FOX, C-SPAN, AMC, AND PRAY FOR RAIN:

CBS's Problems Are Bigger Than 'Reagan' (JOHN H. FUND, 11/05/03, Wall Street Journal)

This is not the first time CBS has been caught with its demographic pants down. Its audiences skew older and more conservative than those of other networks. Yet [CBS President and CEO Les] Moonves, a former actor who is known as the smoothest executive in Hollywood, isn't giving interviews on his programming choices.

In 1998, he cancelled the family-friendly "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," even though it dominated its time slot. He felt its audience was too female and too old. This past summer he admitted that the No. 1 viewer complaint to CBS remains his cancellation of "Dr. Quinn." "They want it back," he says. He dismissed the success of the religious show "Touched by an Angel" as a "fluke" and presided over an ill-fated effort to bring radio's raunchy Howard Stern to television. Last year, he was ridiculed by David Letterman on his own network for a four-day junket to Cuba during which he hobnobbed with Fidel Castro and got the dictator's autograph on a cigar box.

This year he has stumbled twice. In May, he was embarrassed when the CBS movie "Hitler: The Rise of Evil" drew ominous parallels between Hitler's ascent to power and the reaction of the Bush administration to 9/11. After its producer, Ed Gernon, blatantly tipped his hand by telling TV Guide that "I can't think of a better time to examine this history than now," Mr. Moonves fired him.

But that dustup was nothing compared to Mr. Moonves's other blunder: his plan to launch a reality series called "The Real Beverly Hillbillies." Using so-called "hick hunts," the network intended to move an uneducated Appalachian family into an opulent West Coast mansion and invite the nation to laugh at their bumbling ways. Several union leaders and 43 members of Congress called on Mr. Moonves to shelve the show. Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia suggested that, instead, Mr. Moonves program a reality show that relocated network executives to "the sticks," where they would have to find a job. Mr. Moonves admitted the "phenomenal" opposition to the show left him "pretty surprised." [...]

The fact is that while CBS has an eye for its logo it also has a cultural tin ear. Even as it prepared to jettison "The Reagans," the Tiffany Network managed another faux pas during Sunday's 75th-anniversary program. Shortly after Mr. Moonves appeared onstage, the show aired a clip of Ronald Reagan as a "mystery guest" on a 1953 episode of "What's My Line?" It showed him trying to fool the celebrity panel with a silly hick accent accompanied by grotesque faces. The message seemed to be, "This guy's a dope."

Mr. Reagan deserved better. Another brief clip shown Sunday night noted Mr. Reagan's 1954-62 run as host of CBS's "General Electric Theater." Only four months after he started it became TV's top weekly dramatic program. In 1985, the New York Times credited CBS's success at overtaking NBC in 1955 to the popularity of four shows: those featuring Jack Benny, Lucille Ball, Ed Sullivan and Ronald Reagan. Given how much Mr. Reagan contributed to CBS, it's passing strange that the network should be caught treating the former president shabbily.

If only the Gipper were still in possession of his faculties--he'd find all this hilarious.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 5, 2003 10:17 AM