As usual, WQED fared best in the 2009 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards, winning three trophies. KDKA and WTAE had two awards each and FSN Pittsburgh received one.

Local winners in the 2009 Mid-Atlantic Emmys are:

Features news report/series: "Rebuilding Together," WTAE-TV, anchor/reporter Wendy Bell, editor Michael Lazorko, photographer Andrew Cunningham.

Entertainment program feature/segment: "OnQ: Madame Dawson's Opera Company," WQED Multimedia, writer/producer David Solomon.

Entertainment program/special: "WTAE Celebrates 50 Years," WTAE-TV, producer Richard Cook, host/associate producer Sally Wiggin, associate producer/editor Michael Lazorko, broadcast operations manager Dan Henninger.

Documentary: "Gardens of Pennsylvania," WQED Multimedia, producer/host Doug Oster, supervising producer Nathalie Berry, photographer Dave Forstate.

News promotion: "A Good Life," KDKA-TV, promotions manager Greg Loscar.

Promotion campaign: "Smell Test," FSN Pittsburgh, producer Christopher Au, producer Mike Pearrow.

News excellence: "KDKA-TV," acting news director Anne Linaberger.

Music composition: Dave Hab, WQED Multimedia. (Rob Owen, Post-Gazette TV editor)

One week into the fall TV season, a strange and unsettling mood is creeping over network programmers. It's called optimism.

Dark clouds still linger over the broadcast industry, but surprisingly strong numbers for such new shows as ABC's comedy "Modern Family" and CBS's "NCIS: Los Angeles" and "The Good Wife" have executives hoping that their long-beleaguered prime-time schedules are finally on the rebound.

"Despite all the naysayers, it seems like we still have a viable business here," CBS scheduling chief Kelly Kahl said in an interview Friday.

Through the first four nights of the season, CBS was up a healthy 7 percent in viewers to an average of 14.2 million, compared with the same period last year, according to the Nielsen Co. Fox surged 35 percent to 9.4 million, helped along by last week's two-hour premiere of "House," which averaged 17.1 million total viewers, a huge tally for a drama in its sixth season.

ABC slipped a modest 4 percent to 14 million, but that doesn't factor in Sunday night's premieres of "Desperate Housewives" and "Brothers and Sisters," two of the network's strongest dramas. On Thursday, "FlashForward," ABC's heavily promoted new drama, became the first regular series to beat CBS's reality war horse "Survivor" among total viewers (12.5 million versus 11.7 million) and young adults since NBC's "Friends" did so back in 2004.

It's safe to say that, at least in the case of returning shows, viewers gravitated toward favorite characters facing new twists. For example, in last week's premiere, the title character of "House," the cranky physician played by Hugh Laurie, found the tables turned while in a psychiatric hospital for treatment for a Vicodin addiction.

"Clearly, we built up to something that fans of the show wanted to see resolved," said Fox scheduling guru Preston Beckman.

In any case, if TV's upward trend continues, it will represent quite a turnabout from last season, the least-watched in history for the five broadcast networks and one that prompted forecasts of an imminent reckoning for the 60-year-old commercial television business.

It is, of course, far too early to predict a permanent network comeback. Each of the outlets still has shows that underperformed -- among them, ABC's "Dancing With the Stars," which saw some of its lowest ratings ever in three airings last week -- and plenty of powerful starters may well fade in coming weeks. Then there are NBC and CW, which are not sharing in the early ratings bounty.

Airing opposite stiff drama competition at 10 p.m. weeknights, NBC's "The Jay Leno Show" has tumbled since its impressive Sept. 14 premiere, last week averaging a lackluster 6 million total viewers.

Overall, the network dived 19 percent through Thursday to 7 million average viewers, although the picture is sure to improve for NBC once Sunday's NFL game is factored into the mix.

The CW, aimed at adults younger than 35, shrank by 28 percent, to 2.2 million viewers.

The sense of a rising tide is so strong, however, that NBC says it's poised to share in the good fortune. Mitch Metcalf, who supervises scheduling for the network, pointed to success launching the Thursday comedy "Community"

That show "is going to be a long-term player for us, just like 'The Office' and '30 Rock,' " Metcalf said. As for Leno, "Some nights are going to be stronger than others. We knew that going in." (Scott Collins, Los Angeles Times)

The CW network's "The Beautiful Life: TBL" has become the first television series from the new fall crop to be canceled.

The network says it's being pulled after only two episodes aired.

The drama starred Mischa Barton and Sara Paxton and was executive produced by Ashton Kutcher. It was set in the glamorous modeling world of New York City.

It premiered Sept. 16 to just 1.5 million viewers. The audience dropped for last week's episode.

In its place on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. the CW will repeat episodes of its promising new "Melrose Place" revival, one day after their original airing.

In addition, A&E has canceled "The Cleaner," a drama series starring Benjamin Bratt that recently ended its second season. (Associated Press)

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