Television: Fabled Finish

For CBS, slow and steady wins

Though readers of Aesop's Fables might have been able to predict it, the outcome of this year's race for prime-time supremacy was, by most accounts, a stunning upset. CBS, which began the season last fall in third place among the three major networks, plodded along to a victory in the ratings over four-year champion ABC, whose jackrabbit programming shuffles fell flat. Final score: CBS, 19.6 Nielsen points for the seven-month period; ABC, 19.5; and NBC, in its first full season under Programming Whiz Fred Silverman, an embarrassing 17.4....

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