The Sad Plight of Fall Schedules

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

Critics have likened TV watching to drug addiction. But as the big three networks have learned to their discomfort, viewing -- at least of particular programs or channels -- is a habit considerably easier to kick than cocaine or heroin. That is why the rejoicing over last week's settlement of a 150-day strike by the Writers Guild of America was quickly tempered by caution. For the networks, their audiences and the writers themselves, the battle may be over but its effects will linger for months, perhaps years, to come.

The last time striking Hollywood writers disrupted the start of the fall season, in 1981, they delayed new programs on ABC, NBC and CBS by as little as two weeks. Yet that hiatus probably contributed to the networks' combined loss of 4% of the total viewing audience compared with the fourth quarter of the previous year. The drop proved more than temporary: as cable and independent stations have boomed, the big three's share of prime-time viewing has dropped from 90% at the start of the decade to just 70% in the season that ended last April.

This year's rancorous strike has all but eliminated a normal fall TV season, thus threatening to reduce the networks' audience even further. The writers are expected to return to work this week, having won partial concessions on the two key economic issues -- their share of sales abroad and in U.S. syndicated reruns -- plus contract language that may enhance their creative control when scripts are being readied for production or when they languish unmade. But even with the typewriters and word processors clattering again, most returning series will need at least six to eight weeks to gear up before shooting starts; new shows may require more. Because editing and other post- filming tasks also take time, returning series may trickle in through November, and new-series debuts could bump up against the Thanksgiving-to- Christmas holiday period, when viewing lags and seasonal specials are the norm. At least some "fall" premieres may arrive in the January slot customarily given to midseason replacements.

Yet as ABC Entertainment President Brandon Stoddard noted last week, the autumn may not be a "total disaster" for audiences. Olympics coverage and baseball play-offs typically overshadow even full-fledged competition, so rival network executives may be just as happy not to have to expose fragile newcomers until later and viewers may not mind what looks to be a glut of reruns. The Olympics will enable NBC to showcase commercials for its roster of upcoming series. ABC has assigned that promotional role, among others, to the first 18 hours of War and Remembrance, a $105 million adaptation of Herman Wouk's World War II novel. Originally scheduled for February, it was already in production before the strike began and in the absence of other strong programs was moved up to the key ratings month of November, when local-station ad rates are set. A few less grandiose series and made-for-TV movies have been stockpiled, are being made from prestrike scripts, or, as in the case of NBC's ALF and The Cosby Show, were advanced by separate early deals between the producers and the Writers Guild. CBS, which otherwise had little in reserve, hoarded fresh episodes of Murder, She Wrote, and this week starts new installments of The Cavanaughs, starring Barnard Hughes and Christine Ebersole.

To round out the 22 hours of weekly prime time, however, frantic programmers have been examining options ranging from the presumably uncommercial (an hourlong midevening newscast) to the self-satirizing, such as remakes of Mission: Impossible and The Hardy Boys featuring brand-new casts but using the original scripts. Other ideas: foreign imports and more nonfiction and magazine shows. Viewers seeking more attractive alternatives will find cable outlets such as Showtime/The Movie Channel and Home Box Office larding attractive programs into fall weeks, hoping they can lure new subscribers. The syndicators of Phil Donahue's talk show are touting additional installments for prime time.

While the strike has been devastating to countless workers in show business and related industries, in the short run its impact could actually boost network profits. Advance sales of prime-time commercial slots are, unexpectedly, even stronger than last year's, while the cost of acquiring programs may be temporarily lower. Reruns are cheaper than first-time shows, reality-based programs cheaper than fiction, and foreign-made shows often cheaper than U.S. products.

Some executives speculate that the apparent disaster could turn into a valuable laboratory for finding long-run solutions to the networks' financial bind. Forced to experiment with potentially less expensive ways of filling prime time, the networks may discover methods that will last far longer than the strike. Today's stopgap measures may become tomorrow's programming trends. Whether that benefits the viewer remains to be seen.

With reporting by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles