Fall Schedules: Networks at the Crossroads : Television: Will programmers go for short-term gains with reality series, or will they try to salvage quality shows? Stay tuned.

The new, fall TV schedules will be unveiled next week, and they may provide significant clues about how much the endangered networks are willing to cheapen themselves to stay alive.

The 1991-92 lineups of NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox will be scrutinized carefully to see if, as feared, the networks begin to discard worthy, adult drama series in favor of the latest rage: less expensive and certainly less ennobling reality shows.

If this happens, the networks will take a perhaps irreversible and fatal step by abandoning the special aura, identity and individuality that have set them apart from the lesser lights of TV. They will surrender the qualities that have made them the leaders of TV since its inception half a century ago--and begin to look just like everything else on the air.

As network executives hunker down during the next few days to make their final decisions, they cannot fail to be aware that the future existence of their organizations is in their hands now, more than ever.

Their task is not merely to win, but to redefine for the public the image of network TV, exactly what makes it different from the competition--and why viewers should feel ABC, CBS and NBC are even necessary anymore in a new era of multi-channel choice.

No one has summed up this task better than MGM/UA television honcho David Gerber, who said in a recent article in The Times: “The networks have really got to worry what they’re going to look like in the next decade.”

That is why there has been concern over the fate of such ABC series as “thirtysomething” and “China Beach.” That is why such dramas as “Northern Exposure” and “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill” have suddenly become more important to CBS’ image. And that is why “L.A. Law” and “Law & Order” are critical to the definition of NBC as a network.

Yet the lure of turning to reality shows as a way out of the networks’ financial crunch is tempting for programmers who take the short view of winning a season and losing an industry. How tempting? Well, in last week’s national ratings, seven of the top 28 shows--that’s 25%--were reality programs, including a few legitimate news series.

The series included “Unsolved Mysteries,” “America’s Funniest People,” “20/20” (which recently did a segment on exorcism), “Rescue 911,” “60 Minutes,” “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and “48 Hours” (with a program about serial killers).

Television is an imitative business--there once were more than two dozen Westerns on the networks--so the desire to cash in on the reality trend is understandable. But one hopes that the new, fall schedules display a careful blend of what’s hot and what’s necessary to survive in the long run--rather than caving in suicidally and making the networks a relentless freak show.

It was Fox and its collection of affiliates--independent stations, which are rarely known for their distinction--who touched off the current reality trend with such series as “America’s Most Wanted,” “Totally Hidden Video,” “Cops” and the syndicated “A Current Affair.”

Now, “Unsolved Mysteries” has given a big ratings lift to NBC, and “Rescue 911” has done the same for CBS.

Yet each of the networks has its own image problems as the fall schedules come down to the final hours. Will ABC, a beacon of experimentation from “thirtysomething” to “Twin Peaks” to “Cop Rock,” be satisfied to be known as the network of “Roseanne” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos”?

Will ABC possibly get a lift by looking to a new Steven Bochco drama series, “Civil Wars,” which stars Mariel Hemingway and Peter Onorati (“Cop Rock”) as a couple of divorce lawyers?

CBS badly wants to attract kids and other young viewers--yet it also has the most-talked-about new drama series on the air, “Northern Exposure,” a sophisticated entry better described as a human comedy. And “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill” seemingly has made a perfect move in its bid for renewal, bringing in Ed Asner to team with Sharon Gless in the legal drama.

Thus the stars of “Lou Grant” (Asner) and “Cagney & Lacey” (Gless) are united. But Asner’s no fool, reportedly bargaining successfully for a pay-or-play deal just in case CBS got cold feet about the series. CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky has pledged support for both “Northern Exposure” and “Rosie O’Neill,” and now we’ll see.

Top-rated NBC, meanwhile, is faced with a double-whammy: the aging of such hits as “The Cosby Show” and a play-it-safe attitude that the network promises to change after several seasons on the skids. For image purposes, it still has the best network drama of them all, “L.A. Law”--which ranked a potent No. 5 among all shows last week.

But in a strong farewell speech this week to the Hollywood Radio & Television Society, Brandon Tartikoff, outgoing chairman of the NBC Entertainment Group and new chairman of Paramount Pictures, pinpointed the networks’ dilemma, without excusing his own part in it.

“I worry,” he said, “that as network television moves into the ‘90s, that networks themselves will have a vision for what they want to be. I said a vision, not an attitude, and not a five-year business plan, a vision.”

Once upon a time, the networks had such identifiable images that you could almost visualize them. CBS was the elegant Central Park East network. NBC was the earnest, professional network--you could picture the executives commuting to Greenwich, Conn., Long Island and New Jersey. ABC was the brash, hip, Greenwich Village and Malibu network.

Even amid their quota of trashy shows, those images were reflected in the overall news and entertainment programming of the Big Three networks.

What images will ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox put forth in next week’s schedules? Will they look less and less like real networks and continue to fade away? Will they grab at reality shows as a last straw? The news departments at CBS and NBC are already a shadow of their former selves; only ABC News stands tall. And news is the ultimate image-maker of a network.

One year ago, the networks, in a desperate bid to reclaim disappearing audiences, opened the door wider than ever to foul language and vulgarity--in shows such as “Uncle Buck.” The ruse failed miserably; the audience continued to sink.

What’s left?

Nothing but good taste, imagination and vision.

If there’s no room for that in the fall schedule discussions, the networks are dead. It’s just a matter of time.