CBS Builds Its Ratings Power Base : Television: Barring a major stumble, the network is likely to have its second season win in a row after humiliating years in last place.

Heading into the stretch, CBS looks tough to derail in its bid to repeat as TV’s most popular network.

Barring a major stumble, CBS, with just eight weeks left in the so-called official ratings season that ends April 18, looks solid against runner-up ABC--and has also added this season to its power base of “Murphy Brown,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Northern Exposure” and “60 Minutes.” NBC is a distant third.

A measure of CBS’ overall strength is that it won last week’s national ratings race despite the huge audience drawn by ABC’s prime-time interview with Michael Jackson.

The key factor in CBS’ drive in recent days has been the miniseries “Queen”--based on a story by the late Alex Haley--which drew potent ratings, neutralized ABC’s momentum with Jackson and gave CBS a substantial lead in the February ratings sweeps as well as bolstering its grasp on the 1992-93 season.

While CBS conceivably could be overtaken, it also has other major upcoming events--such as the Grammy Awards show on Wednesday--that figure to pull big audiences.

A season victory for CBS would make it two in a row after a humiliating period as the doormat of the networks.

At the moment, CBS leads ABC by about one full ratings point in the competition for total television households, a sizable margin as the 30-week ratings season winds down.

Regardless of the final figures, CBS has had a significant season in terms of increased entertainment visibility. It began in September with “Murphy Brown” rebuking then-Vice President Dan Quayle for his criticism of the show, in which the central character (Candice Bergen) became an unwed mother.

More significant for the long run, however, was that CBS suddenly became competitive throughout the entire week. The most dramatic change occurred on the weekend, where a major new mid-season hit, “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” suddenly gave the network life on Saturday night, where it had been dead.

And another previously dead CBS night, Friday, quickly turned around as the network targeted it with “The Golden Palace,” “Major Dad,” “Designing Women,” “Bob” and “Picket Fences.” A moderate success in the ratings, the lineup nonetheless gave CBS an identity and visibility on a night where it had neither.

Amid these strokes of good fortune, CBS also wooed David Letterman away from NBC. And although his series is not in prime time, the residual effect of the coup is certainly a galvanizing weapon for the network with its overall audience.

Along with these pluses, CBS ran into a public headache this season when it pulled the notable but low-rated comedy “Brooklyn Bridge” from its schedule and was inundated by about 6,000 letters from angry viewers. The network is expected to bring the seven remaining episodes of the series back before the start of the May sweeps in a final move to see if it can catch on.

The backbone of CBS’ schedule remains its Sunday and Monday lineups. And to protect its Sunday powerhouse, which begins with “60 Minutes,” the network signed Angela Lansbury, the star of “Murder, She Wrote,” for two more seasons.

Mondays, however, have not turned out as gloriously in the ratings as CBS clearly hoped--especially since the night had become TV’s best and most potent last season, anchored by “Northern Exposure” and “Murphy Brown.” But CBS gambled by breaking up the lineup in a bid to spread its hits around.

That is how the previous Monday hits “Designing Women” and “Major Dad” wound up on Fridays. But the two new comedy series that replaced them, “Hearts Afire” and “Love & War,” are not yet consistently the major ratings winners that they appeared to be at first.

A surprising counterpunch that is slowing down CBS’ Monday lineup has developed on NBC, where “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and “Blossom” are doing very well from 8 to 9 p.m. “The Fresh Prince,” growing in popularity, drew a powerful 27% of the audience Monday--its highest figure ever--and topped the CBS show that opens the night, “Evening Shade.”

On Monday, CBS will try to throw a counterpunch of its own from 8 to 9 p.m. when it offers an hour episode of “Hearts Afire” in which the principal characters, played by John Ritter and Markie Post, get married.

CBS’ strategy this season emphasized the building of its weekly series lineup in an attempt at long-term domination of the network scene. If it succeeds in these moves--aided by such other shows as “In the Heat of the Night,” “Rescue 911” and “48 Hours”--there may be significant fallout.

For one thing, CBS has already been winning for two seasons by going against the conventional wisdom that you must program mainly for 18-to-49-year-old viewers because advertisers want them. With the season not yet over, NBC, which fell into this trap, has already reversed itself under its new entertainment boss, Don Ohlmeyer.

In recent days, the latest financial statement from CBS Inc. disclosed that the network’s approach has been so successful that the company made money again in 1992--after finishing in the red in 1991--and figures to be even more profitable in 1993.

The payoff comes in various ways. Affiliate stations want a network to provide 10-11 p.m. series that draw adults who are the main audience for the local news that follows. And CBS has done that to a reasonable degree with “Northern Exposure,” “48 Hours,” “Knots Landing,” “Picket Fences” and its successful Sunday and Tuesday films, which run from 9-11 p.m.

Not too many years ago, CBS was widely perceived as a disorganized mess. Now it’s breezing in the stretch. If you’re winning with “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” it’s time to go to Vegas.