FOX BROADCASTING UNVEILS FOUR NEW SHOWS FOR SEASON

Fox Broadcasting plans four new series for the 1987-88 TV season but doesn’t know yet whether they will be used to replace current programs or to launch a new night of programming on the 10-month-old network, programming chief Garth Ancier said Friday.

The new projects include a variety show starring Nell Carter and a serial that focuses on a blue-collar family instead of the rich types that populate such prime-time soap operas as “Dallas” and “Dynasty.”

For the fall, Fox has renewed the five Sunday-night programs that it introduced last spring and two of its four Saturday-night programs, “Werewolf” and “The New Adventures of Beans Baxter,” for at least 13 episodes each, Ancier told a news conference at the Redondo Beach Sheraton. He said that it was too soon to make a decision about the other two Saturday-night programs, “Karen’s Song” and “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” but added that enough episodes of each have been produced to last through October.

The only major change in the returning shows, Ancier said, will be with “Mr. President,” the Sunday-night comedy that stars George C. Scott as the chief executive. It will be taped in front of a live studio audience, rather than remaining a one-camera filmed show, to give the characters more feedback on the humor, he said..

Ancier, senior vice president of programming at Fox, said that the four new shows could be used as midseason replacements in the Saturday and Sunday lineups, as additions to the weekend schedule if Fox decides to expand, or as the premiere offerings when Fox launches its next night of new programs, which Ancier predicted will probably be around next March.

The new programs are:

--”The Nell Carter Show,” a variety hour with Carter, a singer and former star of the NBC comedy “Gimme a Break.” It will be overseen by Bernie Brillstein, executive producer of the current NBC series “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd” and “ALF,” and will be ready for broadcast in January, Fox said.

Ancier and Jamie Kellner, Fox Broadcasting’s chief executive officer, said that they believed “The Nell Carter Show” would attract a slightly different audience than ABC’s fall variety series with Dolly Parton because Carter’s fans are younger and more urban than Parton’s, who, as a country singer, has more rural appeal.

--”Women in Prison,” described as an “irreverent prison comedy” from Ron Leavitt and Michael Moye, current executive producers of Fox’s Sunday-night comedy “Married . . . With Children.” It will be ready by the fall.

--An untitled one-hour comedy/drama for late January from Dennis Klein, writer and producer of NBC’s short-lived “Buffalo Bill” series.

--An untitled serial for the spring featuring a “blue-collar” family, to be produced by Gloria Monty, executive producer of “General Hospital.”

There hasn’t been a successful prime-time soap opera introduced since “Falcon Crest” debuted on CBS in 1981, but Ancier said that he believes there is room for a serial about less affluent people, citing the success of such programs in England and Australia. He added that the serial would have 52 new episodes a year, rather than the 25 or so usually provided on ABC, CBS and NBC.

The new programming is indicative of what Kellner described as Fox’s continued growth.

The number of otherwise-independent stations carrying Fox programs has climbed to 113, he said, with stations in Paduka, Tex. and Cedar Rapids, Iowa soon to be added. When those two stations join the lineup, Fox will have achieved coverage of more than 88% of the potential TV audience.

Kellner said that although the company will continue to lose money for the next few years, it will be a “manageable loss” and Fox expects to begin turning a profit in four or five years. “We’re in a business that makes sense,” he said.

Kellner said that the only disappointments of the year were the low ratings of “The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers” and Fox’s failure to win broadcast rights to the National Football League’s “Monday Night Football.”