Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 21, 1990                   TAG: 9007210345
SECTION: SPECTATOR                    PAGE: 7   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: PHIL KLOER COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TV'S RULING TRIUMVIRATE HOUNDED BY CRAFTY FOX

The network-that-isn't-a-network (at least by FCC definition) has made its mark so far with cutting-edge shows: "The Simpsons," "In Living Color" and "Married . . . With Children."

Come fall, it will be going in two different directions at once.

- It will launch a slate of Saturday morning kid shows and a daily afternoon cartoon, "Peter Pan and the Pirates," aimed at the children and younger siblings of its primary audience, the 18-to-34 age group.

- And it will try to become a little more respectable, trimming dirty jokes from one new sitcom ("Babes," about three overweight sisters) and offering one of the more striking new fall shows, "American Chronicles," a series of dazzling documentaries from Lynch/Frost Productions, which also makes "Twin Peaks."

Fox executives believe that at least one of the big three networks will drop out of Saturday morning cartoons and Fox can fill that hole.

Fox may also be cutting back a bit on its bread and butter: shows that trade in sexual innuendo. When it moves "In Living Color" from 9:30 to 8 p.m. Sundays in the fall, the series will be toned down a bit, says creator Keenen Ivory Wayans.

Fox has advanced more in its three-year existence than anyone, including those in the company, thought possible. It frequently dominates Sunday night in the ratings.

But it still has a long way to go to reach parity with ABC, CBS and NBC. It's hampered because most of its affiliates (WJPR-Channel 21 in Lynchburg serves the Roanoke area market) are lower-power UHF channels, which have shown mostly reruns.

"I think that the odds of us becoming the No. 3 network are not in the immediate future," says Fox Entertainment Group president Peter Chernin.

Possibly so, but a year ago, the odds of a cartoon clobbering Top 10 regular "Murder, She Wrote" were impossibly long, too. With an aggressive expansion to five nights this fall, Fox will be nipping at the heels of the Big Three.