CAN SAVAGES SAVE ABC?

Downtrodden ABC will be pleased with the fall-season report from a leading ad-buying firm.

Magna Global's Steve Sternberg, always the first on Madison Avenue with his prime-time picks, has tapped two new ABC shows among the four with the best chance of making through the season without being canceled.

He likes Savages — the Mel Gibson-produced sitcom starring Keith Carradine as the single dad of five unruly boys. "One of the best comedy pilots we've seen for the fall," Sternberg says of the series scheduled for Fridays at 8:30 pm.

His other ABC pick is Desperate Housewives, the quirky drama about the secret lives of four suburban women as seen through the eyes of their deceased friend. "Much as we tried not to like it, we did," Sternberg says. "But can they keep the dark humor up every week?"

Sternberg predicts that only two other shows look certain to make it through next spring — CBS's CSI spin-off CSI: NY and UPN's hunky-single-lawyer-with-a-baby drama Kevin Hill.

Among those least likely to make it according to Sternberg:

• NBC's animated Siegfried and Roy-inspired comedy Father of the Pride ("NBC hasn't sent us the pilot — never a good sign").

• CBS's Center of the Universe ("Given the cast — John Goodman, Jean Smart, Ed Asner, Olympic Dukakis — it was a surprisingly unfunny pilot").

• ABC's Rodney, with comic Rodney Carrington ("All of the laughs in the pilot were on the laugh track").