Networks Employing Double Vision

If you watched NBC’s “Merlin” instead of “Apollo 13” on Sunday, not to worry: ABC will run the Tom Hanks movie again this Saturday, and use the same Sunday-Saturday repeat pattern next week with the hit movie “Babe.” Reruns during a sweeps period? Such tactics underscore new realities of a fragmented prime-time audience, as major networks repeat popular fare within a few days, just as cable channels do. A proliferation of reruns, in fact, has been this TV season’s untold story, with ABC and NBC regularly scheduling two airings of “Home Improvement,” “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” “Boy Meets World,” “Seinfeld” and “3rd Rock From the Sun” to plug holes in their lineups. Variations on the practice will become even more prevalent in the future, such as NBC’s plans to “time-shift” programs--offering second showings of “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and daytime soap “Sunset Beach” between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. for night owls. NBC actually inaugurated the twice-a-week movie strategy against the Winter Olympics in 1992 with “Kindergarten Cop,” while ABC did the same in February with “Casper.” The friendly g-g-ghost scared up pretty good ratings both nights.

Looking for a Whole Lotta (Sales) Love

Led Zeppelin built an enormous sales legacy in the ‘70s, selling some 64 million albums, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America. (Only the Beatles and Garth Brooks have sold more in the United States.) But will Zeppelin fans get the Led out for Page & Plant? We’ll get our first indication Wednesday when SoundScan reports first-week sales figures for a new album by former Led Zeppelin leaders Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Titled “Walking Into Clarksdale,” the album is the first collection of new studio recordings by the duo since Led Zeppelin’s 1979 swan song, “In Through the Out Door.” A 1994 album by the duo, “No Quarter,” consisted almost entirely of “unplugged” versions of Led Zeppelin songs--and sold about 1 million copies, SoundScan reports. A subsequent tour a year later grossed about $34 million, according to Pollstar magazine, though promoters say Page & Plant could have earned three or four times that amount if they’d gone out under the Led Zeppelin banner and played more than just a sampling of their most familiar songs. A tour, kicking off May 19 in Pensacola, Fla., and expected to reach Southern California in the fall, also will accompany the new album. “It’s not exactly what the [Zepplin] fans want,” Bob Feterl, a regional manager for Tower Records, says of the Page & Plant album, “but it’s getting pretty close. I think it will do well. There’s definitely a buzz out there.”

--Compiled by Times staff writers and contributors