Cbs

Fresh out of the police academy, six rookie cops are put on foot patrol in the hellzapoppin' neighborhood of Morningside Heights in upper Manhattan. That's the deceptively simple premise of NYC 22, a gritty new CBS series premiering Sunday, created by novelist Richard Price and executive-produced by a quartet that includes Robert De Niro. But these are no ordinary wet-behind-the-cuffs flatfeet. Take Jayson "Jackpot" Toney (Harold House Moore). He's a basketball star who washed out of the NBA for his party ways.

DON'T TRUST THE B---- IN APARTMENT 23. 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, 6 ABC. GIRLS. 10:30 p.m. Sunday, HBO. THE PROBLEM of too much TV comedy being placed in the hands of women is such a new one it probably takes a man to explain it. "Enough, ladies. I get it. You have periods," "Two and a Half Men" co-creator Lee Aronsohn told the Hollywood Reporter in an interview this month at the Toronto Screenwriting Conference. "We're approaching peak vagina on television, the point of labia saturation.

You bring it on yourself, you know. You could just run with the herd. Watch the same shows everyone else does: NCIS, Dancing With the Stars, American Idol, The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, and the like. Then you'd be sitting back right now, confident in another year of uninterrupted entertainment. But nooooooooooo. You pride yourself on being just a little bit different. You seek out those broadcast shows that Nielsen couldn't find with a Geiger counter. And as a result you spend this time of year on tenterhooks (not sure what those are, but they sound painful)

CBS Corp., owner of the most-watched U.S. television network, renewed 18 programs for next season, including The Big Bang Theory . Four comedies, nine dramas, three reality series, and two newsmagazine shows will return for the 2012-2013 television season, which starts in September, CBS said in a statement Wednesday. CBS renewed more than three-quarters of its prime-time schedule before May, when executives are to pitch their biggest advertisers on buying commercial time for next season.

* TOUCH. 9 tonight, Fox 29.   THERE ARE people who will be incredibly touched by "Touch," the story of a small mute boy (David Mazouz) whose mind grasps patterns in numbers he can't communicate but that could change our world, one connection at a time. How I wish I were one of them. Not only because I happen to like Kiefer Sutherland, whose portrayal of a single father struggling with a profoundly disabled son is touching and who, after Jack Bauer's relentless stoicism on "24," deserves to move his face.

A LOT OF PRAYERS were answered when Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow was bounced from the playoffs on Saturday. But, just when you thought you had seen the last of the Mile High Messiah this season, comes a report from USA Today that CBS has asked him to join its broadcast team as an analyst for Sunday's AFC Championship Game. "We've had conversations with his people," CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus told the newspaper. "We have a request in. We haven't heard back. " According to the report, Tebow is expected to give CBS an answer soon.

If Shelley Kanther's allegations against CBS Radio Philadelphia are true, its Market Street office has a few Don Draper wannabes who've seen one too many episodes of "Mad Men. " You think redheads are "fiery" in bed? That doesn't give you the right to slap one on the butt and ask if red's her "natural" hair color. You "got a blowjob" on a trip out West? Congratulations. Close the office door before telling your buddy all about it. Publicly guessing the bra sizes of co-workers is generally frowned upon these days.

THE NFL renewed its television deals with CBS, Fox and NBC for 9 years through the 2022 season, the league announced yesterday. The average rights fees from the three networks will increase by an average of 7 percent annually, a person familiar with the details said. That will take the total revenue from them from the current $1.93 billion per year to $3.1 billion by 2022. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the figures were not made public. The current agreements expire after the 2013 season.

Musical scores are crucial to a host of TV series, but no other show uses background music as extensively as Criminal Minds . It can make a scary serial killer almost unbearably stomach-turning, or transform a brightly lit police station into midnight at Dracula's castle. The show's cues, which is what TV and film people call the individual sequences that play as scenes unfold, may lack the lyrics and catchy melodies of the songs on Glee , and they may not sound like music to most viewers, but they can help define character and mood as much as anything that appears on the screen.