Cbs

Some local soap opera fans are going to be in for a surprise this afternoon when they tune in to Channel 11 for their favorite CBS programs.CBS is pre-empting all network programming starting at noon today and tomorrow to cover the NCAA basketball tournament.That means "Young and the Restless," "Bold and the Beautiful," "As the World Turns" and "Guiding Light" will not be seen until Monday. The infotainment shows, "Current Affair" and "Inside Edition," also will be pre-empted at 4 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.WBAL-TV will resume its normal schedule from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Then at 8, CBS will return to NCAA basketball -- replacing all prime-time shows with the games.

In a move that surprised and delighted NBC News staffers, the network yesterday chose respected CBS producer Andrew Lack to replace embattled Michael Gartner as president of NBC News.The news division has been in turmoil in the aftermath of the "Dateline NBC"-General Motors scandal. In February, the network admitted that its "Dateline NBC" newsmagazine had rigged a crash test for a November segment on the safety of GM pickup trucks. The admission, coupled with NBC's apology, settled a defamation lawsuit filed by GM.Mr.

Los Angeles -- CBS is not for sale.That was the message repeated here yesterday from a testy Laurence Tisch, who said he would continue to run the network (( himself and make it the most profitable in broadcasting.For all his effort at trying to spike reports of a network in turmoil, however, the 71-year-old CBS president and chairman did not rule out the possibility of another merger, like the one that fell through last week between CBS and Barry Diller's QVC. And, worse for CBS employees and stockholders, Tisch gave no indication of having a plan to fix what ails the network.

For hard-core, meat-and-potatoes sports fans, the Olympics, summer or winter, are more staged than the kind of athletic competition they're used to, what with the spectacle of the opening and closing ceremonies, sports they hardly see and athletes they couldn't pick out of a lineup.And most Olympic television coverage, regardless of where the Games are staged, comes through the magic of videotape, which is antithetical to the live manner in which sports fans have been conditioned to expect their sports fix.That's why it was so disheartening during the first night of Nagano competition that bad weather at the men's downhill skiing race knocked out one of the only three scheduled activities that will be shown live in prime time, with Friday's opening ceremonies and the women's downhill on Friday this week being the others.

NEW YORK -- Westinghouse Electric Co. and CBS Inc. are to meet this morning to negotiate the terms of a formal takeover offer that Westinghouse hopes to make for CBS within the next several weeks, executives close to the discussions said yesterday.But even as they gather at the New York City headquarters of Loews Corp., the company that is controlled by the chairman of CBS, Laurence Tisch, key issues remain unresolved. Those include the price Westinghouse would pay for CBS shares, as well as how quickly a takeover, which would involve the transfer of television station licenses, could win approval by the Federal Communications Commission.

CBS Sports, which may have lost as much as $100 million in the first year of its major-league baseball contract, has asked baseball for some of its money back.CBS Inc. said last month that it anticipated losses in the fourth quarter of 1990, due largely to the baseball contract, and now the network apparently wants major-league baseball to help share the load."All I can say is we have had ongoing conversations with baseball on a number of issues, and until those discussions are concluded, I can't tell you very much," CBS Sports president Neal Pilson said yesterday.

It may not outdo The Da Vinci Code, but CBS' programming chief says the network's miniseries about Pope John Paul II promises to be "a papal page-turner." Speaking yesterday at the semiannual Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, CBS entertainment President Nina Tassler told reporters she had just finished reading the script for the first of two planned episodes dramatizing the life of the Polish-born pontiff, who died in April at age 84. The network has not set a date for the premiere of the miniseries, which will star Ian Holm as the elderly pope and Cary Elwes as the young Karol Wojtyla, who became John Paul II in 1978.

WASHINGTON - Over the objection of at least one regulator who sought harsher punishment, the Federal Communications Commission is set to impose a record $550,000 fine against CBS-owned stations for showing singer Janet Jackson's breast at the end of her halftime performance during the Super Bowl on Feb. 1. The fine is expected to be announced within two weeks, two FCC sources said yesterday. It signals a more pointed government effort to crack down on broadcasters amid mounting public criticism that television and radio stations have become too coarse and explicit.

In an atmosphere of heightened tension between cigarette manufacturers and the press, CBS' lawyers ordered the news program "60 Minutes" not to broadcast a planned on-the-record interview with a former tobacco company executive who was harshly critical of the industry.Instead, the program has substituted a revised report for this Sunday that will examine how cigarette manufacturers try to prevent information from reaching the public.The basis for CBS' concern with the original interview was not a threat of a suit for libel, its executives said.

The writers strike claimed a major casualty yesterday as the Democratic National Committee canceled a presidential debate planned for Los Angeles Dec. 10. CBS was scheduled to hold the debate with anchorwoman Katie Couric as moderator. But leading candidates had said they would not cross a writers' picket line, and yesterday 500 CBS writers who had authorized a strike vote seemed on the verge of announcing a walkout for Dec. 10. "The possibility of picket lines set up by the Writers Guild of America and the unwillingness of many candidates to cross them made it necessary to allow the candidates to make other plans," CBS News said in a statement issued late yesterday.