ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 13, 1995 TAG: 9512130078
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: FRAZIER MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Last March, CBS was boasting that its new shows for the 1995-96 season would be ``fiercely contemporary and cutting-edge.''
Those are buzz words for ``we're doing a full-court press to lasso the 18- to 49-year-old viewers for which our advertisers pay us premium rates.'' Those are the buzz words of Peter Tortorici, who doesn't work at CBS anymore.
His successor as the network's entertainment president, Leslie Moonves, now is faced with clearing the rubble of CBS' fiercely contemporary, cutting-edge - and viewer-spurned - programs, and with building in its place a prime-time lineup that works.
What was his first grand gesture? To sign Bill Cosby for the fall '96 schedule.
Announcing the big-bucks deal at a news conference last week, Moonves characterized Cosby's new comedy series and the strategy it represents this way: ``Traditional but different.'' Which sounds like buzz words for ``there's something here to love, no matter who you are - and, by the way, WE love YOU!''
Maybe the time is past for the major broadcast networks to try to pick and choose their viewers.
David Poltrack, CBS vice president for research, noted that last month ABC, CBS and NBC were watched by 53 percent of the available viewing audience each night - a 10 percent decline compared to November 1994, when the Big Three attracted 59 percent.
Meanwhile, out of a record 42 new series introduced this fall by all the networks, there are exactly zero break-out hits.
On his upcoming sitcom, Cosby (who, at 58, is himself well out of the 18-to-49 demographic) will play a crochety grandfather. Nothing cutting-edge there, suggesting that CBS has recalled what the networks seem routinely to forget: that an older audience is better than no viewers. And that lots of viewers of all ages is better than a few in that select 18-to-49 segment.
One thing no one in the business will ever forget is how ``The Cosby Show'' rescued NBC. In 1984, Cosby's gentle family sitcom premiered on a network as beaten-down as CBS today, and almost singlehandedly triggered NBC's ratings renaissance. History repeating itself: that's what CBS dreams of.
``We're back to trying to produce the sort of broad-based hit show that has always been the strength of network television,'' said Poltrack.
He pointed out that when networks preoccupy themselves with demographically targeted series, they end up fighting for the same 18-to-49 segment, while the rest of the viewers are underserved.
``The network audience declines are concentrated in the under-18 and over-50 categories,'' Poltrack said, ``and, not surprisingly, the cable audience gains are concentrated in the under-18 and over-50 categories.''
Cosby isn't the only example of CBS' return to a big-tent policy in its programming. Two general-appeal series, ``Due South'' and ``Diagnosis Murder'' (the latter starring 69-year-old Dick Van Dyke), return this Friday. ``You Asked for it! We're Back!'' trumpets a CBS ad hopefully.
And, perhaps most tellingly, there's the graying of ``Central Park West.'' Conceived as a celebration of Manhattan's beautiful, buff and barely over 30, ``CPW'' got dismal ratings this fall. Now it's on hiatus until January, being retooled into ``Knots Landing Goes Gotham.''
Among the changes on the new, older ``CPW'': Gerald McRaney, a star of the past CBS hits ``Simon & Simon'' and ``Major Dad,'' will come aboard.
``I'm trying to fine-tune the show so it appeals more to the audience that's already at the network,'' said ``CPW'' creator Darren Star, whose ``Beverly Hills, 90210'' and ``Melrose Place'' bring the Fox network more of the young audiences CBS once salivated over.
Wasn't Star hired to bring some of his ``Melrose'' magic to old, tired CBS?
``I sure was,'' he said during a recent phone conversation. ``That's what I came here to do, and'' - he laughed sportingly - ``it didn't work.''
Even if it had worked, and ``CPW'' had been an instant hit, ``I would have still gone after Bill Cosby,'' said Moonves. ``You go after him no matter what demographic you're looking for.
``Yet is there a paucity of family shows on the air? Absolutely,'' he said. ``Are we looking at Saturday night, saying, `Hmmm, `Dr. Quinn' and `Touched By An Angel' are doing exceptionally well?' It would be stupid not to pay attention to that.''
CBS, at least, is taking a new look at older audiences, and at the shows that attract them. The over-49s are welcome again. But can they be won back?
LENGTH: Medium: 83 linesby CNB