Angela Lansbury was hoping for a reprieve, but she didn't get it.
The star of "Murder, She Wrote" has made public her unhappiness over her show being switched from Sundays to Thursdays in the fall. And she was hoping that new CBS Entertainment President Leslie Moonves would countermand that scheduling decision, which was made by his predecessor.Lansbury ended up disappointed.
"I do agree with that move totally," Moonves said. "It is a move that I might have made earlier than this year, had I been at CBS."
Lansbury's son, one of "Murder's" producers, approached the new CBS programming chief about putting the show back on Sundays.
"They were hoping that I would change the schedule back," Moonves said. "And I had a very frank and honest conversation with him, and he understood. And I said it was a move that I agreed with."
The problem is not that nobody is watching "Murder, She Wrote" on Sundays. It's that the people who are watching - and they tend to outnumber those watching what's on the other networks - are too old for CBS to make much money on advertising for the show.
" `Lois & Clark,' even though in households it was losing to `Murder, She Wrote' by five six share points, was making twice the money," Moonves said. "So to ignore that is stupid. By the same token, to totally throw away the older viewers right now on CBS's part is also stupid."
CBS is trying to attract more viewers in the most important demographic, those between the ages
of 18 and 49. The network has fallen into fourth place in that demo, trailing NBC, ABC and even Fox.
But Moonves insists that while he's trying to attract younger viewers, he isn't going to abandon the older ones.
"To go from what our demographic base is now to the Fox-type of audience overnight is ridiculous," he said. "I think it's silly for CBS to totally throw away their base audience. I think we have to look at it as a more gradual game plan."
And putting "Murder, She Wrote" on Thursday nights puts it up against two shows that appeal to young viewers - "Friends" on NBC and "Living Single" on Fox.
"There is nobody young that is going to watch whatever CBS puts on there," Moonves said. "I think putting on (`Murder, She Wrote') there is perfect counter-programming. I think it will attract an audience."
And he's not counting out Lans-bury, either.
"We will do everything we can to make Angela Lansbury feel good about being on Thursday night. . . . (She) still remains very important to us," Moonves said.