CBS Gambles Lox, Stock and Barrel

By Lisa de Moraes
Thursday, May 17, 2007; Page C07

NEW YORK, May 16

As a rule, the broadcast TV network most desperate for viewers takes the biggest programming chances. Remember the year ABC put "Lost" and"Desperate Housewives" on its prime-time slate after four years in the ratings cellar?

Stunningly, the network taking the wildest swings next season with its new series choices is also the one with the most viewers.

CBS.

CBS is not starved for ratings. It is, however, starved for buzz. Possibly because CBS airs shows like "NCIS," "The Unit," "Ghost Whisperer" and "Criminal Minds." (As opposed to, say, NBC, which is a ratings anorexic these days, but steeped to the gills in buzz thanks to barely watched "hits" like "The Office" and "30 Rock.") We could prattle on for hours about why this is so, starting with the Reporters Who Cover Television and the Editors of the Reporters Who Cover Television wanting to hang out with Tina Fey as opposed to, say, Don Bellisario.

But the important thing for you to understand is why CBS has gone and ordered for next season shows with singers, swingers, vampires and unaccompanied minors.

"For those of you who accuse CBS of being too conservative, I think you will feel differently when you see the shows we have lined up," CBS Corp. Chairman Leslie Moonves told the Reporters Who Give NBC All That Buzz during a morning news conference before his afternoon dog-and-pony show for advertisers at Carnegie Hall.

"We wanted to take some chances -- we could afford to," he added later.

Those chances include "Viva Laughlin," the U.S. adaptation of the BBC musical drama "Viva Blackpool," about a guy trying to open a casino in Laughlin, Nev. Lloyd Owen and Hugh Jackman star.

And "Swingtown," chronicling an affluent wife-swapping Chicago suburb in the '70s. Think polyester, bad hair, shag carpeting and lots of sex, laced with 'ludes. Yes, it was originally developed for cable TV.

And "Moonlight," a drama about a private eye who's a vampire blessed with a pal who works at the morgue and who keeps him in groceries, which he stores in the fridge at home. Then the vampire PI goes and falls in love and things get really complicated.

And "Kid Nation" -- think "Lord of the Flies" meets "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" -- in which 40 kids between the ages of 8 and 15 spend 40 days without their parents in a New Mexico ghost town, trying to forge their own society. (Heck, where I grew up in Colorado they call that "summer camp.") Anyway, CBS calls it an aspirational social experiment and, in a clip shown to advertisers Wednesday, we saw a lot of children shouting, a lot of children crying, a lot of children hugging. Not unlike an episode of "One Tree Hill," as noted by one TV critic at the Carnegie Hall presentation.

And "Cane," an ensemble drama starring Jimmy Smits as the new head of a large, wealthy Cuban American family in the rum and sugar business in South Florida.

And "The Big Bang Theory" from "Two and a Half Men" creator Chuck Lorre about Cal Tech brainiacs smitten by the hot bimbo next door who, in one of the biggest leaps of faith ever demanded of viewers, we're supposed to believe is an aspiring screenwriter.

Moonves's is the longest-running morning Q&A during the so-called Broadcast Upfront Week, when the broadcast nets take turns unveiling their fall schedules to Madison Avenue. Lox with Les, as it's affectionately called.

This year, sadly, he was only the opening act, introducing CBS's scheduling honcho Kelly Kahl and programming chief Nina Tassler as they walked reporters through the new lineup. As a crosstalk team they showed promise:

Tassler, who is a Latina, reading names of cast members on "Cane": He loves it when I roll the R's.

Kahl: I can't do it -- I'm so white.

Tassler wasted no time getting down to the "Gosh, can you believe we're actually doing these shows?" pitch about Monday's new "Big Bang Theory," Tuesday's new "Cane," Wednesday's "Kid Nation," Friday's new "Moonlight" and Sunday's "Viva Laughlin."

Tuesday's "Cane," she said, was " 'The Godfather' meets 'The Sopranos' " with "a little bit of a 'Scarface' feel in there -- which is not a bad thing."

Of Friday's vampire, she said, "Sure, he's conflicted. When you're going to live forever, your search for love never dies." Which, by the time you're on your third network presentation -- NBC went Monday and ABC on Tuesday -- seems incredibly profound.

"Everybody looked at us cross-eyed" when news of the "Viva Laughlin" pilot deal got out, Tassler said.

"Kid Nation" was bound for a summer play, until they saw what they had, she explained, calling it "like nothing we've ever seen before."

And then, just to show they hadn't completely lost their marbles, the CBS execs announced that on Thursdays they're making a pure sales play next season, moving "Without a Trace" back to the 10 p.m. time slot. CBS moved "Trace" out of that hour and over to Sunday nights to make room this season to grow the new drama "Shark."

Normally, CBS would keep "Shark" in the time slot another half season at least, maybe a whole season, to give it time to grow into one of CBS's trademark "sophomore sensations." Like "Without a Trace."

But ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" overtook CBS's "CSI" Thursday nights at 9 this season (though closed-ended procedural "CSI" beat serialized "Grey's" in repeats). So, to shore things up, CBS will move "Trace" back to Thursdays -- that night being the most lucrative night of the week thanks to movie studio ads for the weekend's new releases.

Thursday morning, Moonves's other network, the CW, unveils its new prime-time schedule.

"Veronica Mars" is gone, as is Will Smith's "All of Us"; we already knew about "Gilmore Girls" and "Seventh Heaven" getting the hook.

Picked up is "Gossip Girl," which will be the second new-series pickup for Josh Schwartz of "The OC" fame -- the other being NBC's "Chuck." It's about the lives of rich kids and their parents, but it's totally different than "The OC" because this batch lives in Manhattan. Also given thumbs up are "Reaper," billed as a lighthearted story about Satan's bounty hunter, who retrieves souls escaped from hell, and "Aliens in America," a comedy about the friendship between an out-crowd teen and the Pakistani Muslim exchange students living at his house.