TV Violence Isn’t the Only Issue : Programming: Thanks to public pressure, ageism, minority representation and taste are also topics demanding attention from the industry.

The new TV season may turn out to be one of the most important ever--for some very unusual reasons.

At stake are issues far more lasting than whether David Letterman or Jay Leno dominates late-night, or whether Dan Rather and Connie Chung succeed as a team, or whether the 38 new network series are better or worse than usual.

In a sense, a kind of ongoing Mayday is developing for the networks as, suddenly, they are forced to confront--off-screen as well as on--significant issues they have tried to sidestep for years, but which refuse to be ignored any longer.

Violence, ageism, minority representation and the very essence of TV--storytelling, which has been increasingly cheapened by gutter-level taste--are all demanding attention from the industry in a confluence of pressures from the public.

And all this is making the networks take a hard look at themselves and what is expected of them by an increasingly sophisticated audience that now has a multiplicity of alternative TV choices.

The remarkable bond that unites these issues is not ratings, which television understands, but the simple matter of what is right and wrong when unleashing the vast powers of the medium, which is something the industry has rarely understood and would rather not think about.

Most immediate on the horizon is Monday’s meeting at the Beverly Hilton of the Industrywide Leadership Conference on Violence in Television Programming, which will tackle the issue that has engaged Congress and the public in a major way.

While TV violence is the issue of the moment--NBC, for example, says it “has designed a distinctly nonviolent prime-time schedule” for the new season--it is not the only critical issue that television will have to face up to in coming weeks. On Sept. 11, ageism--another nerve-end controversy that involves TV’s attitude toward older viewers as well as the treatment of older workers in the industry--will also be the subject of a gathering here.

Titled “Age Has a Future: Maturity and the Media,” the conference will be presented by UCLA, the American Assn. of Retired Persons, the Motion Picture and Television Fund and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. It will be held at the Academy Plaza Theatre in North Hollywood.

Ageism has been a lingering source of anger from older viewers and those in the industry who are middle-aged or more. Viewers rightly claim that too many TV depictions of older people in the youth-dominated medium are absurd, unflattering and stereotypical. And it is no secret that many veteran workers in the television industry, including writers, producers, directors and actors, feel they can’t get jobs because of their age.

For many viewers, the best thing that has happened in this arena of contention is the ascension of CBS--the older-skewing network--to No. 1 in the total household ratings for the last two seasons, appealing to audiences of all ages with shows ranging from “Northern Exposure” to “Murder, She Wrote.”

Dismissing the youth craze of advertisers and Fox Broadcasting, not to mention NBC--which suffered temporary insanity by vainly chasing this audience--CBS has seen its profits soar. It is also making a strong case debunking the nonsense that older viewers are locked into purchasing habits, as well as noting that they control a lot of money and are prime buyers of expensive products advertised by sponsors, from automobiles to high-tech TV equipment.

In the TV season that began last Sept. 14, CBS, through July 18, remains well ahead in the rankings, averaging a 12.4 rating compared to 11.6 for ABC and 10.7 for NBC. (One rating point equals 931,000 homes.) CBS, well in step with an America that is growing older, has also attracted a winning average of 21% of the national TV audience.

As it happens, only eight days after the ageism conference, ABC’s Emmy Awards telecast will shed light on the declining storytelling tastes of the networks. This became certain when the Emmy nominations, announced on July 22, found ABC, CBS and NBC and their trashy film output of the past season shut out in the made-for-TV movie category, where four ambitious entries from HBO and one from PBS swept the field.

The matter of minority representation in TV, both on camera and behind the scenes, remains shameful, with Asian-Americans and American Indians virtually invisible; Latinos only barely on display in the vast panoply of mainstream, English-language programming, and black-oriented series overwhelmingly confined to comedy.

However, the television industry could not help take notice recently of the strong ratings and warm critical reception accorded the HBO miniseries “Laurel Avenue,” one of the rare drama shows in memory to deal seriously with black family life.

Fox Broadcasting, meanwhile, not only has a number of black-oriented series this fall--including a Robert Townsend variety show, “Roc” and “In Living Color”--but also has in reserve a well-regarded dramedy, “South Central,” that could further break down the TV racial barriers that increasingly are bringing vocal protests against the networks.

If it is indeed true that Bill Cosby is heading a group of investors trying to buy NBC, and if he succeeds, you can bet the networks will immediately take on a new look responding to the pressures for racial parity that for so long have been dismissed out of hand, but are growing year after year.

The seeds of TV change have been planted, but will they grow in the arid network atmosphere? It will be easy to check out the use of gratuitous violence--as opposed to the legitimate rough stuff, strong language and minor nudity of ABC’s new 10 p.m. cop show, “NYPD Blue.”

As for storytelling, it may be significant that NBC recently announced top-level management changes in its TV-movie and miniseries department. However, ageism--despite CBS’ success--and proper minority representation are tougher matters to crack because of longstanding inflexibility that has hardened into simple injustice and human cruelty.

Still, with TV forced to face the music, the debates in industry executive suites this season may be infinitely more dramatic and fascinating than what we see on the screen.