Three Comedies Will Join CBS Schedule Next Month

CBS, last season’s top-rated network, confirmed Monday that it will add three new comedy series and relocate eight established ones next month in a sweeping prime-time schedule overhaul designed to keep pace with this season’s ratings leader, ABC.

On Mondays, “Cybill” will replace creator Diane English’s “Love & War” at 9:30 p.m., beginning Jan. 2. CBS hopes “Murphy Brown” will provide a strong lead-in for the new sitcom, starring Cybill Shepherd as a twice-divorced actress with two daughters from different marriages.

The first-year medical drama “Chicago Hope,” which was battered in the ratings opposite NBC’s hit “ER” on Thursdays, will then step into “Northern Exposure’s” time slot Monday at 10 p.m. To breathe life into “Chicago Hope,” CBS will air the series four times during Christmas week.

Meanwhile, “Northern Exposure” and “Love & War” will move on Jan. 4 to a completely reconfigured Wednesday, featuring a comedy block to take on ABC’s solid night of sitcoms led by “Roseanne.”

Leading off for CBS at 8 p.m. will be Delta Burke’s “Women of the House,” from “Designing Women” producers Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason. In the new show, Burke reprises her Suzanne Sugarbaker role, taking over her late husband’s congressional seat. The politically charged “Hearts Afire,” also from the husband-and-wife producing team, will follow at 8:30 p.m.

English’s new series, “Double Rush,” will come next at 9 p.m., followed by “Love & War.” “Double Rush” stars Robert Pastorelli--Murphy Brown’s handyman--as the owner of a bicycle messenger service. “Northern Exposure” will bring up the rear at 10 p.m.

In other moves, CBS will serve up news against strong comedy competition Thursdays with “Eye to Eye With Connie Chung” and Dan Rather’s “48 Hours” from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. On Saturdays, two first-year sitcoms, “The Boys Are Back” and “The Five Mrs. Buchanans,” will pair up from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m.

“Daddy’s Girls” and “Touched by an Angel” will go on hiatus.