Hey, That’s No Smurf, It’s the ‘Today’ Show : Television: A ‘user-friendly’ version debuts Saturday. NBC thinks it’s a smart move to ax cartoons. Others call it risky.

About a dozen or so years ago, some NBC executives figured they had stumbled on a great idea.

Why not dump Saturday morning cartoons?

After all, kids were such fickle viewers that it was just about impossible to get a hit series and, consequently, advertisers. So why not put on movies for adults? Or live-action series? Or news? Or magazine shows? Adults, after all, were so much more reliable.

Then, in the midst of all this brainstorming, along came an odd little show about “Smurfs,” and all those ideas magically evaporated. “The Smurfs” became one of NBC’s giant hits of the ‘80s--in a way, the network’s Saturday morning equivalent of “The Cosby Show” in prime time.

But two years ago, the long-running “Smurfs” came to an end, and NBC’s enthusiasm for kiddie shows on Saturdays began to wane once again. Finally, on Saturday, NBC will revive that old idea of a Saturday program for people who are graying rather than growing when it launches a new edition of the “Today” show.

Like its weekday cousin, the Saturday show will have news and commentary, presented by a male and female host: Scott Simon, anchor of the weekend edition of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” and Jackie Nespral, formerly an anchor with Univision, the Spanish-language network.

But there will be big differences. First, the new Saturday edition is meant to be particularly “user-friendly,” filled with longish pieces about gardening, cooking, travel, fitness and outdoor activities. The rationale is that these, after all, are the sorts of things people think about on Saturdays.

While the network is eliminating the Saturday cartoons, it is not completely turning its back on the youth of America. Following “Today,” the network will air a handful of live-action shows designed to appeal to teen-agers, such as “Saved by the Bell,” a teen sitcom.

Still, with “Today” NBC hopes to accomplish something that none of the networks has ever done: Get adults in front of the tube at the same time their children are glued to it. It is a dramatic move and not without its risks: Will people change well-established viewing habits? And what happens if ratings are microscopic, as some industry seers expect they will be? Will affiliated stations dump the program for their own local news offerings, or even syndicated cartoon shows?

NBC says most of its stations are committed to “Saturday Today,” but virtually all of NBC’s affiliated stations are airing it from 7 to 9 a.m., one of the least-viewed times of the entire week (and an hour earlier than NBC would like). Even NBC’s owned stations in New York and Los Angeles will air it from 7 to 9 a.m., a move sure to dampen national ratings.

“I don’t see any risks--only pluses,” says Karen Curry, the executive producer of morning news programs for NBC, who is spearheading the Saturday project.

Curry says the network is armed with research that “indicates that the number of adults who are in fact watching TV on Saturday mornings is probably up by 100% over the last 10 years.” CNN, in particular, has had some success attracting older viewers to its Saturday morning “infotainment” news offerings.

NBC’s trade-in of Saturday cartoons for a magazine show comes as all the networks reassess Saturday morning programs. Saturday cartoons are hugely profitable--advertisers already have committed an estimated $400 million for commercial time next season on ABC, CBS, Fox and syndicated shows--but ratings have slid in recent years, partly because of increased competition from syndicators and cable’s Nickelodeon.

Meanwhile, a federal law enacted in 1990--the Children’s Television Act--has set a cap on the number of commercial minutes the networks can sell on each Saturday morning show.

But the biggest headache is the networks’ affiliates. Over the last two years, an increasing number of stations have scraped their network’s Saturday cartoons in favor of local news shows. The reason is financial: While the networks continue to make a lot of money from Saturday cartoons, stations do not, because they have relatively few commercial slots to sell.

Over the last two years, about 20 CBS and ABC affiliates have replaced their networks’ cartoons with local news. “News is where they make their money and it’s where they get their identity in their city or their town, so that from their point of view, yes, it makes sense,” says Jennie Trias, vice president of children’s programming for ABC, which saw its Atlanta affiliate recently switch to news. “But we as a network feel that’s shortsighted.”

CBS and ABC say they have no immediate plans to switch to other Saturday programming, but that hasn’t stopped them from thinking about it. ABC, for example, is believed to have toyed with the idea of creating a Saturday edition of “Good Morning America” (a Sunday edition bows early next year). It has also kicked around an idea for a Saturday morning news program geared to younger viewers.

Fox could directly influence these plans. Most industry observers say the network has already had a huge impact on the Saturday morning landscape. Fox introduced a Saturday morning cartoon schedule in 1990, and a weekday schedule of early morning and afternoon kids’ shows a year later. (A Sunday block of cartoons may bow within a year.)

Because of the weekday schedule, many believe that Fox has a big advantage over CBS and ABC. The reason is that the network can build an audience for its Saturday shows by promoting them on its weekday shows, and vice versa.

Indeed, the demise of “Smurfs,” coupled with Fox’s move to Saturdays, may have forced NBC to dump cartoons and seek out older viewers. But some industry observers think NBC’s strategy is misguided.

“I’m not sure NBC is making the right move,” says Squire Rushnell, president of the Rushnell Group and former head of children’s and daytime TV for ABC. “My own sense is that there isn’t a huge appetite on Saturday morning for that type of a program.”

Peggy Charren, president of Action for Children’s Television, has also criticized the network’s plans to go after older viewers on Saturday. “NBC is not taking away cartoons, which are mostly dumb anyway, and replacing them with meaningful, terrific programs for kids, but instead putting in their place yet another soft information show for adults,” she says.

NBC, of course, sees the move differently. The network argues that there are plenty of other places for children to get both entertainment and information programs. On Oct. 1, for example, Ted Turner will launch a new cable network that will be devoted to cartoons, day and night.

Network executives also argue that adults will tune in to a program designed for their tastes because if kids are watching cartoons on one set in the house, their parents can watch “Saturday Today” on another. As Curry told reporters recently, “We potentially will have a lot of the same viewers (as the weekday “Today” show), but those people will be in a slightly different mood.”

The presumption is that viewers will be in the mood for weather reports--”Saturday Today” will have extensive ones, on the assumption that people are especially interested in whether it will rain or shine on the weekends. Jeff Ball will give gardening tips (after all, people garden on Saturdays, don’t they?). Andy Pargh, the network’s so-called “gadget guru,” will give tips on how to fix things, like broken lawn mowers. Martha Stewart will contribute a variety of segments, from cooking to home entertaining.

But the key figures will be Nespral and Simon, who will also handle “Sunday Today” anchoring chores. Simon, a 17-year veteran of public broadcasting, is well-regarded for his thoughtful commentary and reporting on NPR. Nespral, a former Orange Bowl Queen, spent the bulk of her TV career at Univision, reporting from Miami and Central America.

But now they face the biggest challenge of their careers: Getting people out of bed very early every Saturday morning.