Igniting a primetime battle that is sure to have CBS's homebound, octogenarian audience clutching for its nurse-call buttons, the network has positioned the latest CSI installment (CSI: NY) to clash with NBC's original Law & Order on Wednesday nights this Fall.

CBS head Les Moonves will otherwise try not to jostle any old bones, unveiling a "rather conservative" schedule for the first-place network. Playing to its target demographic's noted trouble with short-term memory, CBS will recycle some faces from television's past: Jason Alexander and John Goodman will both appear in new sitcoms (Listen Up and Center of the Universe), with Goodman getting an assist from Ed Asner for those viewers who have problems with recall after 1978. The network should continue its overall ratings victory; retirement community attendants find it so much easier to leave the television tuned to CBS, as the network's soothing fare leads to longer intervals between bedsheet soilings.

• CBS Goes After 'Law & Order [Zap2it]


• CBS' eyes 'CSI: NY' versus NBC's 'L&O' in Big Apple brawl [THR]

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