Thrusday, January 07, 1999
Networks fine tune lineups
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Never mind. Forget about those great new fall TV shows — I have, for the most part — and get ready for new cannon fodder from the networks.
Forget about Good Morning America co-hosts Lisa McRee and Kevin Newman, who failed to last 18 months.
Forget about NBC's claim of “Must See TV” on Thursdays. This week's ratings reflect what we've known for a long time, that NBC's Thursday has lost its appeal. For the first time in five years, NBC's Thursday shows were beaten by CBS — by reruns of Promised Land and Diagnosis Murder! (Since Seinfeld signed off, NBC has lost 16 percent of its audience.)
Now it's a new year, and time for midseason replacements and other adjustments to the programming in your TV set.
Critical view
While the new shows hit the airwaves this month, TV critics will gather in Pasadena, Calif., for the Television Critics Association's winter press tour to grill network executives about what went wrong with the fall programs and why so few survived into the new year.
We don't expect to hear much rationale from NBC and Fox, where ratings dropped so much that the chief programmers failed to keep their jobs into the new year. Both of those networks hired new executives with cable experience that could really change the TV picture.
NBC folks will sing the praises of Providence, which premieres Friday (9 p.m., Channels 5, 22) with Melina Kanakaredes (New York News, NYPD Blue, Leaving LA) as a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who returns home to Providence, R.I. They'll want us to forget how much they hyped John Wells' Trinity drama last fall, which failed in that time slot in just three weeks.
And NBC executives are hoping we won't remember how bad ER was with Mr. Wells preoccupied with Trinity, or how forgettable Frasier was with its creative team trying to salvage Nathan Lane's Encore! Encore! (which is no more, no more).
Fox folks will gush about Eddie Murphy's new Claymation sitcom, The PJs, which premieres Sunday (8:30 p.m., Channels 19, 45), then moves to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. They're hoping we forget about Costello, Fox's fall season cornerstone that crumbled in three short weeks — and destroyed the audience for King of the Hill.
First-place CBS
CBS folks will tell us how they're banking on 60 Minutes II (9 p.m. Wednesday, Channels 12, 7) to bolster their surprising leap into first place this season. They'll brag about JAG, and hope we don't remember their dramatic failures with To Have & To Hold and Buddy Faro.
ABC executives will break their arms patting themselves on the back for Sports Night, the season's only true hit. But they'll squirm when we ask why they add a phony laugh track to the distinctive comedy-drama.
ABC also will introduce Charlie Gibson and Connie Chung as hosts of the new 20/20 Monday starting Feb. 1 — and they'll hope we forget to mention it will become the 14th prime-time newsmagazine.
We'll also ask TV executives about the Big Picture — the future of free, over-the-air network television, as more of us continue to watch cable programs. This insane system of premiering 36 new fall series, then canceling half of them by Christmas, must change.
But how? Hopefully, we'll come home from Pasadena with some insights.
Look for Enquirer TV/radio critic John Kiesewetter's reports from the Television Critic Association's press tour beginning Monday.
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