The Year of HBO, Not Amy Fisher : Television: Emmy nominations honor made-for-TV movies such as ‘Citizen Cohn’ and ‘Stalin’ and ignore the network competition.

It was a network season epitomized by the Amy Fisher movies on ABC, CBS and NBC. And the squalid little story, and most other network films steeped in mayhem, struck out in the Emmy nominations announced this week.

If you flipped through the list of shows nominated on Thursday, you’d think that such trash barely existed--as if the TV industry was trying to hide the dirty laundry that has brought such a stench with its violence that Congress and many others are putting the heat on.

But Thursday was a kind of day of reckoning for the Big Three networks, an overdue come-uppance for slipping into the lower depths of TV.

And the message was delivered like a body blow as HBO and its high-profile, ambitious drama specials--led by “Citizen Cohn,” “Stalin” and “Barbarians at the Gate”--helped tally an eye-opening 55 nominations for the cable channel as it waltzed off with the kind of prestigious programming once dominated by the traditional networks.

Who could imagine ABC, CBS and NBC being totally shut out in the category for best made-for-TV movie? Well, it happened. HBO picked up four of the five nominations, and PBS got the other for “Tru,” Robert Morse’s one-man show about the late Truman Capote.

But was it really a surprise after the way the networks have been virtually ceding the quality audience to alternative TV such as cable and VCRs, while seeking a quick fix by pushing the meaning of lowest-common-denominator even lower?

Of course, there are exceptional moments on the networks. And of course, not all of HBO’s efforts--including those cited for honors--were perfect. But at least they often aim higher.

Over at TNT cable, they just aired a drama about Alexander Graham Bell, and other works on tap include “Zelda,” about the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald; Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”; the miniseries “Alexander the Great” and a series of dramas about the historical experience of American Indians.

Is all cable like this? Hardly. That’s no secret.

But looking at network TV today, it’s hard to believe it once was the conduit for the elegant specials of Fred Astaire or “Playhouse 90” or the anthologies that spawned the likes of Rod Serling and Paddy Chayefsky. Surely this can’t be the same family tree.

It is only now beginning to sink in just how much the loss of Johnny Carson has meant to TV in terms of sheer style. Was it only yesterday that Aykroyd and Belushi and Radner and Curtin and the others were still aspiring to new directions and heights on “Saturday Night Live”? Where’s Dana Carvey when you need him? But at least there’s still that beacon named Letterman.

How slim were the network pickings in the prime-time Emmy nominations? Well, besides being shut out in made-for-TV movies, the Big Three had only one nominee, Robert Blake, for lead actor in a miniseries or special; HBO had three and PBS one.

It was the same story for supporting actor in a miniseries or special, with Brian Dennehy the only network nominee; HBO had the other four.

Other examples:

* Only one network sitcom, “Seinfeld,” was nominated for writing--for two episodes. The other three nominations went to HBO comedies, two to “The Larry Sanders Show” and one to “Dream On.”

* Only two returning network sitcoms, “Seinfeld” and “Murphy Brown,” were nominated for directing. HBO’s “Dream On” was nominated twice, and “Cheers” has called it a day.

* Only one returning network sitcom, “Seinfeld,” was nominated for best guest actor. “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Dream On” are other contenders, and the canceled “Brooklyn Bridge” series soon will be gone along with “Cheers.”

In this last season of desperate network exploitation, NBC blitzed the public with three ripped-from-the-headlines docudramas in four days in May--one about the Waco cult tragedy, another about the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, another about Hurricane Andrew. But they were not even a blip in the Emmy nominations.

Perhaps it was a perfect twist of fate that when the nominations came down, NBC and CBS were diddling and dawdling over whether David Letterman can legally take his Top 10 List and Stupid Pet Tricks over to CBS when he moves his show there Aug. 30. Now these are major priorities, right? If NBC carries on with this farce, Letterman and his staff will find a solution in about three minutes and get a year’s worth of material out of it.

I was watching a remarkable woman, Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, go through Senate confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court on C-SPAN this week, and I wondered whether any television network would consider her story as worthy as Amy Fisher’s. Ah, well. But someday it may wind up on HBO.

If you watched the HBO miniseries “Laurel Avenue” recently, you’ve already seen what will probably be another Emmy nomination next year. But, more important, once again HBO upstaged the Big Three with a serious drama about black family life, precisely what has long been lacking on the networks because of a kind of statistical racism--the belief, probably unprejudiced but nonetheless dangerous, that most viewers (translation: most white viewers) won’t watch.

The latest Emmy nominations had, as usual, more than a few flaws as well as the head-turning HBO performance. For one thing, “Roseanne” and “The Simpsons” should have been nominated for best comedy series over two other worthy but less distinctive entries, “Home Improvement” and “Murphy Brown.”

Said “Roseanne” co-executive producer Tom Werner: “I find it amazing that this show, which won a Peabody Award and a Humanitas Prize, is not even considered a nominee.”

The way things ought to be, nominee Garry Shandling will get a best actor Emmy for “The Larry Sanders Show.” And some think that nominee Roseanne Arnold will finally win for her role in “Roseanne.” Maybe. Or maybe they’re just long shots.

At any rate, the annual nighttime Emmy Awards will be broadcast on ABC Sept. 19, and HBO will get the best advertisement it never paid for.