Culture Notes

Real-life soap opera

Television-ratings leader NBC has taken hit after hit, which has threatened its "must-see-TV" domination of the other networks. First Jerry Seinfeld and company announced they were stepping down from the top-rated sitcom and cultural icon Seinfeld. After nine seasons, the show-which was finally showing signs of going stale-was the first anchor of NBC's Thursday-night juggernaut. Then the other Thursday-night anchor threatened to come loose. The makers of ER, television's other most-watched program, announced that it would sell itself to the highest bidder. NBC decided to pay a budget-busting $13 million per episode-up from $2 million- for the popular hospital drama. But NBC will still lose its ability to make a sure-fire hit of any program scheduled between Seinfeld and ER. NBC also lost football. CBS outbid NBC for the rights to televise AFC games. Disney-owned ABC will keep Monday Night Football, and its cable affiliate ESPN will broadcast other night games. Fox will keep broadcasting the NFC. Like NBC, Ted Turner's TNT network was also shut out from airing America's favorite sporting events. TV's actors and writers are irked with NBC because of the way NBC president Don Ohlmeyer interfered with Saturday Night Live and its satirical newscast, "Weekend Update." Mr. Ohlmeyer decreed that the comedic anchorman Norm Macdonald and the sketch's writer and producer James Downey be fired. They were. Some speculated that there were too many O.J. jokes for Mr. Ohlmeyer, a vocal friend and defender of Mr. Simpson. So much for NBC's tradition of late-night fearless satire. As the peacock's feathers start to molt, NBC is becoming its own soap opera.