Dear CBS, Re: "Smith"

CBS has the perfect opportunity to salvage "Smith"
by taking advantage of an ideal, ready-made time slot
for it now: Wednesday 10-11 p.m. What makes it ideal?
ABC's "The Nine" will clearly suffer the same diminishing
returns fate as "Six Degrees" has, both having dropped off
considerably in their debuts after potent lead-ins and
continuing to drop steadily with each passing week, i.e.
"Six Degrees" has come in with 8.6, 7.3, and now 6.6
in the Fast Nationals.

Now comes word that NBC will insert "Dateline" into its
Wednesday 10 p.m. slot. Just look at it, CBS: "Smith"
after "Criminal Minds" is nothing but destined to beat the
diminishing returns of "The Nine" and generally so-so
numbers for "Dateline". It's perfect counterprogramming
and the show would have a great lead-in this time, certainly
a much stronger one than "The Unit". Let's face it, the
"Criminal Minds" title tying in with the criminal minds
premise of "Smith" [a promo dept.'s dream!!] makes the
Wednesday pairing subliminally compatible, so to
speak, and just absolutely perfect. Just make sure you
hype the series as a "Mission: Impossible" in which the
bad guys win - emphasize the twist! The original summer
promos the network ran for the show were disastrous and
thoroughly misleading.

But then you might ask, where does that leave "CSI: NY"?
It leaves it on Tuesday at 10 p.m., where it should have no
problem handling the competition there, having already
bruised the original "Law & Order" on Wednesday and
likely to steal a nice chunk of viewers from the vulnerable
"Boston Legal".

You can't go wrong, CBS, you win both ways. And more
importantly, I win as a viewer.