The networks call this time of year mid-season; you probably call it what-the-hell-is-this-show-and-where-the-hell-is- that-show season. Come Wednesday, March 12, for example, you may decide to hunker down at 10 p.m. to watch Law & Order. But what NBC's going to show you is Prince Street, a new cop show, for five weeks. Where's your old pal Law going? To Thursdays at 10, while your best friend, ER, takes a little vacation. On CBS, Rhea Perlman's brassy Pearl will clam up so that Temporarily Yours, an even brassier sitcom with Debi Mazar, can get a tryout. And on ABC, Ellen will move to Tuesdays at 8:30, as Arsenio Hall's new sitcom takes over her Wednesday-at-9:30 slot. Hey, they're even yanking NYPD freakin' Blue to showcase the fledgling law show The Practice.
Over the next month, the three major nets will premiere nearly a dozen new series. The positive side to all this baiting and switching is more original programming. ''Viewers have too many options out there'' -- on Fox, UPN, The WB, and cable -- ''for networks to throw repeats on for two months before [fresh episodes] start again in May,'' says Kelly Kahl, VP of scheduling for CBS. ''We understand they may be frustrated by scheduling changes, [but] which will tick them off less, new product or repeats?''
''I think that TV viewers are savvy enough that it doesn't confuse them,'' says Jeff Bader, scheduling VP for ABC. ''People know shows come on for six weeks to be tried out and that their [favorites] will be back.'' But Preston Beckman, NBC's senior VP of scheduling, isn't as convinced of the public's media savvy: ''Generally, the viewer is confused anyway. If you asked most of them what night and network Roseanne is on, you'd be shocked at the answers you got.''
Assuming the average viewer can figure out where new shows are, why should she or he spend the time developing an affection for something that most likely will have no life beyond spring? It's a risk, allows Kahl, but one that has been known to pay off: ''Sometimes it can be a real benefit to come on mid-season,'' he says, citing success stories like Ellen, Cybill, and 3rd Rock From the Sun. ''Because it's only two or three new shows, you can devote more energy to them. In the fall, it's easy to get lost in the shuffle.''
Viewer preference aside, do networks alienate their shows by pulling established hits to showcase rookies? How, for example, did the people at ER feel about ceding their king-of-the-TV-universe spot? Says Beckman: ''If [ER exec producer] John Wells or [creator] Michael Crichton said, 'I don't want you to take us off,' we'd go, 'Yes, sir!' But Wells is a very smart man. He said, 'Look, we're going to piss off fans if we do 22 [episodes], then we're suddenly repeating.'''
Is it possible that America will soon have a TV system like Britain's, in which new shows premiere throughout the year, stay on for a month or two at a time, and go on and off the schedule depending on their popularity?
