Daily News from New York, New York • 1516

At 9 p.m., NSC rebroadcasts last year's telemovie 'The Return of starring the late Raymond Burr INNER TUBE ANOTHER FALL FOR CHEVY: REPLACEMENT RATES HIGHER More bad news for Chevy Chase (and good news for Fox): For the first week following the network's axing of the former "Saturday Night Live" star's embarrassing late-night show, ratings during the same time period filled now with years-old reruns of "In Living Color" have gone up 30ri. '4 has on his radio show and, perhaps, getting Stern and a guest to discuss something more topical than the guest. is hoping that by reformatting, it can keep the red-hot Stern from leaping to a bigger outlet. In addition to the ratings he garners for the channel. Stern's frequent on-radio rambles about are worth millions in free publicity.

R.H. Baseball lacks promotional punch CBS struck out with its Wednesday premiere of "South of Sunset." The show, promoted heavily throughout CBS' telecasts of the World Series, finished fourth in its 9 p.m. time period. Its lead-in, the retooled "Hearts Afire" (starring Markie Post and John Ritter) also bombed in its return to the schedule, finishing fourth in its 8 p.m. time period.

CBS had hoped that by promoting "South," a cop show-featuring former Eagles singer Glenn Frey, during the Series, it would lure young men to the screen. Meanwhile. ABC's "Home Improvement," airing at 9 p.m. Wednesday, scored its second-highest ratings ever. R.H.

Dot's ail Today on "Sony a Live." (CNN. 1 p.m.). "Saturday Night Live Al Franken. (who plays the show's dysfunctional self-help guru, Stuart Smalley) and authors Wendy Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional Kaminer and Karen Is Finley talk about, what else, self-help. On to-, night's "Inside Edition," (Ch.

2. 7 p.m.) Kathy Self, girlfriend and personal assistant of Herve Villectiaize, talks about the actor's recent suicide. Villechaize was best known as Tattoo on "Fantasy-Island." Tonight at 7:30, ESPN presents an hour special, "Outside the Lines: Coaching in the '90s." Tonight's "Entertainment Tonight" (Ch. 7:30 p.m.) features "General Hospital" stars Genie Francis and Anthony Geary. MTV supplies a ghoulishly good time on "MTV's Haunted House Party" tonight from" 8 to 10 p.m.

The show, hosted by veejays Kennedy and Bill Bellamy, features live perfor- mances by Primus. White Zombie and Positive K. "Brady Bunch" star Maureen McCormick guests on tonight's "Late Night With Co-nan O'Brien" (NBC, 12:35 a.m.) The story' you are about to? read is true. "Dragnet" narrator George Fennemen (also Groucho Marx' long-time TV sidekick) will lend his well-known voice to the Nov. 4 episode of "The Simpsons." Christy Slewinski BAD RE-START: Markie Post In his List of six weeks on the air (Oct.

11 -15). Chase was averaging just over a 2.1 rating (percentage of the nation's 94 2 million TV homes). In its first week (Oct. 18-22). "In I.h in Color' posted a 3.1 rating and a 7 share (percentage of sets in use) for the week.

That's still below the 4 5 rating Fox had guaranteed those who bought time in the Chase show, but should help Fox make amends to some decree with those advertisers. Meanwhile. CBS' "Late Show With David Lottorman" notched its eighth consecutive late-night talk ratings win. "I.etterman" was delayed on three of five nights last week because of the World Scries telecast. Nonetheless, using either the numbers for head to head contests with Jay "Tonight'" show on NBC (5.4 rating 18 share versus 3.7,11) or the ratings for the delayed telecasts versus "Leno" (4.0 20 to 3 7 11).

"Letterman" was still the winner. ABC's "Nightline" averaged a 4 6,15 for the week. On the other end of the day. CBS' daytime schedule notched its 242d straight weekly in. and ABC's "Good Morning America" won the morning crown by half a rating point over NBC's "Today." Richard Huff eying more Stern While the broadcast networks allegedly debate using morning radio mouth and best-selling author Howard Storn as a late-night talk-show host, the folks who run Entertainment are trying to figure out how best to use Stern on their cablewaves.

Stern currently hosts a half hour talk show for taped here and in Los Angeles. It's highest-rated program. So. no surprise, execs are putting their heads together to see how to expand the program beyond the one-on-one format. They've already made some test shows in front of an audience (the show now consists of Stern and a guest only).

Some other possible changes include broadening the type of guests Stern has on many are the same faces he 'Grain' aim: Cut down audience apathy Finest hours of '60 Minutes' sometimes came at a cost THE PEOPLE behind NBC's "Against the Grain," threatened with cancellation because of low ratings and high viewer apathy, do not plan to go gentle into that good night. Instead, executive story editor Ed Tivnan is daring if not begging people to find and watch his series tonight at 8. "Here's the family values' show America has been screaming for," he says. "Is America going to tune in, or is it being hypocritical? On the one hand, saying, 'Here's what we want," but on the other hand, saying, 'We won't watch Nine episodes of "Against the Grain," a sort of football-coach version of "The White Shadow," have been produced; tonight's episode is the fourth, and production is far enough ahead that the "Grain" folks are in a holding pattern now, waiting to see whether NBC will order more shows. "It's put up or shut up, America," Tivnan says.

"We're not sitting you down in front of 'The We're saying, if you sit down and watch, you're gonna laugh, you're i gonna cry, you're gonna be enter-' tained." David Bianculli It It RADIO HIGHLIGHTS MORNING 5:00 -WBBR, WCSS-AM, WINS- News and information features (Conttnuousl Gambling. Giants coacti Dan Reeves Stern Show 10:00 WXRK History of Classic Rock. Rockumentary (to 6 p.m.) By RICHARD HUFF Daily News Sldf UVnlc OH. how times have changed. In recent years there's been a lot of nose -thumbing in the news industry about the frequency with which the syndicated tabloid shows pay sources for interviews.

But how quickly some forget. In the soon to-be released book "60 Minutes: 25 Years of Television's Finest Hour." author Frank Coffey reminds readers that 18 years ago. the granddaddy of newsmagazines forked over $15,000 for an interview with Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy. And.

later the same year, reports Coffey, the show also paid $10,000 to a tipster claiming to know the whereabouts of missing (and still unfound) Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. Turned out to be money poorly spent. The tipster, before anyone interviewed him, skipped town with CBS' cash, never to be heard from again. What did founding (and still active) "60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace think of the Liddy interview? "We paid Gordon Liddy $15,000 to appear on '60 And I thought he performed superbly. He came off as the Nazi he wanted to come off as." "Shortly thereafter, they realized that paying sourcesl didn't necessarily mean you were going to get a better interview," said a show spokesman.

He added the show doesn't pay for interviews today. Many of the producers who have created newsmags in recent years always point to "60 Minutes" as the model of excellence. And last season the show was the highest-rated prime-time program. But. it's not always been that way.

"If it had been a newspaper, it would not have sold many copies," was the way trade paper Variety-summed up the show's first outing, on Sept. 24. 1968. "The stories were dated and the magazine format, lifted from print, pretentious." Another item in the new book: That stopwatch, used on every single show since the premiere, was executive producer and creator Don Hewitt's idea. In keeping with the magazine theme, Hewitt originally wanted, between segments, to show a page turning.

But he felt the stopwatch symbolized the show's title, gave viewers a sense of how short the stories were, and also, perhaps most importantly, provided an audio signal coming out of commercials that it was now time to pay attention. The book, which will be in stores Nov. 15, chronicles the long-running show, detailing every program aired, offering backstage insights and profiles of the personalities. And, there's a trivia chapter. Some tidbits: The show was in danger of being axed after each of its first six seasons.

One of five stories comes from viewer mail. Ifs the only show to rank No. 1 in three different jf NEWS reporters tonight. WRTN Sonny Bloch Strew. 5i.

Getting the Right Price for Your Home -G Gordon Liddy 7:00 -WCSS-AM -Let's Find Out. SSV "Ask Christie Whitman." Live call-in with the NJ gubernatorial candidate 3 landers-Lightning (Live) Portraits in Blue. B.B.3 King (interviewerjwim music) WNVC-FM Work) of Opera Bweldieu: La Dame Blanche i 9HV- -lay Diamond'Shbw 10:00 -WOO -Barry Gray Show ll-0O-WICA-Barry Faroer Show Jat" NewsHour. News and public affairs Jf AFTERNOON Noon WABC Rush Limbaugh Show Noon WNYC-AM Autnor Ann Rice documentary film maker Fred Wiseman Stage. Jazz visionary Marcus Roberts: legend Charles Brown: guitarist Danny Gatton 3:00 MC Bob Grant Show 3:00 WEVD Ruth Jacobs Show.

Republican-Liberal Mayoral candidate Rudolph Giuliani (Part 1 of 2) 4:00 WBLS Frankie Crocker Show 5:00 WNYC All Things Considered EVENING 6:00 -WEVD -DAILY NEWS PRO-GRAM. Dick Oliver, host. Hear tomorrow's headlines discussed by DAILY a AM FM AM FM WAC 770 WMJC 943 WALK 1370 97.5 WMXV 105 I WtAI 102.3 WNCN 104 3 WAI 99.5 WNEW 1027 WtAZ 101.7 WNJI 1430 WBU 1130 WNWK 105 9 WGO 88.3 WNYC 820 93 9 WtlS 107.5 WNYC 91 5 WCtS ON 101.1 WNYG 1440 WD8E 92.7 WNYU 89 1 WfVD 1050 WOt 710 WFAN 660 WFAT 930 931 WFAS 1230 103 9 WFU 95 WFUV 90.7 WOCO 101.9 WGM 1340 WOF.W 1560 WGll 1290 WOHT 971 WGSM 740 WQXR 96 3 WHU HOO WtHU H7 WHTZ 100.3 WKS 9 7 WHUD 100.7 WtTN 93.5 WINS 1010 WSKQ 620 97.9 WKCt 89.9 WUSI 90.1 WKDM 13M WVII 1310 106.3 WKJY 98 3 WVOK 1460 WKM 90.9 WWOi 970 Will 1190 WWII 1600 WUM 1580 WWtV 1330 Win 540 WIIK 92.3 WITW 106.7 WYNY 103.5 WMCA SP, 1480 8:00 PM Dick Van Dyke is Ch. 2 a super sleuth in 4 DIAGNOSIS MURDER, i 9:00 PM Boh Newhait stars it Ch. 2 the all new BOB.

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