WHAT HIM WORRY?

"Preston's very powerful," says a senior studio exec with several NBC shows. "Ninety percent of what he says gets done. If Beckman shows up at a table read, you better hope he's laughing." It's no coincidence that a recent episode of Just Shoot Me included a stalker named Beckman.

No matter who shoulders the blame, life at NBC will only get tougher. CBS' coverage of the Winter Olympics should guarantee another sweeps victory come February, as well as improve its numbers in the 18-to-49 demo. There's the upcoming ER renewal negotiations: Wild speculation has Warner Bros. soliciting bids from rival nets if NBC doesn't cough up enough, but odds are long that the drama will move. Nevertheless, it will ultimately cost NBC $5 million (at least) per episode and Littlefield countless headaches. And more seriously, there's Seinfeld. Should this be the sitcom's final season, Littlefield is faced with replacing the nation's top sitcom--potentially the biggest challenge of his career. Then again, didn't he face that once before?

Formulaic is the spitball most frequently lobbed at Littlefield's programming, with Seinfeld the textbook example. It was offered back when Tartikoff and Littlefield were still a team, and their dislike of it was well known.

In retrospect, can you blame them? Yes, creating TV for the masses can lead to generic programming. But isn't appealing to the most people possible a network president's job? In 1989, four neurotic New Yorkers didn't spell hit. Yet something told Littlefield that Seinfeld, not Wings, was Cheers' Thursday successor. And back in '93, replacing that juggernaut seemed unthinkable.

It's a similar story with ER. Ohlmeyer, the story goes, hated the pilot. Littlefield was nervous too, but after extensive testing and prodding from then-Warner Bros. TV president Leslie Moonves (now president of CBS), the show got its Thursday slot, quickly topped Nielsen's chart—and Hello, Must See TV! Littlefield and Beckman also risked moving Frasier from the safety of Thursday to Tuesday, with great results: The Peacock now often wins a night once owned by ABC. And you can thank Littlefield for sticking with such critically lauded, low-rated shows as Homicide: Life on the Street, NewsRadio, and Just Shoot Me (the latter now doing nicely on Tuesday), despite the current tendency to ax underperformers forthwith.

"These are the facts: Warren has lived through the creation of two new networks [UPN and the WB], been second-guessed about choosing Leno over Letterman and ended up being 100 percent correct," says Jay Sures, cohead of the United Talent Agency's TV department.

Littlefield, Sures says, gets a bad rap because of his power. "He is frequently put in the tough position of saying no to the [producers and writers], which creates animosity. Show me one other network president with such massive hits."

Ultimately, it seems to come down to this: Littlefield, while an astute and successful programmer, has had the advantage and disadvantage of working under charismatic industry giants, and he suffers in comparison. Nevertheless, for all the problems the network currently faces, it will likely finish this year as Madison Avenue's favorite for a third straight season, for which Littlefield's instincts account in no small part. While losing total viewers in November sweeps is a blow, and perhaps a sign of hard times ahead, that really won't impact NBC's bottom line if it can correct its scheduling mistakes before season's end. "NBC can't be overtaken because of Tuesday, Thursday, and Dateline," says Schulman. "The rest can die on the vine, and they'll still be on top. The other nets have more problems."

Should Seinfeld or ER not return—well, then the Peacock had better mind its perch. "There is a very good chance they would fall out of first place," says Steve Sternberg, senior partner of BJK&E Media. "The race is so close now that losing two hits would do a lot more damage than, say, five years ago."

But if, as Dick Wolf says, TV is a business of inches, Littlefield has shown a certain genius for building an empire out of small advantages.