Viewer Drop Continues for Networks

TV or not TV. . . .

PATTERNS: Here’s the awful truth that TV’s network executives face:

Only six years ago, 18 weekly series finished the television season with an average tune-in of 30% or more of the national audience--topped by 53% for “The Cosby Show.”

In the 1991-92 season, only two weekly series averaged 30% or better--”60 Minutes” and “Roseanne.”

And during the last full year, just three regular series have managed to score 30% or more--”60 Minutes,” “Cheers” and “Home Improvement.”

Zappers kill.

ONE FOR THE BOOKS: No surprise that CBS’ recent reprisal of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” with Buddy Ebsen, placed No. 4 in the ratings. Ten episodes of the old sitcom rank among the 75 highest-rated TV entertainment programs of all time, and seven of them drew 60% or more of the nation’s viewers.

“The Beverly Hillbillies” ran from 1962-71.

SHORT RUN: “Cutters,” a sitcom that arrives Friday, has been on CBS’ shelf for more than a year, and viewers can mull over whether the network was right or wrong in failing to get behind it.

Scheduled for five episodes, and with Allan Burns (“The Mary Tyler Moore Show”) and Burt Metcalfe (“MASH”) as co-executive producers, it’s a comedy with social comment about a barber shop and a beauty salon that break down the wall between them and try to make it a go in business together.

The original pilot was made in late 1991, and production began several months later. Burns says that CBS “liked the pilot very much.” But then came word that the half-hour comedy had tested badly.

“Testing has always been the bane of my existence,” says Burns. The audience-testing numbers figure to be negative, he notes, “when you start with a premise that’s a little offbeat and a little prickly, and the characters are not all lovable. It’s not a domestic comedy. ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ got bad numbers.”

Metcalfe: “ ‘Cheers’ didn’t test well at all.”

Burns adds that “Seinfeld” and “All in the Family” also tested poorly.

A CBS spokeswoman declined comment on “Cutters.”

Because CBS shelved “Cutters,” whose cast includes Robert Hays and Margaret Whitton, some of the gags, such as a reference to the Elvis Presley stamp, are a little dated.

Burns says CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky planned to air “Cutters” last year “and scheduled it opposite the NBA finals” but backed off after Burns expressed unhappiness about the scheduling.

Then the series “just got delayed and delayed and delayed,” says Burns, “and now here we are one year later.”

As for the perils of testing, “It has to do with these characters being out of the mold,” says Metcalfe. “When there’s uncertainty, they (the test audience) don’t push the approval button. It takes time (to develop) over a period of episodes.”

“If testing really works,” adds Burns, “how come the shows don’t have a better batting average?”

REEL LIFE: HBO, which turned Randy Shilts’ book on the emergence of AIDS--”And the Band Played On . . .”--into an upcoming movie, will also take the dramatization route for his new bestseller, “Conduct Unbecoming,” about gays and lesbians in the military.

GUEST SHOT: Stand-up comedian Brett Butler, who stars as an independent working mother in ABC’s new fall sitcom “Grace Under Fire,” visits the David Letterman show next Tuesday night. Her series will follow “Home Improvement.”

QUESTION MARK: ABC has “Nightline,” but, at the moment, the network remains without a coast-to-coast entertainment show to compete this fall against NBC’s Jay Leno and CBS’ new Letterman series.

There was, at one point, a late-night ABC project conceived to combine home shopping and entertainment.

You have to wonder how the network will react if “Nightline,” holding its own thus far, should slip in the heated, upcoming late-hour scene that will also include Fox’s Chevy Chase and the syndicated Arsenio Hall and Rush Limbaugh.

ABC failed in the not-too-distant past with a post-”Nightline” variety series starring Rick Dees. “Nightline” host Ted Koppel wanted Letterman to follow his series, but now he will be competing with him.

BULLETIN BOARD: It’s a significant and hot issue for the youth-oriented TV industry: television’s relationship with older adults, who are growing in numbers.

UCLA, the American Assn. of Retired Persons, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the Motion Picture and Television Fund are planning to tackle the subject in an all-day conference here.

It’s set for Sept. 11 at the Academy Plaza Theatre in North Hollywood, and the title of the conference is “Age Has a Future: Maturity and the Media.” Horace B. Deets, executive director of the influential AARP, is scheduled to address the conference, which a UCLA representative says is intended to “raise awareness of aging issues among entertainment leaders.”

In addition to the program arena, where many advertisers demand shows that focus on the 18-to-49 audience, the TV industry has faced a constant barrage of charges that it is guilty of practicing ageism to the exclusion of many creators and other workers who are middle-aged and older.

MATCHUP: Once again, the prime-time Emmy Awards, which have slipped in popularity since moving to Fox for the last six years, face the embarrassing challenge of having to measure up to the ratings of the Daytime Emmy Awards.

It’s like this: The daytime prizes, which have become hot stuff as annual prime-time specials, ranked No. 1 in the ratings released last week. The night-time honors will be given out Sept. 19. Both shows are on ABC this year.

MENU: The topics of the Sally Jessy Raphael show this week are “A Family Feud Is Ruining My Wedding,” “My Children Were Kidnaped by Their Birth Mother,” “My Boyfriend Killed My Baby,” “I Think I’m Becoming a Racist” and “My Husband Is a Rapist.”

DEALING: NBC News President Andrew Lack, only briefly in the job, has grabbed one of TV’s best producers from ABC: David Bohrman, who created the innovative overnight series “World News Now.” Bohrman will be the No. 2 executive on Tom Brokaw’s nightly NBC news and also will handle special events.

BEING THERE: “He who is openhearted is kingly.”--Caine (David Carradine) in “Kung Fu.”

Say good night, Gracie. . . .