Teen shows out, broad reach in. "farming" shunned.

If content is king, then drama is the crown prince of the U.S. fall season, and surely it will end up influencing how broadcasters the world over will face new challenges.

Spurred by last year's successes, U.S. networks and studios are looking to create lightning in a bottle again. Continuing where the L.A. Screenings left off, the studios are coming to MIPCOM with a smorgasbord of procedurals, sci-fi and serialized dramas.

"Network television turned the corner this year," said Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment. "We've reclaimed control of the water cooler from cable, with shows like CSI, Survivor, Lost, Desperate Housewives and American Idol. These are the shows people are talking about at the water cooler, in the cul-de-sacs, at the coffee shops and in the chat rooms."

While no Housewives clones made it to air, CBS, NBC and WB are hoping to go where ABC has gone before by dabbling in sci-fi themed shows. But Stephen McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment, warned that attempts to duplicate Lost, including those from his own network, will probably end in frustration. "It's such a specific idea; you can do shows that are influenced by [Lost] or that appeal to the same audience, but it gets a little risky when people are trying to imitate."

Perhaps most noteworthy, though, is the absence of teen-driven vehicles this season, even on the WB. Although long considered the veritable teen network, Chairman Garth Ancier said it's a misperception they are hoping to correct this season with their new crop of shows--Related, Supernatural, Just Legal and Twins.

"Because there have been so many shows set in high school which have been successful, [that has] contributed to the perception that we were really a teenage service. One of the things we kept getting back in research over the last couple of years was that people in their late 20s and early 30s do not perceive the network, yet, as [being] for them. We always have done very well in that 12-24 range, and we've not done as well in the 25-34-age range. So it's important for us to reinforce that the audience of 18-to 34-year-olds can come to our network and see shows that are relevant to them, that reflect the lives they're living, as well."

CBS, on the other hand, is looking to retain its lead and attract viewers across all demos. "Our strategy remains to broadcast to everybody," said Tassler. "And in the process, we've reached more young viewers and expanded our definition of success."

Although CBS has one of the most critically acclaimed new dramas, Threshold, Tassler said, "Comedy was really our first priority heading into the development season, and we wanted to reinforce Monday, expand our brand of comedy and enhance our repertoire," by adding two comedies: Out of Practice and How I Met Your Mother.

"In drama, we wanted to capitalize on the growing number of younger viewers coming to the network, and try some different types of dramas," Tassler explained. "Threshold and Ghost Whisperer are both mysterious and a little spooky. And with Criminal Minds, we have a series that we think can carve a unique space among crime dramas as a psychological thriller. It also establishes a very compatible two-hour block with CSI: NY, which performed much better last year whenever it had a drama lead-in." Close To Home, a crime drama set in suburbia, rounds out their new fall entries.

Rather than try to challenge Desperate Housewives with a scripted series, Tassler admitted they have been forced to adjust their strategy. "As a result, we're attempting some high concept and popcorn movies to go along with our traditional female-skewing films and star-driven vehicles. We see these movies as a good alternative to the Desperate Housewives audience, and [they are] very compatible for promotion in our Sunday NFL broadcasts."

Although nobody expects to make much of a dent in CBS's stranglehold on Thursday night, the other networks are looking for small demographic victories. The WB's Entertainment president, David Janollari, noted, "Thursday isn't what it used to be back in the day when NBC had that incredible stronghold. We all believe there's more opportunity there if we get a little more aggressive about it. For us, we spent the better part of last season repurposing an hour and a half of our two-hour block on Thursday night. From a year-to-year standpoint, we can't imagine that these two shows, Smallville and Everwood, that have had incredibly loyal audiences for four and five years, won't significantly increase our performance on that night, and that's what we're looking for. Do they have to perform at exactly the same levels they had last season? No. We're just looking for ratings growth on the night [as a whole]."

ABC's McPherson echoed that sentiment. "We haven't performed very well on Thursday. And frankly, we haven't really gone after it aggressively. It's important to us for the overall performance. But I can't say that it is the penultimate night for us because we're now seeing a lot of the movie money on both Wednesday and Sunday. Alias, with its dedicated audience and resurgence this past year, is a great asset to try. We also feel that Night Stalker is a nice companion for it."

McPherson said patience is vital when it comes to the new season's schedule. "We have to take it one step at a time. We're looking to establish ourselves and build out from [our] strengths. At this point we're not going to take one of our giant shows and move it to Thursday just to win the night. Every night of the week is really important to us. Step by step, we'd like to be a real performer on Thursday, but we're not looking to win it this year, certainly."

Looking to build on last season's sudden turn-around, McPherson said marketing is crucial for his slate of new shows, which includes dramas Invasion, Night Stalker, Commander In Chief and comedies Freddie, Emily's Reasons Why Not and What About Brian.

"The creative is everything. That's where all our passions lie. That's where it all starts," opined McPherson. "But secondarily, marketing is a huge obsession of mine, and it's become an incredibly important part of what we do and how successfully [we do it]. We look at each of the shows as a project unto itself ... and try to just attack it--take the old rules, throw them out, really look at what's worked for us and try to implement new strategies, especially as [things have] become so competitive."

The third prong is their programming strategy. "With Sunday night being very stable, we're not going to jump the gun and break that up and start new assets on other nights; but we will try some bolder moves on Tuesday and Wednesday." The biggest move is Lost's one-hour scheduling postponement. This season, the hit show will air at 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday.

"When we aired the two-hour special, it performed well at 9:00 p.m. with audience levels up. Every time we aired it, it built enormously through the hour. We feel that in the later hour we're going to have a greater opportunity to get people in right at the start. We've just got to do a lot of directional marketing to make sure people know it's on an hour later."

UPN finds itself in the unusual position of having the most anticipated comedy of the fall on its schedule--Everybody Hates Chris. And in one of the bolder moves, the network is scheduling the freshman sitcom on Thursday night at 8:00 p.m. "We're going to plant our flag," said network president Dawn Ostroff. "I know there's a lot of buzz surrounding the show, so we're trying to be realistic about our expectations. The fact is, this is a fiercely competitive time period, and we're going to put our best foot forward. Everybody Hates Chris is the perfect piece to open a new night of comedy."

Bristling against rumors that, if the series should become a monster hit, CBS might poach it, Ostroff stressed, "I want to be perfectly clear that UPN is not a farm system for CBS. We're our own vibrant network with a distinct target audience. We have our own development team, and they're very talented. Believe me, we're thrilled that all of you like the show enough and think it's good enough to put on the number-one network. But we got it, we produced it, and we are broadcasting it."

Although Fox squeaked by CBS for the 18-49 crown last season, new Entertainment president Peter Liguori acknowledged they can't just spot everyone else in the fall because of the network's baseball commitment. "We've gone through trial and error in trying to figure out how to launch shows around baseball. We've tried launching our schedule post-baseball--last year everything was launched in November. This year we've decided to give it a whirl; we will launch virtually all of our shows before any of our competitors launch theirs. Then we're able to use baseball as a promotional platform" for male skewing shows such as Prison Break.

"Every January we recognize that two and a half hours of fresh originals are coming in--an hour of 24 and an hour and a half of American Idol. That gives us an opportunity to look at some midseason replacements to see what we can line up with the one-hour American Idol," Liguori said.

It may be another humbling season for NBC. Entertainment president Kevin Reilly admitted that rebuilding will take time--and acknowledged that mistakes were made. "We had enormous, history-making hits going away," he said, referring to Friends and Frasier. "We needed to reseed them. It didn't happen and now we are where we are. We're insane if we stay on the same track. That's the definition of insanity--to keep making the same mistakes and doing things the same way.

"Last season for us was kind of a colonic," Reilly said. "It wasn't a lot of fun to go through at the time, but it's going to be healthy in the long run. It literally took any residual sense of entitlement or complacency out of our company. But the fact is we have some significant underlying challenges and these are going to take time to fix."

One of Reilly's goals is to repopulate the schedule with comedies, like the much buzzed-about My Name is Earl', the other is to try for more family dramas, which Reilly said he sees the sci-fi thriller Surface being.

"I think we've got to be as stable as possible, particularly at this point in time. Stunting things, moving things around, rifling shows in and out of time periods, that only makes your problems go from bad to worse," he said. "So I would say that I'm optimistic about the fall, but if we do see some acute challenges, I don't expect to start making wholesale changes; we may look at a time period or two."

Reilly continued: "We need a game-changer and we need some hot new shows, and that's what we're going to work on."