With the Super Bowl dominating the dial for CBS, all of the other networks scramble to pick up the ratings crumbs. For one weekend, they collectively become the ABF Network: Anything But Football. Let the counterprogramming begin.

Some networks perceive the big game as nothing but a testosterone oil slick or a chip-and-dip speed bump on the road to Valentine’s Day. Put Hallmark in this category.

The new (just don’t call it original) TV movie “Love is a Four Letter Word” (8 p.m. today, Hallmark) dusts off a formula that worked well for Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn some six decades back.

Emily (Teri Polo) and Kenton (Robert Mailhouse) are divorce lawyers. Professionally, they are at the top of their game. But the game has made them both cynical about love and marriage. So when they meet and click at a mutual friend’s wedding, who can blame them for lying about their professions? The bloom is off the rose when they meet again the very next morning at the proceedings for their respective clients (Barry Bostwick and Donna Wills), a couple of long standing engaging in a scorched-Earth divorce.

“Love” takes forever to explain its obvious and rather easily grasped premise. Like far too many movies of its sort, “Love” doesn’t give its audience credit for being able to follow a story they have already seen a hundred times. Many viewers will find themselves bored or wandering off to other channels before the story gets going.

¢ ABC has turned over most of its weekend prime-time schedule to comic-actor Will Ferrell. The former “SNL” star plays the title role in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” (8 p.m. today), an over-the-top tale of a brash and self-important local newscaster in 1970s California.

Ferrell joins Vince Vaughn and Luke Wilson in the 2003 comedy “Old School” (8 p.m. Sunday), about a group of men approaching middle age who retreat to the responsibility-free days of college-fraternity life.

¢ Some years back, reports circulated that Super Bowl Sunday witnessed a spike in spousal abuse. This allegation has since been debunked and consigned to urban myth, but its legacy endures. Check out Lifetime’s Sunday schedule.

Opposite the big game they have slated the TV drama “Bastard out of Carolina” (6 p.m. Sunday, Lifetime), about an illegitimate child (Jena Malone) beaten savagely by her mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh). The 1999 TV-drama “Black and Blue” (8 p.m. Sunday Lifetime) follows. It stars Mary Stuart Masterson as a wife beaten by her husband (Anthony LaPaglia), a violent policeman.

Today’s highlights

¢ Scheduled on “Dateline” (7 p.m., NBC): A woman is found dead during a bitter divorce battle; a contrite Miss USA opens up to Matt Lauer about her transgressions and battle with the bottle.

Sunday’s highlights

¢ The Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts meet in Super Bowl XLI (5:25 p.m., CBS).

¢ How’s this for timing? An episode of “Criminal Minds” (9 p.m., CBS) about a wealthy couple found dead right after their Super Bowl party airs right after the conclusion of the Super Bowl.