Check the television listings and there it is, branding program after program: (R).

That means Rerun. Repeat. Really annoying.And it's standard in the post-February "sweeps" slump, when network shows are recovering from the ordeal of airing a month of new episodes to inflate ratings.

We feasted, so now comes the famine. But here is a modest proposal: Maybe it doesn't have to be this way. Maybe there are other, more viewer-friendly options than subjecting us to a barren TV spring.

Economic restraint is the answer, suggests industry veteran Fred Silverman, former network executive and now producer ("Diagnosis Murder"). And, we might add, a touch of imagination.

First, the numbers. The 39-episode series, extending throughout the official September-to-May TV season and allowing for a tolerable 13 weeks of summer reruns, is a thing of the past.

Network greed prompted the initial decisions to cut episode orders back a bit, said Silverman. But the paring continued as network costs for an hourlong show rose to the current level of about $1.2 million per episode.

Series now average about 22 episodes, with more than half of those concentrated in the three key sweeps months. That's akin to an Ally McBeal-sized miniskirt that offers barely enough fabric to provide decent coverage.

In the increasingly competitive TV environment, this does not represent the kind of customer service that encourages viewers to choose broadcast over cable.

But is it feasible to produce more episodes per season? Silverman thinks so.

"Ultimately, what everybody has got to do is find a way to do shows less expensively and to do more of them. That is the solution to the problem," he said.

Cutting back costs on half-hour comedies is one sensible place to start: Big, highly paid writing staffs eat up much of their budget, but "Does all that money really translate on the screen?" Silverman said.

Another drain, he says, is shooting sitcoms in front of an audience and keeping a five-day schedule with room for script revisions -- too much room, he contends.

What makes business sense, he said, is giving viewers something they can rely on for 35 to 40 weeks of the year.

It might be tough, however, to squeeze more episodes out of stars who already complain of 12-hour-plus workdays (leaving barely enough time for a feature film). And producers say keeping quality high means fewer episodes.

So what to do? How about something creative?

Maybe something like the three-in-one series wheel that worked 28 years ago. The "NBC Mystery Movie" rotated episodes of "Columbo," "McMillan and Wife" and "McCloud" and was popular enough to last from 1971-78.

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The idea was a hit as well with Weaver, who played McCloud, a New Mexico lawman transplanted to New York City.

"It was the most gratifying series that I ever did, the most fun and the least stressful," Weaver said. "There were fewer episodes, but we took more time with those that we did. The writers had more time to flesh out a good story, and I think the general production reflected that."

Viewers, he added, seemed to enjoy the variety in the Sunday night slot.

Weaver doesn't recall anyone resisting the idea. "The feeling was it was a sensible way to go and had every reason to be successful," he said. "It all depends on the quality of the writing and the storytelling."

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