Television Programming

Television programming targeted to children ages 5 to 10 contains, on average, almost twice as many violent incidents as prime-time shows geared toward adults, according to a study released Thursday by a conservative media watchdog group.

Last year, the Harris Poll crowned Jay Leno as America's favorite TV personality. But amid NBC's messy late-night drama, the comedian who has painstakingly cultivated a "Mr. Nice Guy" image has suddenly found himself cast as a villain and become a national punch line. Breaking a long-standing tradition of avoiding personal attacks on one another, TV hosts have been unloading on Leno all week with a fusillade of acerbic potshot and pointed barbs usually reserved for philandering politicians and bonus-taking bankers.

Thursday nights on NBC are a lot like automatic teller machines. Both have been created within our lifetime, but it's nearly impossible to remember a time when they didn't exist. There was an era when getting cash meant standing in a long line at the teller window and NBC Thursday nights meant "Lewis & Clark" and "Harper Valley PTA." Somewhere along the line, though, cash became available on every street corner and watching NBC's Thursday shows became almost like a job requirement.

At the time, it seemed a rather brash statement. In May of last year, a mere 17 months after becoming president of CBS Entertainment, Jeff Sagansky predicted that his cellar-dwelling network would win the prime-time ratings race in the 1991-92 season. It is now less than a year later, and perhaps CBS' new theme song should be "The Impossible Dream." When the 30-week, so-called official ratings season ends next Sunday, CBS will be the winner by a wide margin--with its programs averaging about 1.

When Margaret Loesch, head of the Fox Children's Network, went shopping for some "silly, loopy" counterprogramming to the usual TV 'toon fests, she made a choice that left Fox affiliates, management and even her own staff scratching their heads. "They basically thought I had finally lost it," she said. So nervous were some that days before the show was set to air toward the end of summer, Loesch was being asked about her plans for damage control. The reason?

Two years ago, Aaron Spelling had an idea for a dramatic and, he thought, different television series about a divorced family as told through the eyes of a little boy. Besides voiceovers (later used by "The Wonder Years"), its main innovation was its format--two back-to-back half-hour shows, one about the boy's weekdays with his mother, the other about his weekends with his father. "I got to tell you," Spelling confided, "I was convinced we were going to sell it."

When Pat Mitchell came to the Public Broadcasting Service as its president and chief executive in March, "dysfunctional" was used freely and often to describe the complicated, fractious relationship between the programming organization and its 346 member stations, as they struggled to compete in a rapidly changing media world. No more.

TRUE OR FALSE: Actresses Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan and Betty White write their own dialogue for "The Golden Girls." (FALSE) Older female writers write all 25 episodes each season because no one else could understand the problems of older females. (FALSE) In order to keep the shows consistent from week to week, one writer prepares all the episodes. (FALSE) Ten staff writers work together to prepare a season's worth of scripts.

On a spring day in 1977, Jeff Sagansky was eating lunch at Chadney's restaurant in Burbank with Michael Klein, a young programming executive at NBC. Sagansky was there to interview for a coveted slot in NBC's "associate" program, which picked young hotshots with no television background and put them on the fast track.