Citizens' Voice from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania • 72

oo CV Magazine Television Rerun: local ratings story remains the same got to be a better wav tn hfan Geri Anne Kaikowski Tube Talk a. 03 ing high first place numbers for the 7 p.m. time slot, losing only one share point and one rating point from last year with its 17 rating and 30 share. WNEP's "Cosby" is second and WBRE's "A Current Affair" is third. "Jeopardy!" holds onto the first place position at 7:30 p.m.

for WYOU with WNEP's "Win, Lose or Draw" second and "Cheers" on WBRE a low third. "Oprah" and her much maligned love life was not in bed with my hairdresser," she proclaimed on one "sweeps" show.) once again outdistanced the other sitcom competition for first place in the 4 to 5 p.m. time period. WBRE, which posted low ratings in that time period with sitcoms "Family Ties" and "Facts of Life" (replaced for the summer by "Three's Company" and "Too Close for Comfort," using out their contract time) will give Oprah its best shot with Of course, WNEP is happy with its ratings. (It's almost become ludicrous to ask station personnel how they feel about pulling a 45 share for a show; I mean, how do you expect them to feel? especially when the other guy is hanging onto a 16 share.) Overall, WYOU is quite satisfied with the latest ratings, according to Harry McClin-tock, programming director.

"Of course, we'd like to be number one," he stated. "But, there are some places where we are. Overall, from a programming and sales standpoint, it's a good book." And that's where the numbers count. NEXT WEEK: The rest of the ratings story from WOLF and WVI A. Geri Anne Kaikowski is the TV writer for the Citizens' Voice.

WBRE, due in large part to the stellar NBC programming, usually bounces back into second place for the 11 p.m. time period ahead of WYOU. WNEP did a 16 rating and 49 share at 11 with WBRE bringing in a seven rating and 17 share and WYOU, a six rating and 15 share. A rating point is the percentage of homes in the TV market watching a station. A share is the percentage of TV sets turned on at the time watching that station.

WNEP posted the best numbers ever in its 6:30 a.m. news showing with a 10 rating and 65 share over WBRE's one rating and seven share and WYOU's one rating and four share. Evidentally, the time period is right as "The Price is Right" at 11:30 a.m. as the last half hour of WYOU's network show bested WNEP's second half hour of "Home" and WBRE's "Eyewitness News Midday," which even at last place posted higher numbers than it did last year. WNEP led the pack at noon with news (nine rating and 10 share) followed by WYOU's news and WBRE's "Win, Lose or Draw." Again, WNEP is in first place at 5 p.m.

(with a 10 rating and 23 share) for its newscast with WYOU's "People's and the first half of "Donahue" on WBRE finishing second and third, respectively. "Night Court" on WNEP was the winner at 5:30 p.m. with an 11 rating and 24 share while WYOU's "1st News" brought in an eight rating and 18 share for second with the last half hour of "Donahue" on WBRE doing a seven rating and 16 share. In the prime access hours of 7 to 8 p.m., "Wheel of Fortune" on WYOU is still turn "sweeps" story about the local Nielsen ratings results for May than to tell you that I'm not going to tell you anything new anything that hasn't been said before or results and numbers that haven't been posted before. Sigh.

Maybe next year. But. for this year, it's a rerun. WXEP won big in its local news time periods, particularly the weekday 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts, when all three local TV news operations have competing shows.

WYOU, Channel 22, is in second place for the 6 p.m. news, ahead of WBRE, Channel 28. But, it's back to the usual flipflop for the 11 p.m. news with WBRE ahead of WYOU. WBRE once again is dealing with some ratings aftermath due to its tower problem.

The existing tower fell down in January in an ice storm and despite tremendous efforts to bring about reception, some areas in particular the country viewership without cable hookup and Sunbury and Honesdale still have snowy reception. WBRE programming director Tom Wilson said the station still gets about four to five reception complaints a day. Viewer-ship from last year is down about seven percent, he noted. A new tower is delayed due to guy wires not being available until the middle of next month. The station hopes that work on the tower will be completed by the end of July or mid-August at the latest just in time for the new fall season.

But, Wilson indicated that the station was taking it all in stride by stating that "it could have been worse." "It's really hard to say how the tower sit- uation has hurt us," he said. "With the leaves and the trees, there's been a problem. But, it looks as though people will find us when they want to for prime-time. Our prime-time numbers are still there." Indeed, Cosby Co. led the way for the NBC affiliate to tie in the ratings with ABC affiliate WXEP, home of "Roseanne." WBRE's news release proclaims that "the 11 p.m.

news maintains second place in spite of the NBC affiliate's tower problems." The big news is always the lucrative 6 p.m. time period one of only three time periods (the others are 6:30 a.m. and 11 p.m.) in which all three local TV news operations have competing newscasts. As usual, the victor was WNEP, with some minimal (a rating point here and a share there) decreases from last year. Still, Channel 16 is way out in front with a 26 rating and 45 share.

WYOU is second with a nine rating and 16 share, up from last year. WBRE blames it on the tower for its six rating and 11 share, down from last year, however, WYOU and WBRE have either tied or WYOU has won second place in this time period over the past few ratings books. And this isn't the first time that WBRE has posted numbers as low as these. Peter DeLuise is 'big' star of '21 Jump Street' By NORA FRENKIEL The Baltimore Sun 6 who's a psychologist." On some shows, such as the one devoted to the problem of teen suicide, an outside expert was consulted on the script. He describes his character, Officer Doug Penhall, this way: "Emotionally scarred from childhood and carrying a heavy weight.

Uses humor to sidetrack investigation into soul." Ask him about his weight, his following in his father's image playing the sidekick rather than the romantic lead and he reveals little. "My dad and I don't have a weight problem," he jokes, "We're just big-boned." For now, the career is the main part of his life. Being on a hit series has its downside, however. Gina, his bride of six months, his sweetheart of seven years, is also an actress (occasionally playing his girlfriend on "21 Jump and lives in Los Angeles scouting for work while he lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, six months a year shooting the series. man for MADD's Operation Prom-Graduation awareness program.

"I swore I didn't want to see any more of those kids, you know the ones on the pages of yearbooks, (with) photos 'in memory and then those sad poems." For a moment, he is very much in character with the role he plays on "21 Jump Street," a show that hopes to educate as well as entertain. The ensemble, with its hunks and culturally diverse cast, is about baby-faced undercover cops who work with teen-agers. "This is a show with a message," he says, "It isn't just trash TV. It has some moral value." In his view, "21 Jump Street" educates more than it sensationalizes, although he does disagree with some aspects of the show. His major criticism: "Wrho are we to impart In general we're dealing with vulnerability because some of these viewers are into a kind of teen-idol fixation.

We need to be watching our Ps and Qs. We need someone on the staff problem among (kids of famous people). It's like they end up commiting suicide, or overdosing. We're becoming an endangered species. The problems are complicated.

Like when someone becomes my friend, is it because of me or because of who my father is?" What he doesn't so readily acknowledge are the advantages, clearly, that help open doors to a young man who might otherwise be another anonymous actor. "It opens doors, yeah," he says, "But if you don't have the talent, you don't get hired." He grew up in Los Angeles, with two younger brothers, (now also in show business) and his mother, also an actress. His father, he says, neither encouraged nor discouraged his ambitions but found him work as an extra when he was a child. His parents are still together. You can't say that for a lot of the marriages in Pacific Palisades.

His father, he says, wanted him to be normal, so he went to public schools, was proba- Peter DeLuise, one of the cast members of "21 Jump Street," Fox Television's hipper-than-thou teen message show, is here taping promos. "Tune in to '21 Jump Street' I'm Peter DeLuise. I'm a bigger star than Johnny Depp. (Big pause.) Physically, that is." Laughter fills the studio. Now, this is the part of the story where the young DeLuise 22, sunstreaked blond, fleshy and powerfully built expects the writer to make the obligatory "son of Dom DeLuise" reference.

"That's how they always introduce me. There's no getting around it," he explains. Son of: Dom DeLuise, famous Burt Reynolds sidekick, funny man, fat man laughing on the outside, zipping his emotions tight on the inside. But as Peter DeLuise discusses it, willingly and without any apparent difficulty, "There's an identity Peter DeLuise bly the only visibly famous kid at Pacific Palisades High School. It was at high school that he first made a promise to himself.

Saddened by the deaths of classmates who would drink and drive, he vowed that he would do something to help prevent other such tragedies and became involved with Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, a national group that works to educate teen-agers about the dangers of alcohol abuse. He is the national spokes.