CBS touts entertainment, except during its executive press conference

CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler is a pleasant person to chat with on a personal level, but when she's in professional mode, there's no there there. Her TV Press Tour press conferences elevate blandness to an art form; they're spectacles of flavorless verbiage and numbing corporate-speak, of self-evident statements passed off as insightful, of unnecessarily evasive answers. (Would it kill her to just say that "Swingtown" won't be returning?)

Consider this: In the wake of the strike, Tassler declared, "We needed to have new content; we needed to have new programming available for our viewers this fall." Well, that would have been true regardless, as would her observation, "Given the current climate, people want to be entertained."

Or this: In response to a question about how CBS tried - and failed, pretty spectacularly - with some audacious programs last season ("Viva Laughlin," "Kid Nation") and how the network's new shows for 2008-09 represent safer fare, Tassler benignly noted, "Certainly, a couple of our shows are more within our wheelhouse, but the characters are more idiosyncratic. ... We're building shows that are inside of our wheelhouse but still expanding our brand."

No reflections on the lessons learned from last season; no acknowledgement that the shows weren't what audiences were interested in or ruminations on how a network should proceed in programming its lineup, which the question invited.

Fox's Kevin Reilly and ABC's Stephen McPherson would've accepted the lumps and acknowledged the missteps and said something newsworthy. That's why, after their press conferences, a gaggle of reporters pursue them for a post-session scrum for more of their thoughts. A mere handful of reporters sought Tassler out after her session; the others realized they weren't going to get much out of her (well, that, or they're lazy, which is always a possibility). When Les Moonves presided over CBS's executive session, reporters came away sated with his piercing analysis of the state of the industry; Tassler is assiduously unprovocative.

So, the only that really resulted from her session is a bit of an explanation of what's going to happen on "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" this season. William Petersen's leaving the show as a regular after the 10th episode of its ninth season. (He'll return occasionally, and will retain his executive-producer credit.)

"You don't replace Billy," Tassler said. "Billy's an extraordinary guy - let's not forget his roots in the theater. He's still an artist and very passionate, very committed to the show. ... He has always been very outspoken in terms of his artistic dedication to the show. It's an artist's choice to change his life right now."

A new character will be introduced, an outsider to the unit who is a doctor/scientist who won't immediately replace Petersen's Gus Grissom as the head of CSI. The character - who has not yet been cast - will have a dark secret, and that's that he shares a similar genetic profile with serial killers.

"This gentleman knows this about himself, and will go on a journey to discover who this character will become," Tassler explained. Later, she reheated that warmed-over phrase, saying the show's producers "were interested in a character that was going on a journey of self-discovery."

Tassler played down the implications of CBS's franchise show losing its star. "I predict that that show will be extremely resilient," she said. "This will be a DVR-proof season of 'CSI.'"