Big Cities Boost Ratings for Fox’s Emmys

TV or not TV. . . .

EMMY FALLOUT: Sunday’s Emmy Awards telecast may have been long and dull except for the “Murphy Brown”-Dan Quayle feud, but it drew the highest big-city ratings in the six years the show has been broadcast by the Fox network.

The Emmy show slammed CBS, NBC and ABC by grabbing 27% of the audience in major markets for the 3-hour-32-minute ceremony honoring TV’s top talents. Its previous major-market best on Fox was 26% last year, but the later national figures dropped the overall figure to 22%.

National figures for Sunday’s Emmys are due out today. Fox’s general pattern is to do best in big cities and less well with the grass-roots audience.

The ongoing cracks during the Emmys about the vice president, who criticized “Murphy Brown” because its lead character had a baby out of wedlock, seemed certain to polarize viewers with opposing opinions even more and reignite the argument about Hollywood’s impact on Washington and the nation.

Co-host Dennis Miller pulled no punches in stating the obvious at the end of the telecast when he described the program as “the most liberal Emmy show since ‘Caligula.’ ” He also bluntly told the truth when he observed, a bit earlier: “Boy, Quayle is just getting stomped tonight.”

Fox research executives estimated that because the Emmys ran more than 30 minutes over schedule, the responses by “Murphy Brown” star Candice Bergen and the show’s creator, Diane English, to Quayle near the show’s end were seen in about 1 million fewer homes than the previous half hour.

A Fox official said that the audience share for the last half hour was about 25%, translating to some 4.071 million homes.

The Emmys did even better in Los Angeles than the big-city average, attracting 29% of the audience on Fox-owned station KTTV Channel 11.

On another point, Christopher Lloyd’s victory as best lead actor in a drama series, in a guest shot on the Disney Channel’s “Avonlea,” highlighted the unfairness of lumping guest performers with weekly series stars.

The blame, however, certainly doesn’t fall on Lloyd but on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which said it didn’t want to lengthen the Emmys by adding four guest-star categories--yet allowed various stand-up comedy routines to extend the show into the night.

Separate, fair guest-star categories could have been inserted easily by dumping some of the flabby comedy routines that filled the show.

FIGHT NIGHT: CBS is milking the “Murphy Brown”-Quayle flap for all it’s worth. If there’s any doubt, here is CBS’ headline on the press release for the show’s Sept. 21 season premiere: “Murphy’s life is radically changed by the two new men in her life, Baby Brown and Vice President Dan Quayle.”

DOUBLE DUTY: All eyes will be on CBS’ new sitcom from Bill Clinton’s Hollywood advisers, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and her husband Harry. Titled “Hearts Afire” and set for a Sept. 14 debut, it stars John Ritter and Markie Post as aides to a Southern senator, described by CBS as a conservative who is “long-in-the-tooth.” Surprise!

BONER: KNBC-TV Channel 4 rates a perfect 10 for dumbness in letting David Horowitz get away. He’s the best TV consumer reporter there ever was--pioneering the field--and a terrific newsman to boot.

END OF AN ERA: The classic Dodger-Giant baseball rivalry will be dead as a TV attraction once the San Francisco team moves to Florida. Geography has always played a big part in the rivalry--first when it was the Brooklyn Dodgers vs. the New York Giants, and later Los Angeles vs. San Francisco. But L.A. vs. Florida? Forget it. The only thing they have in common is oranges.

PHILOSOPHY: Love those lyrics by Waylon Jennings on the Letterman show: “I’m too dumb for New York City and too ugly for L.A.”

COWBOY: You can go on a Clint Eastwood binge Thursday on superstation TBS--four Westerns starting at 5:05 p.m.: “A Fistful of Dollars,” “High Plains Drifter,” “Two Mules for Sister Sara” and “Joe Kidd.” You don’t realize how good the guy is until you think of his change-of-pace offerings like “Bronco Billy” and the contemporary, haunting “Play Misty for Me.”

BUMP IN THE NIGHT: Paramount reportedly is beginning to shift its “Arsenio Hall Show” from the Fox stations that carry it to other outlets. Reason: Fox affiliates will get the network’s new, late-night Chevy Chase series next year, and “Arsenio” could get dropped or pushed back into the wee hours.

OUR HERO: The best moments on KCBS-TV Channel 2 are the fall promos by the great comedian Professor Irwin Corey. Maybe he could anchor the news too. I mean, who’d know the difference?

THE ONE AND ONLY: “The Divine Garbo,” an hour documentary about the legendary actress, narrated by Glenn Close, airs on KCET Channel 28 Saturday night. It’s followed by the Garbo classic “Ninotchka.” Look, folks, there’s nothing better playing in Westwood.

KEEPING SCORE: The Nielsen rating service, which now reports overnight tune-in from 25 major markets, will add San Diego, Baltimore and Kansas City in November and Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne, Fla., in February, bringing the total to 29. The tastes of young viewers in top urban markets are the key to network program selection. Well, it’s easier than thinking creatively.

NIGHTCAP: Steve Allen drops in on the irreverent cable access series “Art Fein’s Poker Party” in an outing scheduled for 11:30 p.m. Friday on Century Cable and 10:30 p.m. Sunday on Continental Cable.

WISING UP: Guess where NBC is promoting its new, fall comedy lineup? On the competition--cable’s Comedy Central network. It takes place starting Sept. 12 on Comedy Central’s “Short Attention Span Theater.” Smart move by NBC. The ingenious, fledgling cable outlet generates word-of-mouth among hip viewers and comedy folks.

HOLIDAY: The Arts & Entertainment channel has a 12-hour marathon of Jim Garner’s “The Rockford Files” on Labor Day, starting at 5 a.m. Then A&E; begins rerunning the series daily on Sept. 14.

FASHION REPORT: The more I watch C-SPAN, the more I’m certain there are maybe two tailors in Washington and they make, at most, two styles of suits.

BEING THERE: “From New York, last stop before hell . . .”--announcer opening the David Letterman show.

Say good night, Gracie . . . .