No Age-Old Wisdom in NBC Lineup : Television: Network’s veto of a new ‘Bonanza’ typifies an attitude that’s helping competitors.

Maybe it was an omen.

Tom Sarnoff had an idea that he took to NBC, the network founded by his father, the late David Sarnoff.

The idea was a revival of one of NBC’s greatest hits, “Bonanza,” centering around a new, young generation of television’s famous Western clan and set in the early 1900s.

It would be called “Bonanza: Legends of the Ponderosa,” and Sarnoff and the series’ original creator, David Dortort, would be co-executive producers of the weekly drama.

Maybe a great idea. Maybe not. But significantly, as Sarnoff tells it, NBC not only wasn’t interested in a Western, “they felt they didn’t want . . . something that skewed older.” That is, a show that the network believed would attract mainly older viewers.

“Yes,” NBC confirmed this week, “we did pass on ‘Bonanza.’ It just did not meet our programming needs.”

You know--kind of like “The Golden Girls,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Matlock,” all older-skewing hits that also did not meet NBC’s programming needs this season.

NBC let them slip away to the competition just as it needed them to stabilize its lineup while it regrouped, rebuilt and sought a new and younger audience in the post-”Cosby” era. And now these ghosts of shows past--once fortresses of dependability--are coming back to haunt NBC by their absence from a network that is so obviously hurting.

This was particularly clear in the past week as reports surfaced again about NBC possibly being up for sale, and as the network seemed to be settling haplessly into third place in the ratings behind CBS and ABC.

In last week’s ratings, NBC failed to win a single night of programming.

Sarnoff, despite NBC’s rejection, plans on taking a shot at syndication in 1993 with “Bonanza: Legends of the Ponderosa.” The original series, which starred Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker and--for a while--Pernell Roberts, ranked among the Top 5 shows every year between 1961 and 1970.

“We’re going to aim this show for young people as well,” says Sarnoff, “but also try to recapture the audience that has grown older with ‘Bonanza.’ The whole population is getting older, and I think it’s a big mistake that networks ignore that.”

Trying to get the revival off the ground, Sarnoff approached NBC because the original series was an in-house network production. It passed but retains a financial stake in the new venture.

“I would have liked to have gone on there,” he says. “They could use the help right now. When ‘Bonanza’ originally was produced, I’m the guy, ironically, who made the deal for it (as an NBC executive).”

The new series, says Sarnoff, would focus on the four grown grandchildren of patriarch Ben Cartwright (Greene): “Ben Johnson plays the new patriarch, an old friend who has taken over the running of the ranch at the request of the family. Richard Roundtree is the foreman.”

NBC, meanwhile, is plunging ahead with its all-out attempt to woo 18-to-49-year-old viewers this season, although the network’s entertainment chief, Warren Littlefield, argues heatedly that he also offers shows for over-50 viewers every night.

Nonetheless, the valuable older-skewing series that NBC let get away now will be his competition. A new version of “The Golden Girls” called “The Golden Palace” already is off to a solid start on CBS on Fridays, helping to blow NBC away on that night.

On Wednesday, meanwhile, Carroll O’Connor’s Southern police series, “In the Heat of the Night,” makes its premiere on CBS after leaving NBC for a variety of reasons that included money and creative differences as well as demographics.

O’Connor and his series, which co-stars Howard Rollins, have been surprisingly sturdy in the ratings in the past, even in head-on competition with such smash hits as “Roseanne” and “Coach.” And the police show will be put to the test again, squaring off against “Home Improvement,” “Seinfeld,” “Mad About You” and, starting Nov. 25, “Coach,” in its new Wednesday slot.

A formidable task, and O’Connor says by phone from the Georgia location of his show: “The challenge is to hold the audience we have and stay up there in the top 20 or 25 shows. We’re not going to beat any comedies, and they are strong. Comedy is king. I know that myself from (being in) ‘All in the Family.’ ”

The Wednesday competition will be critical to NBC’s future image, which it hopes to firm up through such attractive, youthful series as “Seinfeld” and “Mad About You.” But “Home Improvement” and “Coach” figure to crush them in the ratings, and if “In the Heat of the Night” turns out to be a viable dramatic alternative, NBC would be on the short end again, with its programming philosophy up the creek.

As for the other, older stabilizer that NBC dumped, “Matlock,” it will be an ABC movie Nov. 5 and then become a weekly ABC series with Andy Griffith returning as a Southern lawyer.

The irony is that NBC, in its season of chasing the young audience, will wind up depending heavily on three major stars in their 70s:

Robert Stack, who is largely responsible for the success of “Unsolved Mysteries,” is 73. John Forsythe, who returns as a U.S. senator Nov. 7 in the NBC sitcom “The Powers That Be,” is 74. And Raymond Burr, whose “Perry Mason” movies have received an SOS to bail out NBC’s Friday lineup starting next week, is 75.

There are other figures just as important: “In the Heat of the Night” finished 30th among 127 series last season with a solid 20% audience share. “The Golden Girls” ranked 31st with a 23% share. And “Matlock” was 45th with a 22% share.

The shows may or may not be to your taste or thrill advertisers. But in a difficult time for networks, those are audience shares that most TV executives would kill for. And they provide a framework of programming security far too valuable for any network to throw out all at once.

They were, in short, a bonanza in their own way.