Ready, Set, Sweeps . . . : Some Aging Hits Get Send-Offs

The TV networks will be doing spring cleaning with a vengeance in the May ratings sweeps that start next week.

In less than a month, some of the most popular series on the air will be gone, including ABC’s “Who’s the Boss?,” “Growing Pains” and “MacGyver” and NBC’s “The Cosby Show,” “The Golden Girls” and “Night Court.”

During the Nielsen sweeps, which run from Thursday through May 20, NBC and ABC are clearly taking steps to halt their ratings slide and regain their momentum against the new network leader, CBS.

The most radical departures have taken place at former leader NBC, which also will give a May sweeps send-off to “Matlock,” which next season moves to ABC, and “In the Heat of the Night,” which switches to CBS.

NBC says it is parting with aging hits that it feels are on the downswing. But the best crack of the week came from CBS Chairman Laurence Tisch, who looked at NBC’s sweeps schedule and said: “It’s like a going-out-of-business sale.”

And only two days after the sweeps end, Johnny Carson will retire from NBC’s “The Tonight Show.” But he will make a guest shot on the network’s “Cheers” May 7.

Another highlight of the sweeps will come when Candice Bergen, as the television newswoman in CBS’ “Murphy Brown,” gives birth to a son in the series’ season finale May 18.

The week before, on May 11, there’ll be a baby shower on the series attended by TV newswomen Katie Couric, Joan Lunden, Paula Zahn, Faith Daniels and Mary Alice Williams.

You may recall the furor that surrounded “Murphy Brown” at the start of the season when the unmarried title character confirmed that she was pregnant and decided that she would have the child. There was curiosity over whether a pregnancy would destroy the show’s popularity--as it did “Moonlighting”--but “Murphy Brown” creator Diane English handled the story’s progress masterfully, and the series remained a hit.

The sweeps, which help set the prices for ads on the networks’ affiliate stations, have the requisite juicy miniseries and TV movies--but the departures and retooling of major weekly shows, plus the scheduling of some intriguing nostalgic specials, seem to be the highlights.

Among the specials, CBS has the two-hour “Elvis: The Great Performances” on Friday, 15 years after his death. CBS says it is also planning an hour titled “Sitcom Moms,” about famous mothers from TV history, on May 8.

In addition, the 40th anniversary of Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” series, which began as a local show in Philadelphia in 1952, will be saluted in a two-hour ABC special May 13.

ABC, meanwhile, is running short on repeat episodes of its new, two-hour “Columbo” series, so viewers will be treated to a real piece of TV history--the first two programs of the classic Peter Falk detective show.

On May 7, the “Prescription: Murder” episode of “Columbo,” which aired in 1968, will be broadcast by ABC, with the cast including Gene Barry, Nina Foch and William Windom. And on May 14, ABC reruns one of the very best “Columbo” outings, the March, 1971, “Ransom for a Dead Man,” with Lee Grant an absolute knockout as a brilliant, villainous lawyer who murders her husband. This show preceded the start of the regular series in September, 1971.

Viewers will also want to check out network attempts to breathe new life into several well-known drama series: NBC’s “L.A. Law” and CBS’ “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill.”

“L.A. Law” co-creator Steven Bochco has returned to the series, and May is a critical period for the show, whose electricity turned to a fizzle.

“The Trials of Rosie O’Neill,” meanwhile, has returned to try to prove itself before the networks announce their fall schedules in May. It has a lousy time slot--at 10 p.m. Saturday, a weak night for CBS--and initial ratings haven’t been good.

But executive producer Barney Rosenzweig has assembled a fairly extraordinary cast for a weekly series--with Robert Wagner joining Sharon Gless, Ed Asner, Ron Rifkin and Dorian Harewood. And this is a show worth tinkering with to create the buzz that is missing and the magical chemistry that is possible with such a group of performers.

A battle royal of series has shaped up for next Saturday when “Who’s the Boss?,” “Growing Pains” and “MacGyver” all bow out with one-hour finales. NBC is counterprogramming with the first half of a two-part “Golden Girls” in which Rose (Betty White) has a heart attack. NBC follows this show with two episodes of “Empty Nest.”

The big exodus from NBC commences with the hour finale of “The Cosby Show” on April 30. “The Golden Girls” winds up on May 9, and “Night Court” says goodby on May 13--both also in one-hour farewells. “Matlock” leaves NBC with a two-hour finale May 8. And “In the Heat of the Night” exits with a two-parter starting May 12.

Last year, Brandon Tartikoff, then head of NBC Entertainment, saw danger in losing such hits, even though he was criticized for relying too long on the network’s older and increasingly expensive series.

Returning to NBC after recuperating from an auto accident, he discovered that Carson, “Cheers,” “The Cosby Show” and “The Golden Girls” had not been secured for the coming year and told this reporter:

“The prospect of all these viable, audience-attracting entities being gone was scary.”

Many in the industry agree with that view even now, especially surveying NBC’s wholesale sweeps slaughter.

The sweeps show that NBC and ABC have been stung by CBS’ season victory, despite trying to minimize it. For CBS was not just the only one of the Big Three to increase its audience--by 12%--it also won 22 of 30 weeks; had no third-place finish on any night in season-long averages; finished first in regular series and TV movies; and led in men and women viewers ages 18 to 49 and 25 to 54.

Thus a big reason for the sweeps’ spring cleaning. Over at CBS, meanwhile, one hopes it’s true that “Brooklyn Bridge” is favored for a fall return and that the series’ absence during May is because of other tryout shows and its own soft ratings.

It should be noted, by the way, that “Brooklyn Bridge” scored rather nicely Monday when slipped in between “Evening Shade” and “Murphy Brown.”

And that other lovely CBS series, “Northern Exposure,” figures to help wrap up the sweeps in fine fashion when its May 18 episode tells the history of Cicely, Alaska, the setting of the show, in flashbacks.

Cool.

Farewell Episodes Longtime series that will conclude shortly:

NETWORK PREMIERE EPISODES LAST SHOW “Cosby” NBC Sept. 20, 1984 199 April 30 “Who’s the Boss?” ABC Sept. 20,1984 198 April 25 “Night Court” NBC Jan. 4, 1984 192 May 13 “The Golden Girls” NBC Sept. 14,1985 178 May 9 “Growing Pains” ABC Sept. 24,1985 166 April 25 “MacGyver” ABC Sept. 29,1985 138 April 25

Sources: Networks