LOS ANGELES – Don’t get too broken up about “Everybody Loves Raymond” ending its run on CBS next season. The show’s creator sure isn’t. What does Phil Rosenthal say to fans who look forward to new episodes?

“Goodbye.”

The series plans only 16 new episodes next season, down from the usual 24. Won’t fans be disappointed?

“Read a book,” Rosenthal says.

After living through the hoopla last season lavished on “Sex and the City,” “Friends” and “Frasier” as they ended their runs, viewers will be in for something decidedly more low-key when “Raymond” bows out in May after nine seasons.

“We’re not interested in a huge, bloated finale that doesn’t live up to the rest of the series,” says executive producer Steve Skrovan.

Les Moonves, who as co-president of Viacom oversees CBS, hopes to talk Rosenthal into doing 18 episodes. On other weeks, CBS will probably air classic reruns and actors’ favorite episodes. The many reruns worry Moonves a little bit.

“I wish I had 24,” he says. “But I don’t, so we have to live with it. “Friends’ did it successfully. (The NBC sitcom produced 18 episodes in its last season.) I don’t think it will get the hoopla that “Friends” did. But a lot of people love the show, a lot of people are going to miss the show.”

Rosenthal doubts the show will come up with more episodes because the writers are having trouble thinking of ideas for the last few shows.

The writers usually block out a season’s worth of stories by this time, an unusual practice for a sitcom. “We stay ahead so you’re not rewriting so desperately the week of production,” Rosenthal says.

The show has thrived for other reasons. Star Ray Romano and Rosenthal formed a great team like Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David on “Seinfeld,” Skrovan says. Rosenthal stayed with it for the whole run rather than go off to a new sitcom. The writers drew on their own families for the plots.

“We always say that whenever we run out of stories, we go home and get in a fight with our wives,” Rosenthal says. “And we’ve been known to keep the fights going a little longer sometimes because we need a second act.” (He is married to Monica Horan, who plays Amy.)

“Everybody Loves Raymond” has a well-respected ensemble led by Romano as sportswriter Ray Barone and Patricia Heaton as his sensible wife, Debra. Debra bristles at the constant intrusion of his parents, Marie (Doris Roberts) and Frank (Peter Boyle).

Like Marie, Roberts is one to speak her mind. She hates that the show is ending.

“If it were waning, and if the writing had lessened, I’d say, “Yes, of course,’ ” Roberts says. “But the writing last year was some of the best writing they’ve ever done. So why go out that way? Wait. Let it wane – a little bit.”

Rosenthal refuses to give any hints about how the series will end. But Roberts has her own ideas.

“I hope it’s not a sad ending,” she says. “I hope we go off to Florida and leave them alone, and finally they have peace without me around the house. Brad has a baby. You know, cliche – but tie it all up and nobody will be unhappy.”

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