Overhaul at CBS

After 15 years on top of the TV-ratings heap, CBS has run into trouble this season. The result last week, as NBC and CBS announced their program lineups for next fall, was CBS's most drastic overhaul since the James Aubrey reign of the early 1960s. The network abandoned many of the traditional shows that had given it clear superiority in rural areas and among the elderly. It concentrated instead on its idea of sophistication. That meant the cancellation of The Red Skelton Show after 16 seasons, The Jackie Gleason Show after eight successful years and Petticoat Junction after seven.

In the ratings race, CBS is having its worst season since 1955, trailing NBC by 3% in prime evening-time audience. What is more, NBC, with its more urban-oriented schedule, holds a 29% edge in college-educated viewers and a 28% margin among those earning $10,000 or more. Since such demographic breakdowns are becoming increasingly critical for sponsors, Skelton and Petticoat Junction were dumped even though they ranked among the top 25 programs in total audience. CBS also dropped Lancer, Get Smart and the Tim Conway situation comedy.

Now Deal. Conway himself will be back on the network headlining a variety hour. So will two other old CBS sitcom stars, Mary Tyler Moore, who will play a career girl at a TV station, and Andy Griffith, who will no longer be a rustic sheriff but headmaster of a private school. Herschel Bernardi will be a fledgling executive in yet another comedy series. CBS's other substitutes will be city-slick, with titles like The Interns and Store-Front Lawyers. The intent, says the network's senior programming vice president, Michael Dann, is to "deal with the now scene." The reality may be something else again.

NBC is also doing some shuffling, but less than ever before. On the canceled list: / Dream of Jeannie, Daniel Boone, Dragnet '70, The Debbie Reynolds Show, Then Came Branson and My World and Welcome to It. In their place will go variety hours starring Black Comic Flip Wilson and Don Knotts (from the old Andy Griffith Show) plus Nancy, a sappy-sounding sitcom with Celeste Holm set in the White House. NBC has also taken on CBS Castoff Skelton, although for a half-hour at a time instead of an hour.

ABC--still No. 3 but gaining (it lags 20% behind CBS)--has yet to settle its 1970-71 plans. Only certainties so far are professional football games on Monday nights during the fall and two new sitcoms: one based on Neil Simon's The Odd Couple and starring Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, the other reviving Danny Thomas and titled Make Room for Granddaddy.

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