It’s our greatest leadership margin for a first week (of the season) since 1981.”

ABC, however, quietly scored its own points last week while waiting to unveil the remainder of its lineup. Its freshman sitcom, “Home Improvement,” with Tim Allen as the host of a cable-TV home-improvement show, was the only new series to crack the Top 20, finishing ninth.

Another new ABC sitcom, “Step by Step,” with Suzanne Somers and Patrick Duffy as a recently wed couple with six children from previous marriages, also did well, placing 22nd with a strong 28% of the audience.

NBC got a lift from the Top 10 showing of “The Cosby Show,” which recently had dropped out of the select circle.

In an irregular week of programming that featured “stunting” with special shows, the lasting audience appeal of Michael Landon, who died July 1, was demonstrated again when two major programs--one about him, the other starring him--scored heavily with viewers.

A two-hour NBC tribute to the actor, “Michael Landon: Memories With Laughter and Love,” tied for 11th among 87 prime-time programs on the four broadcast networks.

And the two-hour CBS pilot of what was to be Landon’s next series, “US”--about a wrongly convicted man who is released from prison and tries to reunite with his family--not only placed 17th but also helped the network win Friday night in tandem with the new comedy, “Brooklyn Bridge,” another warm family show.

Amid its good news, CBS also admitted the growing power of Fox. The young network ranked second only to NBC on Thursday with its lineup of “The Simpsons”; “Drexell’s Class,” a new sitcom with Dabney Coleman as a teacher, and “Beverly Hills, 90210,” now a solidly established drama that did very well against “Cheers,” the top-rated entertainment series for the past two seasons.

While “Cheers” was No. 3 for the week with 33% of the audience, “Beverly Hills, 90210” pulled 19% of the nation’s viewers against the established sitcom and its follow-up show, “Wings.” CBS’ “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill,” which has added Ed Asner to co-star with Sharon Gless, also did well in its new head-on competition with “Cheers” and “Wings,” attracting 17% of the audience.

Besides “Home Improvement” and “Step by Step,” other new series that did well during premiere week included NBC’s “Nurses” and “The Torkelsons,” both cushioned nicely in the network’s solid Saturday lineup that includes “The Golden Girls” and “Empty Nest.” “Nurses” is set in a hospital in Miami (also the home city for “Golden Girls” and “Empty Nest”). “The Torkelsons” is about a struggling single mother and her six offspring.

CBS, notoriously deficient in comedy except for its Monday lineup, saw a breakthrough in its new Redd Foxx-Della Reese series “The Royal Family,” which opens the network’s Wednesday night schedule. “The Royal Family” placed second in its time slot with 23% of the audience, trailing NBC’s powerhouse “Unsolved Mysteries” but beating ABC’s “Dinosaurs.”

Because of the lead-in of “The Royal Family,” another new CBS sitcom, “Teech,” which is generally less regarded by TV experts, also made a respectable showing with a 20% share. “The Royal Family” stars Foxx and Reese as a couple whose daughter moves in with her children. “Teech” is about a young black teacher who lands a job at an exclusive, all-white boarding school for boys.

Thus far, CBS has built three nights: Sundays, anchored by “60 Minutes” and “Murder, She Wrote”; Mondays, structured around “Murphy Brown” and “Designing Women,” and Tuesdays, on which “Rescue 911” and carefully selected movies have given the network a lift. A successful showing by “The Royal Family” could give CBS a foothold on a fourth night as well, Wednesdays, as the bottom-ranked network bids for the top.

CBS reported that the premiere of “The Royal Family” was up 84% in the ratings over the sitcom it tried in the same slot last year, “Lenny.” “Teech” increased CBS’ audience by 62% over the number of viewers attracted last year by “Doctor, Doctor.”

NBC, meanwhile, could also draw momentary comfort from Wednesdays as its lineup of “Unsolved Mysteries,” “Night Court,” “Seinfeld” and “Quantum Leap” took the night handily in premiere week. But returning series such as the ABC hit “Doogie Howser, M.D.” are expected to alter the battle.

Fox, meanwhile, flexed its muscles impressively on Sunday as well as on Thursday, showing the potential of a solid programming block with “In Living Color”; “Roc,” a new sitcom about a garbage man and his family; “Married . . . With Children” and “Herman’s Head,” a freshman comedy in which the emotions of an aspiring writer are portrayed by different actors as he thinks his thoughts.

“It’s a pretty good Sunday night,” CBS’ Poltrack said of the Fox lineup.

Three of NBC’s new Sunday series failed to deliver for the network: Robert Guillaume’s “Pacific Station,” which placed 70th; “Eerie, Indiana,” 76th; and James Garner’s “Man of the People,” which was 79th. Shows like “Cheers” also had low rankings at first, and TV observers will be watching to see if NBC sticks with its new, highly promoted Sunday series.

Emphasizing patience, Poltrack noted that Monday’s blockbuster CBS lineup has taken four seasons to develop. “Designing Women,” which arrived last week with a revamped cast, premiered in 1986 and was bounced around the schedule. “Murphy Brown,” which built its premiere around the pregnancy of the TV newswoman played by Candice Bergen, was launched in 1988 and “shows how you can nurture” a program, said Poltrack. “Major Dad” bowed in 1989, and “Evening Shade” and “Northern Exposure” in 1990.

“ ‘Northern Exposure’ is definitely the hot show,” said Poltrack, noting that CBS’ Monday lineup performed strongly again this week.

While acknowledging Fox’s showing, Poltrack told a news conference that the 5-year-old broadcast company is “a non-adult network. They position themselves for kids and teens, the under-25 urban audience. We’re not chasing after them (Fox) the way ABC is, which we think is a self-defeating (strategy).”

Poltrack added that CBS is targeting the 35-to-54 audience, the baby boomers whom he said are a fast-growing segment of society and have money to spend: “That’s the franchise of the 1990s.”

The fact is that CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky has openly said that his network wants to appeal to a younger audience. And Poltrack said that CBS is doing well with viewers 18 to 34. But he also deadpanned that those who emulate Fox should realize that viewers 18 to 24 are still pretty much teen-agers and that many live with their parents at home: “What can they buy besides jeans and records?”

CBS

“Murphy Brown”: The resolution to the pregnancy cliffhanger sent Candice Bergen & Co. soaring to the top of the ratings.

“Designing Women”: More than 20 million households tuned in to see the show’s new cast--second in size only to “Murphy Brown.”

“Brooklyn Bridge”: Gary David Goldberg’s autobiographical look at ’56 Brooklyn ran a strong second in its Friday night time period.

NBC

“Nurses”: The medical comedy was NBC’s highest-rated new series at No. 23.

“Cheers”: Last season’s No. 1-rated show got off to a strong start in its 10th season, attracting 33% of viewers.

“Man of the People”: This may turn out to be the season’s most inappropriate title. Despite TV favorite James Garner, the series finished a distant fourth on Sunday at 8 p.m.

ABC

“Home Improvement”: The only new series to crack the Top 20 finishes at No. 9.

“Step by Step”: Comparisons to “The Brady Bunch” notwithstanding, the newcomer still managed to win its Friday time slot.

“Roseanne”: Her last name has changed but not her ratings. About 28.4 million viewers watched Roseanne take her 16-year-old to get birth control pills.

FOX

“Married . . . With Children”: Against three first-run TV movies, the Bundys lost to CBS but beat NBC and ABC.

“Beverly Hills, 90210”: The teen drama is no summer fluke. It ran second in its time slot Thursday.

“Drexell’s Class”: No ads were aired between the end of “The Simpsons” and the new Dabney Coleman comedy, but “Drexell’s Class” still lost 23% of Bart’s audience.