CBS returns to big time with TV's 5-ring circus WINTER OLYMPICS

LILLEHAMMER, Norway -- This is what it's like to be down and out in the land of television sports:

No football.

No baseball.

And no John Madden.

But shed no tears for CBS, the network shunned by the NFL and major-league baseball.

The big eye has the big event of 1994, the Winter Olympics from Lillehammer, Norway.

For television, this is the greatest sports show on earth, 16 days ++ and 120 hours of glory, not to mention colossal Nielsen ratings in the midst of the February sweeps.

But for CBS, these Games take on added importance, as the network is out to prove it remains a player in the sports business.

"This is not the swan song of CBS Sports," said Rick Gentile, senior vice president of production. "We're very viable. We're down; we're not out. We're going to crawl our way back."

The loss of broadcast rights to NFL and major-league baseball games clearly was devastating to a network that gave pro football billions and fueled baseball's free-agent frenzy.

CBS still has college basketball's Final Four, the Daytona 500 and the Masters.

But it also has a gaping hole in its broadcast schedule.

And there are only so many rock-climbing events to go around for the dueling network sports anthology series.

"What goes around comes around," Gentile said. "Anyone who doesn't take us seriously is making an enormous mistake."

CBS still has the capacity to spend big bucks on big events. It paid $295 million for the rights to Lillehammer, some $42 million more than it paid to televise the 1992 Games in Albertville, France.

But the past fees look like a bargain when compared to the $375 million the network paid for the rights to the 1998 Winter Games of Nagano, Japan.

"Economically, this makes a lot of sense for us," said CBS Sports president Neal Pilson.

CBS doesn't plan to make money with the Olympics. It plans to pull in viewers.

In 1992, the network won the ratings race, 15 of 16 nights.

Even more important, the Winter Games were watched by more women than men.

What makes the numbers so astonishing is that in an age of instant communications, a European Olympics remains essentially a tape-delayed event.

You can watch the Russian Parliament blown up live on CNN, but you'll have to wait 16 hours after the men's downhill to see the race on CBS.

How in the name of the information highway can CBS manage to retain interest in a videotaped Games?