Summer heat

Summer isn't just for repeats anymore. That seems to be the message the broadcast networks are sending to viewers this year. Traditionally, the networks have written off the summer months by programming a mix of reruns, busted pilots and leftover original telecasts of canceled series. For every Northern Exposure and Melrose Place, which launched in the summer and became hits, the history of television is littered with long-forgotten duds like South Beach, Street Match, Raven and The Simple Life. The emergence of primetime newsmagazines in the early '90s bucked the trend.

"Networks quickly learned that in a sea of repeat summer programming, viewers made it a paint of finding these hours," says Bill Carroll, vp/director of programming at Katz Television. "What they also soon realized, however, is that the impact of so many newsmagazines was far less significant outside of the summer."

Last August's debut of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?? on ABC produced more than just a monster hit. It made the networks think differently about the summer-programming wasteland.

Now, with ABC's taste of Millionaire? success and programmers more attuned to a 52-week mind-set, summer has assumed greater importance at the networks. CBS is programming more aggressively than its competitors, including the debut of two reality series intended to attract young viewers: Survivor and Big Brother.

Hosted by Rock 'n 'Roll Jeopardy's Jeff Probst and inspired by a similar show in Sweden, Survivor features 16 people marooned on a jungle island in the South China Sea, competing for a grand prize of $1 million. At the end of each episode the group votes to eject one person from the island. At summer's end, a single person will "survive" and claim the grand prize.

In just two weeks, Survivor grabbed the spotlight from Millionaire? with an advantage of 63 percent among adults 18-49 (7.5/25 vs. 4.6/15) in the second and most recent head-to-head battle with the game show on June 7. Comparatively, Survivor gave CBS its best Wednesday 89 p.m. household performance with regularly scheduled programming since May 13, 1998, and ended its second week in prime time first among adults 18-34 and second with adults 18-49.

CBS hopes to strike a similar chord with Big Brother, which premieres on July 6. The series,...