Advertisers like new fall TV schedule

Advertisers in the coming days will make billion-dollar bets on the TV networks' new fall schedules — and this time around, they actually like the script.

In recent years, with production costs soaring and profits falling, the broadcast networks scaled back prime-time comedies and dramas. To the dismay of advertisers hoping to place their products in a classier environment, the networks instead added cheaper reality shows and tried cost-saving gambits like shifting Jay Leno to prime time. But when the broadcast networks unveiled their new fall lineups to advertisers in New York recently, expensive scripted dramas and comedies were back in vogue. "There is more emphasis on scripted shows," said David Scardino, entertainment specialist at RPA, a Santa Monica advertising agency. "Networks are feeling a little more confident that there's money in the marketplace, and their schedules reflect that." Call it post-recession programming. Only three of the 38 new programs introduced by ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and the small CW network are unscripted, the industry term for contest and so-called reality shows. That signals a sharp retrenchment from last year, when the networks introduced eight unscripted shows, expanding the genre to fully one-third of prime-time programming, excluding football.