Video: Coming Up From Nowhere

The lead-off batter is Brandon Tartikoff, a sharp-fielding spray hitter in his sixth season as president of NBC Entertainment and third baseman on the company softball team. As Tartikoff steps to the plate against the Warner Bros. squad, a giant radio in the bleachers begins to blast out the driving theme song from Miami Vice. Inspired, Tartikoff slaps a double, leading NBC to a four-run inning. The team's "music manager" puckishly announces that all who have not hit safely must henceforth bat to the somewhat less blood- quickening theme from Punky Brewster.

At their weekend softball games in Burbank, Calif., as in their offices nearby, Tartikoff and his NBC crew radiate the highly competitive, slightly giddy elan of a Cinderella team, up from nowhere to challenge the league leader. They have every reason to feel peacocky. After running dead last in ) prime-time audience ratings for nine years, NBC since September '84 has scrambled to within a tenth of a rating point of the dominant network, CBS, in that arcane but widely accepted Nielsen yardstick of "television homes." For those who count heads rather than houses, NBC leads in the number of viewers: 24.9 million to CBS's 23.2 million and ABC's 22.3 million, according to Nielsen. NBC also delivers more of Madison Avenue's prized target audience, the 18-49 age group; here ABC is second and CBS last. Says Joel Segal, executive vice president for broadcasting at Ted Bates Advertising: "By the standards of practically any advertiser NBC is No. 1."

The networks make money by selling viewers, in bulk and by demographics, to advertisers; NBC has done this so successfully that, since Grant Tinker was named chairman of the network in 1981, an estimated $5 million of red ink has been alchemized into a projected $200 million profit for 1985. But what has NBC sold viewers on? Mostly a feast of slick weekly series in three broad categories: the traditional situation comedy, led by last season's phenom The Cosby Show (2nd in the yearlong Nielsen ratings to CBS's Dallas) and including Family Ties (3rd), Cheers (9th), Night Court (19th) and The Facts of Life (24th); a quartet of red-meat adventure shows, from The A-Team (6th) and Riptide (12th) to Miami Vice (33rd, with a bullet); and three Emmy-laden hours from Tinker's old production company, MTM Enterprises. Hill Street Blues (31st), St. Elsewhere (52nd) and Remington Steele (21st) may not woo the Nielsen families, but they wow the yup-scale viewers every advertiser covets. They have helped establish NBC's reputation as a Bloomingdale's among networks, the class act of mass-market TV.