Television Networks

NBC, CBS and ABC will continue to televise National Football League replacement games this weekend if the players' strike isn't settled, the networks announced Tuesday. The networks are evaluating the strike games on a week-to-week basis. Overall ratings for NFL games declined more than 20% during the first week of strike games, but network officials said the ratings were better than expected.

The "spin doctors"--professional manipulators of television--have taken over political conventions and presidential debates, so it is no surprise that they have now taken over the Gulf War. In this case, the spin doctors are government information brokers who have learned well the smooth Madison Avenue-style control over television, from prime-time entertainment to White House news conferences.

Something was different about those instant network projections of who won and who lost Tuesday's elections. To save money, NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN for the first time pooled their resources for a single exit poll. In exit polls, the basis for network projections, voters in selected precincts are interviewed as they leave the polling place and are asked how they voted and why.

With anthrax discovered at NBC, infecting one staffer, and an ABC producer's child now also confirmed to have the bacteria, TV news cameras have had to turn inward. NBC employees showed up on the news as they lined up to be tested for the disease. An ABC reporter stood outside ABC News on Manhattan's Upper West Side on Tuesday trying to buttonhole colleagues into talking on camera.

After a meeting that included actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and top studio executives, Warner Bros. Pictures announced Wednesday that it will postpone indefinitely the Oct. 5 release of its terrorism-themed action-thriller "Collateral Damage." In the film, Schwarzenegger plays a firefighter whose wife and young son perish when terrorists from Colombia blow up a Los Angeles skyscraper. The studio also announced that, effective immediately, it is pulling all advertising for the movie.

At Manhattan's famed Radio City Music Hall, home of the high-stepping Rockettes, NBC Entertainment President Jeffrey Zucker took a hard kick at his ratings rivals. "We're No. 1 in the morning, No. 1 in daytime, No. 1 in late night and No. 1 in prime time 47 of the last 56 weeks," he boasted to a packed house of advertisers, agents and studio executives this week. "The momentum is all with us."

Raising the possibility that two large shop-at-home TV networks may be one too many in today's troubled retail climate, Home Shopping Network said Thursday that it is holding "exploratory" talks regarding a possible business combination with archrival QVC Network. Although neither company would elaborate on the announcement, analysts said rumors of a merger have been flying in recent days. The two networks dominate the $2-billion-a-year televised shop-at-home market.

The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday rejected a push by Hollywood producers and writers to reimpose rules requiring the major television networks to buy a minimum amount of their programming from independent production companies.

If you tune in the NBA basketball playoffs tonight on NBC, you'll hear studio host Bob Costas promoting a post-game show--one being presented on NBC-owned cable network CNBC. There was a time when networks were loath to even mention competing services (remember Johnny Carson saying a guest's show aired "on another network"?), much less invite viewers to watch a program on another channel, as NBC has done in trumpeting CNBC's coverage during its first three NBA Finals telecasts.

In the grand tradition of quickie TV movie subjects such as "Lethal Lolita" Amy Fisher, cult leader David Koresh and alleged parent slayers Lyle and Erik Menendez, the Icewomen cometh. ABC, NBC and Fox are moving at triple-lutz speed in their plans for movies based on Olympic ice-skating silver medalist Nancy Kerrigan and rival Tonya Harding. Another producer is hoping to put together a feature film with Harding's cooperation.