This is the story about a comedy troupe known as The State, nine men and a woman with two successful years on cable t.v. under their collective belt, and a television executive named John Pike, and a magazine writer named David Lipsky. Pike works for CBS Television as its head of late-night programming; last fall he gave The State a one-shot tryout on the beleaguered network's prime time schedule. If it went well, the ensemble would get a late-night special around New Year's; if that went well, they'd be slated against SNL and Fox's new entry, MAD TV.

Lipsky covered The State's odyssey from MTV to CBS for Details magazine, and his account appears, explosively it turns out, in the February issue. What happens to the performers makes for an all-too-common story: good minor-league act strikes out in the majors. Given four weeks to prepare, The State's Hallowe'en special turned out to be a creative and ratings debacle: only 6% of households tuned in to watch a program that pre-empted CBS's American Gothic, which normally attracts more than twice that audience. As Late Show News noted last October, the sketch-comedy genre has been in trouble since at least The Kids in the Hall went off the air, and nothing in The State suggested a radical new approach to the form had passed onto the airwaves. Lipsky agreed, calling these new sketches "cautious" compared to the group's MTV work.

Not that CBS was any help. In order to discourage the other networks from counterprogramming against The State (SNL had already stolen Blues Traveler, The State's first pick as musical guest), it withheld announcing the date of the broadcast until after TV Guide had gone to press. When Sonic Youth was booked as the new musical guest, CBS's John Pike is reported by Lipsky to get on the phone with his daughter to see if she's even heard of them. (Lipsky refers derisively to CBS as "the Murder, She Wrote network" for suggesting that The State try booking Hootie and the Blowfish.)

No, none of that is very newsworthy. What makes this account crackle, instead, are these remarks that John Pike is reported to have made in a closed meeting with The State. Lipsky, who was not in attendance at the meeting, gives this account from his interviews with those who were:

"Pike then flatly explains that research shows there are three reasons why African-Americans are an important part of the late-night demographic: First, they have no place to go in the morning -- no jobs ... second, they can't follow hour-long drama shows -- no attention span ... third, network TV is free."

Needless to say, this statement has sparked an uproar in the media and CBS President Leslie Moonves is investigating Pike's remarks (which Pike of course denies making). I don't see how Pike emerges from this with job intact; unlike Andy Rooney, who was also accused -- falsely, it turns out -- of bigoted remarks, a behind-the-scenes person is expendable.

What actually happened? The most obvious scenario is that Pike said it in an unusual moment of indiscretion; the second is that he didn't say it but the allegation was so plausible, it stuck. Neither of these is especially persuasive, since the man has been in the business for two decades without similar incident, had been in positions of power before, and presumably knew how to wield it properly. Before CBS, Pike was head of Paramount Television, which brought you Arsenio Hall (who, as a reader reminded me this week, once joked that the brothers were the reason his show was still on the air). Why would he jeopardize his career before a bunch of kids he'd never met before?

Maybe Pike said essentially what was attributed to him but codified it, using the colorless demographic-speak of the t.v. executive. The members of The State -- comedians, after all, can be very good at cutting through the crap -- translated his remarks into plain English for Lipsky, who printed them without giving Pike a chance to qualify them. (I'm told Pike was first read the paraphrase, not by Lipsky, but by a fact checker at Details as the story was going to press. Details included Pike's denial with his alleged remarks.)

But why would he say, or even imply, such things in the first place? I think answering the question involves refusing to go along with Lipsky's thinly-veiled indignation and admitting that there is nothing wrong with trying explicitly to woo black viewers. After all, they represent a tremendous opportunity for programmers who aren't afraid to create shows they'll watch. But too few want to take the chance, for the simple reason that African-Americans rarely watch the same shows in large numbers that the rest of America does: in recent years, 60 Minutes and professional sports are about all black and nonblack viewers have had in common. Fox last season cut its losses and cancelled a block of promising shows, including Roc and South Central, which despite being overall cellar-dwellers were among the top 20 in black households.

That said, Pike's reasoning, if indeed the Details article holds up, is bogus, unnecessary even. And it unfortunately seems to corroborate other cloddish actions of his that are related by Lipsky. Suggesting new personnel, for instance: The State had not changed in composition in years, and probably considered adding an eleventh cast member tantamount to adding an eleventh toe. Nor do people of color magically transform a program into a multiracial ratings machine. Just look at the recently concluded Stephanie Miller talker. And exactly where was the strategic advantage, given that MAD TV was co-produced by Quincy Jones and had three black cast members?

Finally, CBS's current prime-time schedule may have been a liability for Pike, as Stephen Gilliard pointed out in an e-mail to me last week: "Those words don't have to come from Pike's lips. I can read CBS's schedule. Not one black-oriented comedy [Frank's Place, R.I.P. -- AB]. Few black cast members in their dramas. Few black guests on Letterman or Snyder. You don't have to think John Pike is personally racist to see that CBS has little interest in cultivating a non-white audience of any sort. Which is the real issue here."

We still don't know whether John Pike said what David Lipsky said he said. But we do know this: Pike put The State out of a job, and it appears The State, via Lipsky, has just returned the favor.