At CBS, Another Black Eye Blurs Vision of Future
How's this for high-concept television: A great network lifts itself out of the ratings cellar and rides high for three years. Then, all at once, things get rocky. The network loses its top programming executive, its high-profile sports shows, even some of its affiliates. As executives search desperately for a new hit, the ratings start to look shaky again.</br></br>This scenario, as they say on TV, is based on a true story. CBS, the dominant television network of the early '90s, appears headed for a fall. Despite winning a ratings triple crown during the last television season - taking the top spot in the prime time, daytime and late night Nielsens - in recent months the network of "Murphy Brown" and "Late Night With David Letterman" has been showing clear signs of deterioration.</br></br>Last week, Black Rock, as CBS's New York headquarters is known, was shaken anew. New World Communications Group Inc., which owns eight TV stations affiliated with CBS, said it was shifting its loyalties to Rupert Murdoch's Fox network. The move was widely read as a coup for Fox, which paid $500 million for the stations' affiliation, and as a major defeat for CBS. Indeed, the stock market's judgment was swift and harsh: Investors rushed to sell their CBS shares, knocking nearly $520 million off the company's value on paper in two days (the stock recovered slightly later in the week).</br></br>CBS executives argue that the reaction to the New World-Fox deal was overblown. After all, they said, with its powerful prime time lineup, CBS should have no trouble persuading other stations in the eight markets to sign up to carry "60 Minutes," "Murder, She Wrote" and other CBS fare. Fox, sniffed CBS Broadcasting Group President Howard Stringer last week, is a network of "downscale sitcoms and titillating soap operas."</br></br>In fact, Fox - whose ratings have declined 10 percent in the past two years - needs the soon-to-be former CBS affiliates more than CBS. Once it finds stations to replace those it has lost, CBS's "worst case" internal projections call for it to lose about 15 percent of its current audience in the eight cities.