Hoping for Repeat Success With Prime-Time Reruns : Television: ABC and CBS will use old episodes of high-rated series to plug holes in mid-season schedules. The move also reflects the troubled economics of network TV.

The regular TV season is in high gear, and critics from across the country are gathered in Marina del Rey this week to see what mid-season programs the networks and cable channels are planning to roll out.

So, with expectations soaring, what programming shake-ups can viewers expect to see on TV this week? Drum roll, please.

First up, at 8 tonight on ABC, “Columbo”--not new episodes but repeats of two-hour movies made over the past three years. Then on CBS Saturday night comes the first of a series of repeats of “All in the Family.”

While vintage TV programs have surfaced in prime time in the past, they have generally appeared either during the summer or as nostalgic specials. The networks have not heretofore turned to reruns as a weekly staple during the regular season.

While most industry observers agree that the move reflects the severe impact of the nation’s economy on broadcast television, some see it as boding ill for the networks’ future.

“The old shows pull down decent ratings and cost the networks almost nothing to stick on the air because there’s no production costs involved,” said Vicki Kline, senior vice president of national broadcast for the media planning company DeWitt Media. “But in order for the networks to really stay in business, they need to produce and run original programming.”

For their part, ABC and CBS say the reruns are low-risk measures to plug holes in their program schedules--something CBS did successfully for the first time last summer with “All in the Family.”

“I don’t think they would be looking to go with old shows if everything were working for them in the best of all possible worlds--or seasons,” said “All in the Family” creator Norman Lear.

“There’s little surprise in anything here,” Lear said. “This is happening in difficult financial times. It’s impossible to take television out of the context of the rest of American business. We always wish to do that--would that it were an art form. But it isn’t. It’s a business, and it reports to Wall Street the way every other American business does. As long as the climate dictates concentration on immediate success over long-term thinking, the networks will respond like every other business.”

ABC last month gutted its weak Thursday-night lineup, pulling the James Earl Jones drama “Pros & Cons” off the air and moving two reality series--”FBI: The Untold Stories” and “American Detective”--to Monday night. The network is reluctant to try out any new series in that gaping two-hour block while the nation’s eyes are on the Winter Olympics, airing on CBS Feb. 8-23.

So ABC hitched up ratings workhorse “Columbo.”

“Every time we have run ‘Columbo’ on Thursday nights it has performed well, with repeats as well as originals,” said Jim Brochu, ABC’s manager of business information. “They’ve done much better than what we’ve been putting on Thursdays at 8 to 10 p.m. this year.”

Meanwhile, CBS says it is using “All in the Family” to bide time. For the next four Saturdays, CBS will broadcast big-name theatrical movies at 8 p.m., beginning with “The Untouchables” this week, and will use Archie, Edith, Meathead and Gloria to fill in at 10:30 following those movies.

“This is a temporary measure to help keep a lineup working at a sufficient level, so that the higher priorities of establishing new programming can take place,” said Peter Tortorici, CBS senior vice president of programming.

CBS is focusing promotional efforts on the sitcom “Davis Rules,” just acquired from ABC, and the debut of three new mid-season shows: tonight’s news program “Street Stories,” Friday night’s melodrama “Hearts Are Wild” and the cop-and-dog drama “Tequila and Bonetti” on Jan. 17.

“Programming a network is like sending an army into battle,” Tortorici said, “and you can only protect so many flanks at one time. You try and fight on too many fronts and spread your resources too thin, you create such high risk that you may lose it all.”

But there are some who argue that the networks may lose it all anyway without original programming.

“The networks are looking for more and more ways to save money,” said Dean Valentine, executive vice president of network television for Disney. “The danger is, and I’m not the first person to say it, you wind up with the situation where the snake swallows its own tail for survival and eventually disappears. You put on more old stuff and more old stuff, pretty soon you don’t have a network, because a network depends on original, quality programming.”

Although one advertiser called it merely a “pocket trend,” capitalizing on the current nostalgia craze, there is some concern that the use of reruns as a cost-saving measure may be more than a passing fancy.

“The deeper issues plaguing the networks, which are losing viewers and running out of money, aren’t temporary at all,” said Betsy Frank, senior vice president of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising in New York. “So if you ask whether any one solution they come up with to deal with this is temporary, whether it’s more reality shows or repeats, I’d say it’s probably not temporary. If something works, they’re going to keep using it.”

CBS’ Tortorici maintained that there is no cause for alarm, stressing that “All in the Family” is merely temporary programming. CBS purchased seven episodes of the show from Columbia Television last summer and 10 more this season, leaving it with half a dozen episodes to plug other holes as necessary.

In any case, he sees no harm in presenting replays of a classic television series that changed the course of TV comedy 20 years ago.

“It’s a great program,” Tortorici argued. “Is it an alarming trend to see ‘Casablanca’ 20 times? There are very few great, great works in any medium. That’s why they become true classics. That’s why compositions from the 17th and 18th Century are playing on the radio today. That’s why movies from the ‘30s and ‘40s are on laser disc today. There are only so many great works the creative community is capable of producing. There’s no reason in our mind why television would be exempt from that. It doesn’t mean we’re going to bring back ‘Hello, Larry.’ That would be an alarming trend.”