TELEVISION: Keeping Its Eye On the Ball

Faithful viewers of CBS may soon take its initials to mean Clobbered By Sports. The No. 3-ranked network already holds rights to National Football League and National Basketball Association games. Last week CBS offered $1.1 billion to win a bidding war for the priciest TV sports contract ever: a four- year pro-baseball package that will include the World Series, the league championships, the All-Star game and twelve regular-season contests. That works out to a maximum of 136 games over the four-year span, or a heady $8 million per event. The odds-on candidate for announcing duties: Brent Musburger.

CBS hopes its rights to the pennant games and the fall classic will deliver an audience that can be regaled with the network’s new prime-time programming, which badly needs bucking up. Last week CBS canceled four of its eight new prime-time shows because of poor ratings.