TAKEOVER ROULETTE--NAB’S UNOFFICIAL THEME

Mutual Broadcasting news chief Ron Nessen went to Monday’s Hagler-Hearns middleweight boxing match confident his network would not change ownership before the fight was over--even if it went 10 full rounds.

His fellow broadcast executives at CBS and virtually every other media conglomerate in the country could not be so sure.

“Mutual is the only network that’s immune to takeover,” said Ben Avery, the radio network’s vice president for station relations. “We’re not publicly owned. We’re privately held by two guys who aren’t going to sell.”

(Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel, co-owners of Amway Corp., which owns Mutual, could not be reached for comment Tuesday, though company spokesmen said that they didn’t believe the two men had planned to put Mutual on the block.)

High-stakes hostile takeover continues to be the unofficial theme haunting the hospitality suites at the 63rd annual convention of the National Assn. of Broadcasters at the Convention Center here this week.

The same radio and television station owners who were cheering the Federal Communications Commission a year ago for its well-publicized campaign to wipe out red tape under the clarion call of “deregulation” were having second thoughts.

Ironically, it is that very deregulation--a smooth, streamlined approach to the buying and selling of broadcast properties with a minimum of government interference--that has made media giants like CBS and ABC the latest entrees on Wall Street’s takeover menu.

FCC Chairman Mark S. Fowler is scheduled to speak to the 35,000 delegates at closing ceremonies today, a gathering approximating the population of Beverly Hills. Fowler is expected to repeat the full commission’s message delivered in a majority decision last week on a takeover bid for Storer Broadcasting: The commission will not interfere with dissident stockholders who want to oust their company’s management.

The government agency that has made it easier for broadcasters to tear down their news operations, avoid routine paperwork and skirt tedious record-keeping obligations has now made it easier for one company to gobble up another.

To many NAB delegates, there appeared to be no relief in sight for the carnivorous media-eating on the nation’s stock exchanges. What was spawned on Wall Street just one month ago with the announcement that Capital Cities Communications would try to buy out ABC has now spread to include buyout attempts at Multimedia Inc., Gulf Broadcasting and CBS.

At the CBS hospitality suite on the 29th floor of the Las Vegas Hilton, hot dogs and beer were served Monday in celebration of the CBS TV and radio coverage planned for the baseball season.

But it was reportedly not so festive in the CBS executive suites in New York City, however, where network spokesmen spent the day fending off the latest takeover gossip.

“There are a lot of rumors that Ted Turner is about to make a bid on CBS but he’s got a lot of opposition,” said Fred Anchel, a media stock analyst for Dean Witter Reynolds. “CBS doesn’t want to be taken over.”

The heightened rumors, fueled by Turner’s refusal to comment, have whipped hysteria over media stocks to an unprecedented level, Anchel said. If the flamboyant owner of Cable News Network did make a hostile takeover bid, he would have to pay about $150 a share for CBS’ 30 million outstanding shares, Anchel said. The stock is currently selling for just over $100 a share--up more than $30 per share since the beginning of the year.

“He would probably have to float junk bonds to do it,” Anchel said of a Turner takeover bid. Such bonds are “low quality paper” that are worth less than their face value, he said.

Alone among the three major networks, NBC maintains that its renewed strength this past season in the prime-time TV wars combined with the protective influence of RCA, its parent corporation, will save it from this leveraged buyout trend. Sources say it would take up to $10 billion to grab off both NBC and RCA.

The fight ended early for Nessen and other Mutual executives on Monday. A technical knockout ended the middleweight championship bout in only three rounds. When he returned to the Mutual Broadcasting System’s hospitality suite at the Hilton Hotel, just down the hallway from the CBS hospitality suite, Nessen was still smiling and assured that he would hold his job for the foreseeable future.

His network had just announced that it would be offering a regular debate between Democratic New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and former Republican Tennessee Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. as a new Mutual News feature. KMPC-AM in Los Angeles will carry the debate, beginning July 15. In addition, gossip queen Rona Barrett is making her debut this week as a daily commentator over the Mutual radio network. Her 90-second reports are expected to be picked up by KMPC, beginning next week, and run after each regularly scheduled newscast. In addition, the network will also offer daily 3 1/2-minute news-interview programs titled “Rona Barrett’s Celebrity Talk”; KMPC is expected to air those reports, though General Manager Bill Ward said Tuesday that he still hadn’t made a final decision.

At privately held Mutual Broadcasting, former Gerald Ford Press Secretary Nessen said, “Things couldn’t be better.”