NEW YORK -- NBC's summer schedule suffered its first cLIualty this week when the network decided to bring down the curtain on 'The News Is The News' four weeks ahead of schedule.
The live spoof of current news events saw its last light Wednesday night -- its fourth program -- a network spokesman said.
The creation of Herb Sargent, who did 'That Was The Week That Was' a few years back, had been planned as a limited series, but there were supposed to be eight shows.
Last week the show was pre-empted by coverage of major league baseball's 1983 All-Star Game, which was the No. 1 show in the Nielsens, but the previous week it scored a poor 45th among the network prime time shows with a 10.8 rating and a 19 percent share of the viewing audience.
It did worse the previous two weeks.
'News,' aired at 10 p.m. EDT, was up against reruns of ABC's 'Dynasty' and movies on CBS.
The NBC spokesman said the 'Taxi' reruns, which followed 'News,' also were being canceled and the 'four best' of six episodes of a limited series that ran last January, 'Family Tree,' would be placed in the one-hour slot.
Still unknown, the NBC spokesman said, was the fate of 'Buffalo Bill,' the comedy series starring Dabney Coleman as a self-centered, totally unlikable talk show host.
The critically acclaimed, 'limited series' so far has failed to capture strong ratings but a decision on whether NBC will renew 'Buffalo Bill' is not expected before Aug. 1.
'Family Tree' is a drama series starring Anne Archer and Frank Converse as two divorced people with children who get married and have to deal with the problems facing many contemporary American families.
The program was produced by Nigel McKeand, who wrote many segments of 'The Waltons' and for four years produced 'Family,' and his wife, Carol Evans McKeand, who was story editor of 'The Waltons' prior to joining her husband as executive story editor of 'Family.'
'The Price Is Right' again won the daytime television ratings last week, beating Agnes Nixon's newest ABC soap and giving CBS the daytime title for two consecutive weeks for the first time since April 1979.
A spokesman for ABC would say only that the network expected Miss Nixon's 'Loving' to take some time to catch on. There was no hint the network planned to cancel the program, which unlike all other soap operas runs before noon ET.
'It's a serial and it has to pick up a following,' the ABC spokesman said for the second consecutive week.
Miss Nixon's 'All My CNEldren' and 'One Life to Live' have been big winners for ABC, which has had a long reign over the networks' daytime subjects -- 22 consecutive quarters prior to the last two weeks.
CBS had a 7.0 daytime Nielsen rating; ABC 6.5 and NBC 5.0.
David Poltrack, vice president for Research, CBS BroadcLIt Group, said he thought it was a risk to put a soap opera on as early as the half-hour 'Loving' runs because women are 'in and out of the house a lot more' at that time and they 'do not have the time to devote to a soap.'
'Loving' replaced 'Love Boat,' a sitcom, which Poltrack said tend to do better in the summer when children are at home.
