ABC Frustrates Bochco Plan for R-Rated Series : * Television: The network has declined to explain its position. The famed TV producer says unwillingness to face the threat from cable is behind the move.

ABC has left famed TV producer Steven Bochco unsatisfied again.

After six months of development, the network has roundly rejected his novel proposal for an R-rated prime-time TV series.

The decision is a bitter pill for Bochco--the creator of such programs as “Hill Street Blues” and “L.A. Law”--who had hoped the gritty, one-hour police drama would break new territory for broadcast television.

ABC said it is still interested in the show--without the R-rated elements. But the network’s hesitation points up the pressures facing broadcasters in their competition with cable television.

Nudity, overt violence and graphic language are staples of cable programming. HBO’s adult comedy series “Dream On,” for example, features bare breasts in virtually every episode. Showtime schedules soft-core films late at night, and viewers can watch erotic coming-of-age French films on the artsy Bravo channel.

The availability of that kind of programming has helped propel cable into 60% of all TV households. Moreover, HBO regularly gets higher ratings than the networks on Saturday night in homes where it is available.

But network television, despite a willingness in recent years to deal with more controversial issues, still has strict taboos against nudity and strong language--the two aspects of Bochco’s new cop show that he said most disturbed ABC.

Bochco’s “L.A. Law,” for one, has edged close to such territory. Sexy attorney Grace Van Owen and handsome lawyer Victor Sifuentes regularly steamed up the screen, kissing and groping. But then the screen would fade to black.

The script of the new cop show went further.

“There were partial breasts and maybe the occasional tushy,” Bochco said Thursday of the scenes that caused the network to turn down the show. “Nothing the vast majority of viewers haven’t seen happily in all kinds of films. We’re not looking to shock people.”

To Bochco, what is at stake is not simply priggishness at ABC’s broadcast standards and practices department, as the network’s censor is euphemistically called. Rather, the key issue, he said, is the unwillingness to face the threat from cable, which is pulling away bored network viewers with its adult-themed programming.

“Fundamentally, the issue here is the future of our industry as it now exists,” he said. “The extent to which (the networks) have lost a significant part of their viewing audience says we haven’t changed enough in taste and viewing habits.”

ABC executives had been aware of the series ever since Bochco originally pitched the idea over lunch to ABC Entertainment President Robert A. Iger and Capital Cities/ABC Inc. Chief Executive Daniel B. Burke last summer.

Bochco speculated that concerns over advertiser fallout and fear of protests by vocal public interest groups dampened their initial support. ABC executives declined to comment beyond Iger noting his rejection of the script in an interview on “Good Morning America.”

Indeed, in the current weak advertising environment, the prospect of additional advertiser pullouts is taken very seriously by all the networks.

Advertisers have often canceled ads when programming became the least controversial or unsettling, as when ABC aired a “thirtysomething” episode two years ago that showed two gay lovers in bed. Only three weeks ago, NBC lost about $500,000 because advertisers did not want to be associated with a “Quantum Leap” episode about a gay military cadet who contemplates suicide.

Bochco said he hopes that there is a “middle ground” on which the new cop show can stride. Under his exclusive 10-series, $50-million deal with ABC, the network must pay him a penalty of $1.5 million if it decides not to pick up one of his series.

“I don’t think in the fractured world of TV you will any longer get a consensus about everything,” he said. “But somebody is going to do a show like this. Whether it’s another network or another writer, somebody is going to do it. I’d like to be the one.”