Fox Comes Out Fighting With Its Fall Lineup : Television: The network will challenge ’60 Minutes,’ ‘Roseanne’ and ‘Seinfeld’ with aggressive counterprogramming.

The Fox Broadcasting Co. on Tuesday announced an aggressive prime-time fall schedule that takes aim at some of television’s top series on competing networks.

Fox previously weakened NBC’s stranglehold on Thursdays by successfully using “The Simpsons” to counterprogram “The Cosby Show.” Now the 7-year-old network will challenge CBS’ “60 Minutes” with a new comedy-variety series starring Robert Townsend; will take on ABC’s “Roseanne” with “America’s Most Wanted” and will try to slow down NBC’s “Seinfeld” with “In Living Color.”

After several fits and starts, Fox will also finally become a seven-night-a-week network with weekly movies beginning June 21. On another front, Fox’s previously announced late-night entry, “The Chevy Chase Show,” will premiere Sept. 7, competing with NBC’s Jay Leno, CBS’ upcoming David Letterman series and ABC’s “Nightline,” as well as Arsenio Hall in a number of markets.

Fox Chairman Lucie Salhany noted that Chase’s 11 p.m. air time will give him a half-hour head start on Leno, Letterman and Ted Koppel’s “Nightline.” She added that Chase’s series will be different from competing entertainment shows--”more comedy than talk, with skits and routines featuring Chevy and his guests, man-on-the-street interviews and musical acts.”

The network also will rely heavily on the Wednesday night tandem of “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Melrose Place,” with at least 35 episodes from each series next season, said Sandy Grushow, president of the Fox Entertainment Group.

The network’s fall lineup will also include such stars as Sinbad, Queen Latifah, Don Rickles and Richard Lewis as Fox offers eight new series and tries to broaden its scope from its basic 18-to-34-year-old, heavily male audience to the 18-to-49 age group.

Fox’s new shows include four comedies, two dramas, the variety entry “Townsend Television” and a one-hour newsmagazine, “Front Page.” The magazine, which will originate in Los Angeles and include Ron Reagan and former KCAL-TV Channel 9 political reporter Josh Mankiewicz as correspondents, is a production of Fox News.

On Sundays, the network will return the 10-11 p.m. time period to its stations “as a response to the growing number of Fox affiliates programming local news at that hour.” That means that Fox programs will end at 10 p.m. each night, totaling 15 hours for the week compared to the 22 hours of ABC, CBS and NBC.

Townsend, the director-actor-comedian whose motion picture credits include “Hollywood Shuffle” and “The Five Heartbeats,” will offer another new alternative to CBS’ “60 Minutes” with his one-hour program. It is his first TV series, and Fox says that he “both hosts the show and appears in skits.” He is also co-executive producer.

On Tuesdays, “America’s Most Wanted” will offer another sharp alternative as it goes up against ABC’s “Roseanne” and “Coach.” Grushow told a news conference that Fox is hoping for a “cross-flow” of viewers who watch CBS’ “Rescue 911” an hour earlier and then may be looking for another reality series such as “America’s Most Wanted.”

On Thursdays, which is now up for grabs with NBC last year losing “Cosby” and this season bidding farewell to “Cheers,” Fox is making an even stronger bid for prominence. The lineup will continue to open at 8 p.m. with “The Simpsons,” followed at 8:30 by “Sinbad,” a sitcom with the performer playing a bachelor and video-game designer “whose life is turned upside down when he takes in two foster kids.”

Following “Sinbad” will come “In Living Color,” now without any members of the Wayans family, including the show’s creator Keenen Ivory Wayans. Ending Thursday night for Fox will be another Sunday transplant, “Herman’s Head.”

In yet another counterprogramming move on Saturday, Fox has paired “Cops” and “Cops 2” with “Front Page” to provide a night of reality and news shows against the comedy on NBC and ABC and the Western-style drama series on CBS.

Fox said that “Roc,” which reportedly came close to being canceled, will abandon its live format of the past season to return to tape. “We want to take the show out of the studio,” said Grushow, who added that rapper Tone Loc, previously a guest on the series, will appear in more than half of next season’s shows.

Other new Fox series include:

* “Daddy Dearest,” a sitcom starring Lewis as a divorced psychologist and Rickles as his cantankerous father.

* “My Girls,” a sitcom with Queen Latifah, Kim Coles, Kim Fields and Erika Alexander as “upwardly mobile African-American women living in New York City.”

* “Buddy Blues,” a sitcom about “two police officers who are mismatched partners” in a California town.

* “The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.,” an action hour about a bounty hunter.

* “The X-Files,” an hour drama about an unconventional FBI agent and his female partner who take on cases that may involve unexplained phenomena.

Fox’s fall lineup features a number of shows with a black urban focus. In addition, mid-season replacements include another rapper, Hammer, in “City High,” a sitcom in which he plays a high school teacher, and “South Central,” a “realistic half-hour comedy” about a devoted mother and her three children in the Los Angeles neighborhood--picked up after CBS passed on it.

Fox programs not returning from this season include “Tribeca,” “Key West,” “Class of ‘96,” “The Ben Stiller Show,” “Down the Shore,” “Batman: The Animated Series,” “Flying Blind,” “Great Scott,” “Likely Suspects,” “Parker Lewis,” “Woops,” “Shaky Ground,” “Sightings,” “The Edge” and “The Heights.”

The night-by-night schedule for fall:

Sunday: “Townsend Television,” “Martin,” “My Girls,” “Married . . . With Children,” “Daddy Dearest.”

Monday: “Fox Night at the Movies.”

Tuesday: “Roc,” “Buddy Blues,” “America’s Most Wanted.”

Wednesday: “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “Melrose Place.”

Thursday: “The Simpsons,” “Sinbad,” “In Living Color,” “Herman’s Head.”

Friday: “The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.,” “The X-Files.”

Saturday: “Cops,” “Cops II,” “Front Page.”