GIANTS

As large as its title, this is a block-and-jockey short-busting novel of television from its tubal conception to today but dull enough to make you welcome a station break with three commercials before and after. Among other books, Ansell wrote Dynasty of Air (radio) which might serve as the pilot program for this run-through of the medium from the '40'son, blow by show--be they quiz, news, sports, game, etc., reruns of what we watched once. You'll meet--""right in the middle of all the glamour and--excitement and truly like, well a treasure-trove of people""--David Abrams, the ""giant,"" chairman of the board of United Broadcasting Company who will drop dead at the close; Robert, his son in name only; Adrian Miller, in charge of sales and overall management, who has handpicked Mark Banner as programmer; and Banner, who after two years seems to be on the way down if not out while also having been abandoned by his wife (she's been spending afternoons with a rotten manipulator). Finally Banner gets recognition, via the old man's will, that he's the only one of ""moral intelligence"" around. True, and even if Ansell (a former television network executive) knows the scene, he hardly can put a real sentence together, let alone a character, live on. . . or off.