CBS News Goes to Court : * Television: With traditional news coverage facing hard times, the network ventures further into ‘reality programming’ with ‘Verdict,’ from ’48 Hours’ team.

The woman in the cowboy hat talks tough in the neighborhood bar, her face full of hurt as she recalls that the con man reminded her of her late husband. Another woman says that her mother--whose body was found on a deserted mountaintop, the remains picked clean by animals--never would have given up her jewelry without a fight. Cut to the courtroom for California vs. Raymond Stone, the trial of a San Diego man who has admitted trading on the affections of middle-aged women and now stands accused of murdering one of them.

With “Verdict,” a series premiering with the Stone trial at 8 p.m. Friday, CBS is taking another step into the genre of “reality programming.” Each of the eight episodes ordered for this summer tryout will focus on a trial, featuring courtroom footage and interviews with witnesses, defendants and attorneys.

“What we’re trying to do with ‘Verdict’ is not just courtroom drama but a behind-the-scenes look at how the system works,” said executive producer Andrew Heyward. “The show has high-gloss production values in terms of camera work and other techniques. It’s a prime-time series designed to be entertaining and compelling to viewers. But there are no scripts--and no re-enactments.”

The courtroom series was developed by Heyward and colleagues from another prime-time series he produces for the news division, “48 Hours.” Another projected series of theirs, called “Whose Side Are You On?,” combines interviews and debates on real-life stories that raise ethical issues and will be tried out in three installments this summer, with Mike Wallace hosting the pilot episode: a case of assisted suicide.

“If there’s a star to be hitched to at CBS News, it’s Heyward’s,” one CBS News producer observed recently. “I’ve seen some jaded hard-news producers who’ve gone to work for him on ’48 Hours,’ and they all love the guy because he backs his people, he’s smart and he’s very up-front. Traditional coverage of hard news is being cut back, and it’s a constant struggle for resources. The ’48 Hours’ unit is clearly considered the ‘growth industry’ for CBS News.”

Heyward, a former senior producer on “CBS Evening News,” readily acknowledges that economics is one factor behind the creation of “Verdict” and other “reality shows.”

“We realized that the so-called ‘reality’ field was exploding, and much of the work, even at CBS, was going to outside producers,” he said. “At the same time that there’s a demand for this kind of programming from (the entertainment division) on the West Coast, there’s been a vision at CBS News to expand its original production. The network news divisions are facing tough times ahead. We’re not just in this to make a profit, but one advantage of prime-time shows is that they allow you to control your costs because you can plan your coverage. You cannot impose that standard on hard news and be a responsible news-gathering organization.

“I believe CBS News can expand in a new direction without compromising its own standard of quality,” he said. “The fragmention of the network audience means that news programs can succeed with a modest rating. That’s how ’48 Hours’ has succeeded. I’ve got a lot of creative producers here and what we’d like to be is a production unit within CBS where they can turn for programming that is fresh.”

A Harvard graduate who speaks Russian and produced a critically praised CBS News special on the Soviet Union in 1987, Heyward is trying to keep one foot in traditional news values and the other in the world of entertainment: His conversation utilizes such terminology as demographics, “product line” and economies of scale. “If news producers seek to compete in the prime-time arena,” he noted, “you can’t then say, ‘Keep this show on the air, no matter what.’ ”

The 41-year-old producer, who joined CBS News in 1981 as an “Evening News” producer and was senior broadcast producer on the program from 1984 to 1986, is known among his staff for speaking rapidly.

“He’s smart, and he talks fast, so we listen fast,” said “48 Hours” producer Catherine Lasiewicz, who produced “Whose Side Are You On?” with Heyward.

“Verdict” was the idea of Al Briganti, a senior producer on “48 Hours.” CBS tried out the concept in an episode of “48 Hours” this season, then ordered eight half-hour episodes, which Heyward and Briganti produced.

As with “48 Hours,” CBS correspondents are the reporters on the “Verdict” shows--among them Bernard Goldberg, Richard Schlesinger, Rita Braver and former “60 Minutes” correspondent Meredith Vieira. Permanent staffing for the show will be decided if it gets picked up as a regular series, Heyward said.

Although Heyward declines to release budget figures, the estimated cost of an episode of “Verdict” is roughly $250,000, which is about half the cost of producing a half-hour sitcom.

‘The most difficult part about the series is getting the trials,” Briganti said. Although some 44 states now allow TV cameras in the courtroom, he said, only 35 actually permit the kind of coverage that would be usable for “Verdict.” The producers also needed to gain the permission of participants to give the behind-the-scenes feel, including the opposing attorneys’ strategies as they argue the cases.

Briganti and Heyward said that they do not expect legal problems to arise from their coverage of the trials. “We’re very careful not to interfere with the trial in any way,” Briganti said. “We take tremendous pains to ensure that the jurors do not hear any of our interviews as we’re doing them.”

“Verdict” will have competition this summer from another new trial-TV venture: The Courtroom Network premieres July 1 on cable TV. If clearances for coverage can be obtained, the Courtroom Network intends to focus on high-profile cases such as the upcoming Palm Beach sexual-assault trial of William Kennedy Smith.

“These are two different experiments, and it remains to be seen how the audience will respond to each,” Heyward said. “They’ll be aiming to program a 24-hour channel with coverage; we’ll be doing programs that compress the trial into half-hour programs.”

Heyward also said that “Verdict” would not be going after highly publicized cases such as the Palm Beach trial, which, he maintained, will also be getting coverage on viewers’ local newscasts.

Will “Verdict” be able to compete with TV’s fictional dramas? “The audience has had an appetite for fictional drama from ‘L.A. Law’ back to ‘Perry Mason,’ ” Heyward said. “We’ll see how viewers go for stories where the real-life participants are not so telegenic.”