More to CBS Than Entertainment Hits

TV or not TV . . .

REAL LIFE: Top-ranked CBS has quietly developed a programming backbone separate from such entertainment hits as “Murphy Brown.”

The network now has five one-hour news and reality series that provide it with enough strength to be a ratings winner or potent contender on four nights of the week.

Along with “60 Minutes” on Sunday, there is “Rescue 911” on Tuesday, “48 Hours” on Wednesday and “Top Cops” and “Street Stories” on Thursday. All are doing well.

Except for the quarter-century-old “60 Minutes,” CBS’ large crop of news and reality entries has blossomed in just the last few years--a key to the network’s comeback.

On Wednesday, “48 Hours” and host Dan Rather will look at South-Central Los Angeles six months after the riots.

STRATEGY: With the season premieres of CBS’ “In the Heat of the Night” Wednesday and “Knots Landing” Thursday, the network will have six nights of its week in place and then concentrate on its weak spot, Saturday, says a company official.

David Poltrack, CBS’ senior vice president of planning and research, feels that the network’s schedule will be “in pretty good shape” except for Saturday, where it has already canceled “Angel Street” and “Frannie’s Turn” and is totally at sea.

Since neither NBC nor ABC is strong on Saturday either, CBS plans to plug its hole with movies and “Brooklyn Bridge” through the November ratings sweeps and then start its overhaul early next year.

SYNERGY: It’s a TV night planned in heaven and set for NBC Sunday--a 60-minute Ross Perot commercial followed an hour later by a “Saturday Night Live” special of political satire.

Perot’s pitch, two days before the presidential election, airs from 7-8 p.m. And then, from 9-11 p.m., NBC offers “Saturday Night Live’s Presidential Bash,” which features highlights from the show’s political barbs over the years.

Thus far, some of Perot’s prime-time, program-length ads have easily outperformed a number of entertainment series in the ratings, earning impressive percentages of the audience.

For example, ABC research says that as Perot got rolling earlier with his TV campaign, his Oct. 6 ad on CBS earned 20% of the audience; his Oct. 9 commercial on ABC landed 17%; his Oct. 16 spot on NBC got 18% and his Oct. 17 outing on ABC attracted 14%.

According to a network researcher, the audience for Perot’s TV ads “skews older, and he does well with males--pretty consistent with the voting group that he’s popular with.”

SCORECARD: Rush Limbaugh’s new, syndicated TV talk show is doing all right in the national ratings, but Whoopi Goldberg’s isn’t.

THE NATURAL: Tim Allen’s “Home Improvement” series on ABC has turned into a bona fide terror against competitors and should run for at least five or six years.

LONG SHOT: Despite all its provocative material, ABC’s “Civil Wars” just can’t seem to make that big breakthrough with audiences.

OPPORTUNITY: Let’s hope that Lynn Sherr’s “20/20” report last Friday on a lesbian community in Northampton, Mass., helps lessen network and advertiser nervousness about gay and lesbian subjects on entertainment series as well.

HAPPY DAZE: Toronto Blue Jays Manager Cito Gaston must be a great poker player. You couldn’t tell if he was winning or losing from his deadpan on CBS throughout Toronto’s World Series clincher Saturday. Give me Lasorda any day.

MIRROR, MIRROR: Whoever gave KNBC Channel 4 sports guy Fred Roggin that new look did very well by him. Actually looks handsome instead of just sleek. Now if he can just stay out of those dumb KNBC promos that can wreck the whole image.

SQUARE PEG: Now here’s Judith Ivey, one of the best and most uniquely witty actresses around. So why doesn’t “Designing Women”--on which she’s a new regular--show her off to better advantage than it did Saturday, rather than having her sound and act pretty much like the other stars?

BULLETIN BOARD: Back to the 1960s in a couple of landmark Nov. 7 documentaries on KCET Channel 28: “Gimme Shelter” with Mick Jagger and the Stones, followed by “Don’t Look Back” with Bob Dylan.

On Monday, meanwhile, KCET offers a documentary about another legend: “The Dancing Man--Peg Leg Bates,” detailing the story of the performer who succeeded after losing a leg in an accident.

SCRAPING BOTTOM: Imagine--nearly three dozen new network series this fall and not a real blockbuster in the whole lot. So what goes on at all those meetings and lunches?

The three biggest new hits--CBS’ “Hearts Afire” and “Love & War” and ABC’s “Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper”--all owe much of their success to good time slots following established winners.

“Love & War,” for instance, has a lot going for it but just might be struggling for survival without “Murphy Brown” as a lead-in. And “Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper” should pay a tithe to its lead-in, “Full House.”

REDWOODS: Caught Humphrey Bogart in “The Big Sleep” and John Wayne in “Fort Apache,” both on TNT, and I still don’t think anyone, before or since, has filled a screen the way they did.

CASTING: NBC keeps fiddling uncertainly with vehicles for Jane Pauley, dissipating her popularity as time goes by. The latest format is “Dateline NBC,” which won’t cut it either. Hey, guys, check her out on Letterman and then just drop the plain Jane approach.

BEING THERE: “I’m Robinson Peepers. I teach general science at the little junior high school across the street.”--Wally Cox, starring in “Mr. Peepers.”

Say good night, Gracie . . .