Summer Stock
Here's something to look forward to this summer: fewer TV
reruns. CBS is gearing up its hidden-camera sagas Big Brotherand Survivor; Fox has the reality show tentatively titled
American High (cameras follow Illinois teens), the new
boarding-school drama The Opposite Sex, and more original
episodes of The PJs and Time of Your Life (oh, goody); ABC will
unveil the animated Clerks and the brain-busting quiz show
Mastermind; The WB has a teen soap, Young Americans; and UPN
has — you guessed it — new episodes of Smackdown! ''Summer's a
great time to be daring in the programming you present and in
the manner in which you schedule it,'' says CBS Television CEO
Leslie Moonves, who plans to air 100 hours of Big Brother on
consecutive nights. Strangely, NBC is playing it cool and
sticking with repeats (save a few fresh Datelines). Why?
Entertainment prez Garth Ancier disagrees that there's money to
be made with original fare. ''We're all still paying increasingly
high program license fees,'' says Ancier of the nets'
September-May lineup. ''To run episodes only once seems plainly
naive. You need those summer reruns.'' Party pooper.
Outlook: Friendly
It's season-finale time for TV writers, which means it should
also be time for all six Friends (whose $100,000-per-episode
deals expire in May) to decide if they're coming back. But with
only five more episodes to shoot before wrapping in mid-April,
the sextet has yet to even begin negotiations. Apparently,
that's not such a bad sign: ''There's not a lot of anger or angst
or confrontation,'' says a source close to the show who's
cautiously optimistic about its return, even though cast members
will likely seek north of $500,000 per episode. On the brighter
side: Many key Friends writers are already signed on for two
more seasons. As for the finale, the source speculates that the
scribes may have to write it without knowing what the future
holds. Hey, you can't go wrong marrying Ross off again.
Sports CompetitionSince ABC vultures seem to be circling Sports Night, rival nets are ready to pounce. ''Sports Night is a terrific show, and I'm sure other networks, including NBC, would consider [grabbing]it,'' says NBC Studios president Ted Harbert. Even HBO was approached, but ''we're not in any discussions to pick [it] up,'' says a spokeswoman. Although no official decision's been made, Sports Night's future on ABC definitely doesn't look rosy; the net is ending the show's season on April 4 to prevent it from doing more ratings damage (it averages a paltry 11.6 million viewers) during May sweeps. Still, ABC's not ready to count Sports Night out just yet. Says one net exec: ''It's a devilish series. We really, really like it. It's just a [scheduling]challenge.''
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