Nbc

New York -- During a sneak preview of its fall prime-tim lineup yesterday, NBC executives said they have lured some big names to help return the network to its 1980s popularity and have abandoned much-criticized efforts to win a strictly young audience.With its ratings far below ABC and CBS and its journalistic reputation soiled by a rigged test crash of a GM truck, the network put on its fall preview earlier than usual in a bid to show advertising agents that next fall's shows will be worth their client's money.

In media circles, it's already tee-off time on NBC's decision to carry all of the Olympics on tape, and while there's a lot of anger, some of it understandable, it is considerably misplaced. NBC is only following the long established model for carrying the Olympics. By necessity, virtually all of the great moments in recent Olympic history, from Bob Beamon's world record long jump in 1968, to the U.S. hockey team's win over the Soviet Union in 1980 in Lake Placid to Kerri Strug's one-footed landing in Atlanta four years ago were tape delayed.

What a touching milieu was to be presented Sunday during NBC's NFL pre-game show when Jim "Warrior Quarterback" Harbaugh and Jim Kelly, he of the armor-piercing tongue, kissed and made nice before the nation.There were just two problems with the scene. The first was that Harbaugh -- who broke a bone in his right hand after supposedly taking a poke at Kelly the weekend before for remarks the former Buffalo quarterback-turned-commentator made about Harbaugh's toughness -- had the good sense not to show up for the staged event.

Thousands of Clevelanders are fervently praying that the World Series makes a return trip to Atlanta this weekend. Their prayers are likely being mixed with those of officials of the Baseball Network, ABC and NBC, never heretofore known as particularly religious sorts.The reason: No one in the television biz makes any bucks unless the Series goes for an extended length, and with Atlanta assuming a 2-0 lead heading into tonight's third game (Channel 11, 8 p.m.), there's a danger that this Fall Classic could be over as soon as tomorrow night or Thursday.

The Games of the 27th Olympiad are over, and mercifully so for NBC. The network took a brutal, and, in some cases, gratuitous beating from critics here and in Australia about what it covered and when it showed it. From this perspective, NBC did a fairly good job under some trying circumstances. The pictures from Sydney and its environs were spectacular, and the network did some marvelous technical work, especially on the track and in the swimming pool. But, even with the all-taped aspect of things, there were enough glitches and questionable programming decisions to take some of the luster off what should have been terrific television.

NBC, saying it could no longer support a group whose positions "clearly go against our best interests," resigned yesterday from the National Association of Broadcasters, a TV industry lobbying and self-regulatory agency headquartered in Washington. Although several reasons for NBC's resignation were outlined in a letter to NAB president and CEO Edward O. Fritts, the main sticking point cited was the limit on how many local television stations a single company can own. Under current law, no group or individual can own stations with access to more than 35 percent of the nation.

ON WEDNESDAY, the NAACP and NBC unveiled an agreement to open more jobs at the network to minority writers, producers, directors and contractors. The agreement came after Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, threatened a minority boycott of the four major networks because their fall lineup included 26 shows without a minority performer in a leading role. NBC was the first network to announce a deal with the NAACP and on Friday ABC became the second.

The Olympics are over, but NBC's "Olympics' strategy" for the new fall season is only beginning.Facing one of the most important prime-time TV seasons in its history, NBC is wasting no time in trotting out new episodes of hit shows in hopes of cashing in on the large audiences that have been watching the games.Consequently, the new fall season starts tonight to some extent on NBC when its teen hit, "Blossom," returns. (The show is not scheduled to air in Baltimore, because WMAR-Channel 2 plans to pre-empt it for the Orioles-Blue Jays game.

Responding to pressure from the NAACP to increase diversity on television programs, NBC executives will announce today they have set up a minority recruitment program and will make efforts to further increase the racial diversity of the company's board members, an NAACP official said yesterday. The network will be the first of the four major networks -- among ABC, CBS and FOX-TV -- to make policy changes after the civil rights organization's criticism of them last summer. The announcements, which are scheduled to come at a morning news conference in New York, will detail a package of some 30 agreements between NBC and the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said John C. White, NAACP spokesman.

NEW YORK - When ABC's Peter Jennings was forced to leave the anchor chair in April to seek treatment for lung cancer, the already topsy-turvy world of network evening news seemed poised for more chaos. Dan Rather had retired from the CBS Evening News a month earlier, replaced temporarily by Bob Schieffer. And NBC had just gone through its own transition, when Brian Williams succeeded Tom Brokaw in December. The shift at ABC was more jarring. After announcing his diagnosis, Jennings immediately took a leave to begin chemotherapy.