Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 23

Entertainment 2B TIMES SATURDAY. JUNE 6, 1998 Foil station shuffles anchors Series gives tart view of love in Big Apple By ERIC DEGGANS Timet Televiion Critic Under the current changes, White will get slightly more air time during the hourlong noon newscast, but will spend less time in the evening news shows considered the top job at most TV stations. "Is it a compromise asked White. "I don't know. But it's made everybody who is involved with the changes very happy.

I've just signed a new three-year contract so this feels like a vote of confidence." "It all kind of fell into place in one day," said WTVTs vice president of news, Phil Metlin, who said the shuffles started when Dwyer asked to be moved off the noon news to spend more time with her family. "With a new anchor team at 5:30 p.m., people think of it as a fresh broadcast," Metlin said. "(These changes) help everybody." Fountain also expressed approval of the moves, saying, "For me to give up a half-hour of on-air time I can't think of someone I for Robertson, a 10-year veteran of WTVT who was demoted from anchoring weekday newscasts to weekend sports in January 1997. "I would say that patience pays off, I guess," said Robertson, who married Fountain three years ago and found himself wondering whether to leave the station after his demotion. "I always hoped I could work this situation out eventually." But the plan also seems like a compromise from a different set of changes announced in January in which Smoot and Mark Wilson, son of top anchor John Wilson, would have taken over the 5:30 p.m.

weekday broadcast. Those proposed moves drew criticism from activists in the black community, who objected to seeing White then WTVTs sole black anchor lose half her anchoring workload. After announcing the changes which would have taken effect Jan. 19 on the Martin Luther King holiday station officials dropped the plans days before they would take effect WTVT-Ch. 13 soon will bring a new anchor team to its 5:30 p.m.

weekday news broadcasts, implementing a series of job changes that reassigns six different anchors on the Fox affiliate's staff. Under the plan, which would take effect June 22, Sunday evening anchor Cynthia Smoot and weekend sports reporter Frank Robertson would take over the 5:30 p.m. broadcast, replacing De-nise White and Kathy Fountain, the team currently in place. Fountain and White will continue to anchor WTVTs 5 p.m. weekday newscast Fountain also will go on hosting Your Turn, her call-in talk segment on the station's noon newscast, while White will take Anne Dwyer's place as co-anchor of the noon news broadcast Recent hire Secily Wilson will take over Smoot's weekend duties, while sports anchorreporter Chris Field replaces Robertson.

The moves equal a promotion Robertson White would rather give it to than my husband. When Frank was moved to weekend sports, he had people stopping him on the street and asking him if he still worked here. I'm glad he's being better utilized." WTVT general manager Dave Boylan hired both Smoot and Wilson last year from stations in North Carolina. Since Smoot left her job as a top anchor at WGHP in September where Boylan also worked for 10 years rumors have persisted that the general manager intended to place her in a higher-profile anchor slot. Neither Smoot nor Wilson could be reached for comment, though John Wilson said he never interceded with WTVT management on behalf of his son, now working as a reporter and fill-in anchor.

CNBC dumps 'Charles Grodin' show Murray set to take reins of Florida Orchestra board "A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and value of nothing." Oscar Wilde By ERIC DEGGANS Timet Television Critic Urbane and witty, with that weary, seen-it-all vibe that the hip-pest New Yorkers savor like fine wine, HBO's Sex and the City presents a compelling portrait of ambitious career types chasing lust and love in the Big Apple. Lauded by the pay TV channel as "a candid, comic view of sex and relationships" which, often for HBO, is just an excuse to show topless actresses during bedroom scenes Sex and the City presents Sarah Jessica Parker (Honeymoon in Vegas, L.A. Story) as Carrie Bradshaw, author of a weekly column on New York's dating scene. Given to cranking out copy on her bed or in a trendy coffee shop, Parker's Bradshaw uses the exploits of her successful, single thir-tysomething girlfriends as "research" for columns with topics such as "toxic bachelors" "model-izers (men who only date models)" and the ultimate question: whether women can have sex like men (promiscuously and without emotional attachment or guilt). In exploring intricately laced storylines, the series manages to skewer lots of conventions, presenting Bradshaw's pals as aging women who have given up on finding love with a good man forced to choose between needy geeks who treat them well and arrogant professional guys who know the scarcity of single middle-aged men gives them precious few options.

Along with Parker's character, the show based on the book by and life of New York Observer columnist Candace Bushnell also features Kim Cattrall (Peter Bench-ley's Creature, Bonfire of the Vanities) as public relations executive Samantha Jones, Melrose Place veteran Kristin Davis as art dealer Charlotte York, and Cynthia Nixon (Marvin's Room) as corporate lawyer Miranda Hobbes. Created, produced and written by Darren Star a veteran of nighttime soaps such as Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place and Cen- ATAGIANCE: Sex and the City premieres at 9:45 tonight on HBO. The regular time slot is 9 p.m. Sunday. Grade: B-.

Rating: TV-MA. tral Park West Sex and the City has dialogue that could have been lifted from any trendy dinner party north of 57th Street. "I call it the mid-30s power flip," says a "toxic bachelor" of the power single men suddenly gain over relationships at a certain age, just because they're outnumbered by single women. "An eligible man in his 30s holds all the chips." Or this observation, as quoted in Entertainment Weekly, from a woman comparing a boyfriend to a miniature golf pencil: "I didn't know whether he was trying (to have sex with me) or erase me." But the cynical reactions that give this show its spice make for a tiresome display showing these moneyed, mostly white, middle class characters as empty-headed and pointlessly downbeat In other words, when you see successful professionals making enough money to go clubbing every weekend, attend the ritziest art openings and dine in the coolest restaurants, it's hard to sympathize when they complain about finding the perfect guy. That perfect guy seems embodied in Mr.

Big, an enigmatic character played by former Law Order star Chris Noth. A rich, famous charismatic businessman in his 40s (reportedly based on Vogue magazine publisher Ronald A. Gal-otti, a former boyfriend of Bush-nell's), Mr. Big offers the only antidote to the other characters' whining about relationships noting that Bradshaw couldn't possibly have such a jaded view of romance if she'd ever been in love. Later episodes toy with a sexual tension between the two, as they battle his hectic schedule to try to spend some time together.

It seems almost preordained that Parker's character will find love through him we can only hope there's more waiting in the wings. Which sort of sums up the promise of Sex and the City itself. Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. The Hollywood Reporter Timet staff report focus on social issues "warranted a change." Grodin said he understands the situation at CNBC and was happy with the freedom and opportunity he was given. "God knows, nobody else would have let me do this," he said.

Grodin said he's about to begin work on a special for PBS called American Voices that will give voice to the homeless, the aged and people unjustly confined in prison. He hopes to turn that into a regular series. Although he didn't rule out a talk show for another network, the former film star said he will not return to acting. Perhaps Grodin's most notable show was one in which he got into a shouting match with OJ. Simpson lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

Grodin, like Rivera and others, devoted many shows to the Simpson saga, taking a strong position on the guilt of Simpson from the Grodin has continued angling toward issues relative to giving a voice to the oppressed, while CNBC has been moving away from the talk show format set up by CNBC founder Roger Ailes and Andy Friendly, concentrating more on hard news programing. That includes the 8 p.m. Hardball With Chris Matthews, which was expanded to a full hour, this year and has become the network's second-highest rated nightly program behind Geraldo Rivera's show at 9 p.m. Rivera is working on a news program to be shown during the 7 p.m. hour on CNBC beginning this summer.

Matthews will now get a second run at 11 p.m. after The News With Brian Williams, allowing the program to be seen in primetime on the West Coast for the first time beginning Monday. Lack said in a statement that Grodin's show "broke new ground on CNBC" but that his increasing LOS ANGELES Just eight months after the host said he had found what he hoped would be his permanent home, CNBC has abruptly ceased production of Charles Grodin midway through the talk show's fourth season. Despite increasing ratings and annual CableACE nominations for the nightly 11 p.m. talk show, NBC News president Andrew Lack who is also responsible for CNBC's primetime and weekend programing said that the program geared toward social issues and celebrity talk was not melding well with the rest of CNBC's hard news-oriented primetime programing.

Grodin said Thursday the news came as a surprise to him even though he had been having conversations with the network about the direction of the show. "I had in my mind that they would let me finish out the year," he said. Raymond E. Murray is in line to be elected chairman of the board of trustees of the Florida Orchestra at its annual meeting Wednesday. Murray will succeed Robert Merritt, chief financial officer of Outback Steakhouse, who stepped down after 15 months in the post Murray, 68, a Safety Harbor resident, is a semi-retired entrepreneur who has owned more than two dozen companies, mostly technology manufacturers.

In April, the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay announced that Murray and his wife, Nancy, had made the largest contribution in the foundation's eight-year history $6-mil-lion, with $l-million of the gift earmarked as an endowment for the orchestra. Murray was vice chairman of the orchestra board last season. THE Daily Crossword Edited by Wayne Robert Williams Friday's Puzzle Solved AE DTlA Ft A PI A eMb a sMt I hThIO OU UjQl jEpu" Er A RLJS 0 TLJB Ul I in i sHf kHp EJ A I OR LJH QJT l0TAnMETEncAusE ET HQS ASH LJ A I rl I IEILIA ELI A Fl I A I I QlQlFlElRnAlMlllEPslolFUl 6 As well 7 Squeal to the screws 8 Novel objects 9 Stravinsky and Sikorsky 10 Boothe Luce 11 Supplying support 12 Dawn lawn layer 13 Botanist Gray 14 Farm pen 20 Secret sharers 21 Provisional 22 Drum roll 23 The Father of Radio 24 The Desert Fox 25 Like Mother Teresa, maybe 26 Put in harmony 28 Chimney passage 31 Pole with a blade 32 NBA team 33 Co. founded by H. Ross Perot 42 Endured AN 0 Wl TA JI0 IJL LE 9.2.

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