The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 156

CALENDAR TELEVISION By HOWARD ROSENBERG Television may not have been better in 1981 than in the past, but it often was more interesting. In entertainment programming, there were two soaring developments, both on NBC. They were the arrival of a dramatic police series called Hill Street Blues and a late-night comedy show known as "The SCTV "Hill Street Blues" has emerged as potentially one Week after week, it is at once unpredict- Comedy Network. of the finest TV series ever. fA if It I For the cast of "Hill Street Blues," 1981 was a triumph.

NBC had the courage to hold the show in place while audiences discovered it. And ideals were neve compromised. able and an automatic lump in the throat, a thoughtful, stirring hour of action, wit, passion and depth, rich in plot and characters. Not having been a policeman, I can't vouch for its authenticity. However, there is a genuineness in the interplay of characters that transcends their surroundings.

Rather than supercops, the men and women of "Hill Street Blues" are flawed, vulnerable and occasionally irrational and irritating. They are largely stalemated by life but win some small battles along the way. Produced by MTM, the show is a tribute to a lovely cast, the creative team headed by Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll, and also to NBC. The network's patience with "Hill Street Blues" last season when the show's Nielsen ratings were dismal was rewarded this season by surging audience figures that seem to assure a fruitful run. Perhaps most interesting of all, "Hill Street Blues" has achieved commercial success without having to compromise.

There's a message in that. "SCTV Comedy Network," meanwhile, is the most fulfilling, inventive laugh-making machine since this is on the level "Your Show of Shows" left the air in 1954 after introducing the comedic acting of Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca and Carl Reiner and the writing of some guys named Neil Simon and Mel Brooks. On such shows as "Saturday Night Live" (past and present), you endure the flat gags in anticipation of the inevitable pearl or two. On "The SCTV Comedy Network," you get clobbered by pearls. Produced in Edmonton, Canada, and put on by Toronto's Second City troupe, its scorching TV satire is the product of extraordinary staging and writing and a cast Dave Thomas, Rich Moranis, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Joe Flaherty, Katherine O'Hara and John Candy that is the most versatile and brilliant comedy group ever to operate on TV.

NBC's dilemma is not being able to find a time slot for the SCTV players other than the 12:30 a.m. Siberia where they are now buried. A target of "The SCTV Comedy Network" satire one week was that confederation of conservative -oriented organizations known as the Coalition for Better Television. This pressure group became TV's Big Scare of 1981. Don't count it out for 1982, either.

It was the coalition, headed by an obscure Mississippi minister named Donald Wildmon, which said TV was too sexy and violent even for viewers who didn't agree that it was too sexy and violent. The coalition used the threat of boycott to get the ears of the networks and big advertisers. One threatened boycott was called off by the coalition after Wildmon said networks and advertisers The Rev. Jerry FalweU, above, is the most prominent member of the Coalition for Better Television, led by the Rev. Donald Wildmon, below.

work profit center. So the CBS powers -that, be got edgy about their Walter-less evening news and only recently hustled in Van Gordon Sauter to take over the news division and start planning the ratings resurrection. It was a tightening of the ratings race among the three network news divisions in 1981 that fueled an even more frantic, perilous charge to be the first on the air with the big story then trumpet that achievement to the nation. TV could rejoice in its exhilarating coverage of the returning U.S. hostages from Iran, but the pressures of covering the attempted assassinations of President Reagan and Pope John Paul II and the murder of Anwar Sadat sometimes showed the medium's instant journalism at its worst.

Unlike the print media whose headlines were quickly outdated, network news could be on the air and reporting world events in a flash, as they were unfolding. "But not always accurately, it was sadly demonstrated, when all three networks falsely reported the death of presidential aide James Brady, who had been wounded with President Reagan. Was the Brady goof merely a tragic consequence of the ratings-fueled rush to scoop, or a hint that technology the capacity for instant reporting had moved ahead of the networks' capacity to deal with it? That was one of the biggest questions facing TV news as 1981 drew to a close. (f 7 3 seemed to be responding to the group's demands. As bad and unresponsive as TV frequently is, no one deserves to have anything like the coalition breathing down its neck.

The good that such a group does in forcing the TV establishment to listen to its critics is far outweighed by the potential for censorship. By year's end, meanwhile, a rift appeared to be developing between Wildmon and the Rev. Jerry Falwell, leader of the Moral Majority, the coalition's most prominent member. While Falwell sounded a less militant tone, Wildmon had turned his attention to TV's "anti-Christian bigotry" and threatened to boycott anew. Change by Feb.

1, warned Wildmon, or face the possibility of a boycott of products associated with programs deemed offensive. So, as 1982 began, it seemed that what the coalition meant by "better TV" was in reality Christian TV. If the warring Wildmon rocked the industry in 1981, so did the shakeup at NBC, where beleaguered president Fred Silverman stepped down and was replaced at the network helm by Grant Tinker, who was named chairman of the board. Silverman was the junk food merchant, the would-be savior who was unable to resurrect NBC from the ashes. His departure was no surprise, but his successor was.

A frequent outspoken critic of TV, Tinker had headed MTM, a production company equated with quality. Tinker, with his blend of pragmatism, idealism and good taste, was not expected to transform NBC into PBS or a wall-to-wall "Hill Street Blues." But NBC had nowhere to go but up, and Tinker was hailed as the kind of man who at least could attract to. NBC the most creative members of the industry. So, if while becoming more profitable, NBC also got better, it wouldn't hurt. Even more profound than the Grant-for-Fred exchange at NBC was the Dan-for-Walter shift at CBS News.

The CBS News anchor accession was handled with all the spectacle and pomp of a monarchy. Walter Cronkite retired from anchoring and was succeeded by Dan Rather, who was chosen over Roger Mudd. Unfortunately for Rather, the man who succeeded Cronkite would be inevitably compared with Cronkite and his ratings. CBS tried to keep up appearances. After all, Cronkite was gone, but it was still the same show.

Viewers were getting "The CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite Now Starring Dan Rather But We'd Appreciate It If You'd Continue Watching Anyway." Many didn't. The post-Cronkitc ratings slipped and "CBS Evening News" became a Nielsen mortal, embroiled in a three-way race with national news shows from ABC and NBC, News has become an important net.