What Are the Networks Doing?

The head of a major network said to me recently that he had just seen his company’s lineup for next season. “How is it?” I asked. He said with a shrug: “Terrible, like everybody else’s.”

Geez! I wonder why networks even bother to develop new shows each season? Why don’t they go back and simply redevelop some of the fabulous shows that were never given a chance? For instance, why didn’t NBC and ABC try to steal away Angela Lansbury’s “Murder, She Wrote” when CBS inexplicably removed it from its legendary Sunday night slot and destroyed it?

Some shows that come and go swiftly are rotten. But many have only “failed” because the very executives who OKd them in the first place had no confidence in them yet wanted them to become “overnight hits” and then moved them around so often they could never build an audience.

Is it any wonder the cable networks are booming?

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In spite of lack of faith by the “suits” at CBS, “Women of the House”--now seen on Lifetime--has been voted best series of the year by American Women in Radio and Television.