Trying to Beat the Summer Blahs

By Richard Zoglin

Summer was once a pleasant, carefree time of year in televisionland. Network programmers had a relatively simple job: switch on the reruns, perhaps trot out a few Gold-diggers to spell Dean Martin for the hot months, and relax. If the viewers flicked off their sets and headed for the ball park, so what? They would be back again in the fall.

But those halcyon days are over. Cable, VCRs and independent stations are steadily eroding the networks' share of the TV audience, and that erosion is especially acute in the summer. Just 35.4% of the nation's TV viewers were watching network programming on a typical evening in the summer of 1984, down from 36.6% in '83 and 37.4% in '82. Nielsen figures for this June and July show the decline is continuing. Fearing that reruns are driving viewers away, the networks this summer are launching an unprecedented wave of new programming. Eight series are debuting for limited runs of five to seven weeks, along with an unusual number of first-run TV movies and specials. CBS has taken the surprising step of dumping summer reruns of Dallas and Falcon Crest, two top-rated shows that do poorly in repeats, in favor of movies.

"We're in a 52-week business now," says B. Donald ("Bud") Grant, president of CBS Entertainment. Some industry observers wonder whether the networks can afford to churn out new programming year round. Replies Grant: "The question is: Can we afford not to? If we can improve the viewer level, it's worth it." Brandon Tartikoff, NBC's programming chief, agrees: "I think if we get more aggressive in the summer, it's going to pay back big dividends."

That remains to be seen. NBC has won the ratings for nine straight weeks, but it has scored highest with reruns of such hits as The Cosby Show, Family Ties and Miami Vice. In fact, the first of four new NBC series planned for the summer, Michael Nesmith in Television Parts, an offbeat comedy using music-video techniques, was dead last in the ratings for three of its four telecasts.

The networks' other summer offerings appear to be more viable commercial enterprises, or at least more shrewdly targeted. Nostalgia for the 1950s and '60s is the rage this summer, as the networks try to woo members of the baby-boom generation, presumably those viewers who are most likely to sample other video choices. How else to excuse Our Time, a tacky half-hour music-variety show that premiered on NBC last weekend? With Host Karen Valentine joined by guests like Night Court's Harry Anderson, the show tries to take a lighthearted look at the '50s and '60s but supplies only a pale hodgepodge of Laugh-In-style sketches, cameo appearances by such ex-child stars as Jay North (Dennis the Menace) and tributes to old TV shows like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

Memories of the '60s will also be wafting out of NBC's The Motown Revue Starring Smokey Robinson. Along with contemporary musical numbers, each show will feature a salute to one year from Motown's heyday. Dick Clark's Rock'n Roll Summer Action, the lone summer entry from ABC, seems aimed at younger viewers (under eight, perhaps) but nods to an older crowd with guest appearances by such relics of the Top 40 as Jan and Dean and Paul Revere and the Raiders. The show makes another contribution to the nostalgia vogue: its mindless fun-on-the-beach antics (a contest to choose "most beautiful back") could set summer TV back 20 years.

CBS's upcoming I Had Three Wives, about a private eye who gets help from his former spouses, at least promises a more contemporary look. But NBC, in an apparent attack of heatstroke, has come up with an oddity called oceanQuest, a documentary series about a Cousteau-like excursion through the world's oceans. Debuting in August for five weeks, the show combines some good undersea photography with ludicrous moments of "true-life drama," centering on the reactions of one neophyte crew member, Shawn Weatherly, a former Miss U.S.A. and Miss Universe.

Most of these series stand no more chance than a June bug of being around when the weather turns cool. A few, however, are making serious tryouts for the regular season schedule. Next month CBS will unveil West 57th, a new magazine show that could return in midseason if it does well. Also set for August is CBS's Hometown, an hour comedy-drama about a group of college friends from the '60s who reunite for some soul searching in the '80s. The resemblance to The Big Chill is impossible to miss: characters reminisce about antiwar rallies and ponder the implications of "getting caught up in the mainstream." Despite its glib predictability, the series boasts a likable cast, headed by Jane Kaczmarek and Daniel Stern, and at least a veneer of seriousness missing from most other summer entries.

Hometown is shaping up as this summer's Call to Glory. Like ABC's critically applauded family drama, introduced last August, Hometown is hoping to build an audience during the last weeks of summer; a spot is already reserved for it on the fall schedule. The trick will be to avoid the fate of Call to Glory, which started strongly but gradually withered under the fall competition. Like any other series looking to survive beyond the summer, Hometown must prove it is a show for all seasons. --By Richard Zoglin. Reported by Richard Woodbury/Los Angeles

With reporting by Reported by Richard Woodbury/Los Angeles