CBS is eyeing its next victory, ABC is playing a conservative hand, NBC is feeling like a plucked peacock after watching five of its highest-rated shows head into TV history, and Fox wants to play with the big kids by programing seven nights a week. In a nutshell, that's how the 1992-93 television season is evolving after the Big Three networks and Fox Broadcasting Co. announced their fall schedules over several weeks this month. CBS is actively pursuing a broad audience, including older viewers, to boost its total household ratings, while Fox, ABC and now NBC go for teens and young adults the audience advertisers crave because their brand preferences aren't set yet. CBS Entertainment president Jeff Sagansky told advertisers outright that his network will wear its ratings crown once again when all the numbers are tallied at the end of the coming broadcast season. Fox Entertainment Group president Peter Chernin admitted as much but noted that ABC and NBC are chasing the young viewers that Fox has so successfully wooed in its six-year existence. "CBS looks very strong," said Betsy Frank, Saatchi and Saatchi advertising's senior vice president and director of television information and new media. Dave Davis, an analyst with the media research and consulting firm Paul Kagan Associates, said there's more of a "wide-open environment" for the 1992-93 season than in previous years, with significant opportunities on Thursdays and Fridays. "A real wild card will be the performance of Fox shows on Tuesdays and Wednesdays," he said. "Fox is pulling out all guns to establish Wednesday, using the same strategy as last year by airing original episodes in summer to establish shows." Last summer, Fox scheduled new episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, which scored a demographics bull's eye, especially among teenage girls. "They were very successful in doing that," Davis said. In July, Fox is opening Wednesday nights by leading off with new episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 followed by Melrose Place, a show that has landed on the cover of People magazine and an upcoming issue of TV Guide before its first outing. Switching 90210 to Wednesday night for the summer, Frank said, is "going to get people used to the Melrose Place habit." Besides Fox programing a full schedule, there are a number of intriguing aspects regarding the fall season, notably how CBS will fare by moving Designing Women and Major Dad to Fridays in hopes of cloning another Monday night ratings coup and how NBC will do on Thursdays minus The Cosby Show. "A real important battle front is Friday night now that CBS has, in essence, taken out a couple of shows from its Monday lineup, along with a couple of other high-profile vehicles," Davis said. "CBS has a good chance to plant a beachhead on Fridays along with Sunday and Monday. If successful, it will be hard for any other network to beat them in household ratings next year." Friday is a night CBS perceives is up for grabs, Frank said. "ABC's shows skew young, NBC is out of the picture with no Matlock, and Fox is continuing to go with America's Most Wanted," she said. CBS, though, met with disaster on Fridays last season, trying for sophisticated comedy in Princesses and Brooklyn Bridge, neither of which worked well on the night, along with the ill-fated The Carol Burnett Show and Palace Guard. (Of the shows CBS introduced in 1991-92, only Brooklyn Bridge is back, this time on Saturdays.) In the fall, CBS leads off Fridays with The Golden Palace, its new version of NBC's cast-off The Golden Girls, which goes against ABC's Family Matters, Fox's America's Most Wanted and NBC's In the Loop. Besides Designing Women and Major Dad, CBS is programing Bob Newhart's Bob and Picket Fences, a drama Sagansky calls the most promising on the network's schedule. Picket Fences faces NBC's low-rated but critically acclaimed I'll Fly Away, given a second chance to prove its mettle, and ABC's stalwart newsmagazine 20/20. Another question mark on the schedule is Thursdays now that The Cosby Show won't dominate its time period for NBC as it did for the past eight seasons. NBC is programing the veteran A Different World at 8 p.m. opposite Fox's The Simpsons, which began beating Cosby toward the end of the latter's run. There's also competition from ABC's Delta and Room for Two, though both are likely to appeal to older women. "A Different World has the clout to open up a night, otherwise Fox could make even more inroads," Davis said. "Even ABC with Delta Burke's sitcom has a chance in that important time slot." Also going toe-to-toe on Thursday at 8:30 p.m. are two series set in African-American radio stations. NBC is offering Rhythm and Blues with comedian Roger Habler as a white disc jockey; Fox is giving its choicest slot (but seemingly the Bermuda Triangle of time periods with forgettable failures such as Babes and Drexell's Class) to Martin, starring comedian Martin Lawrence as an African-American disc jockey. While Frank said The Simpsons might win its time slot, she predicts that the night still will belong to NBC. Wednesdays will be interesting with the addition of Fox's 8 p.m. drama, The Heights, about blue-collar teens trying to make it in music, and Melrose Place at 9. NBC previously took the 8 p.m. hour with its reality series Unsolved Mysteries, perennially in the top 20. ABC is moving Home Improvement, last season's only new hit, from Tuesday to Wednesday at 9, where it will square off against NBC's hip Seinfeld, which has been making ratings gains in its two seasons. "Unfortunately for Seinfeld, Home Improvement should do quite well," Frank said. "It probably means Seinfeld isn't going to grow anymore." While Melrose Place gets a chance to earn an audience beginning in July, NBC also is broadcasting fresh episodes of Seinfeld starting in August with heavy promotion during the Summer Olympics. Melrose Place gets the 90210 audience, while Seinfeld will skew a little older, Davis said. "There's room for both of those shows," he said. "The question is, is there room for both of those shows, Home Improvement and In the Heat of the Night?" CBS is counterprograming Wednesdays with The Hat Squad, In the Heat of the Night (a discard from NBC, which rejected it because its viewers were too old to be demographically desirable to advertisers) and 48 Hours. Meanwhile, Civil Wars, the good but marginally rated divorce drama from Steven Bochco Productions, faces another legal challenge from NBC's Law & Order, which also has moved to Wednesdays at 10 p.m. Even with Home Improvement moving to a new night, ABC likely will continue to rule Tuesdays so long as Full House and Roseanne call the night home.