OTHER NETWORKS SEEK TO MAKE A NIGHT OF IT

Late night, that not-quite-right-for-prime-time slot in which Johnny Carson has reigned for 25 years, is turning into a hotbed of interest at the networks and in syndication.

Spurred on by their desire for a share of the substantial profits that “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” consistently brings NBC, as well as the success of NBC’s “Late Night With David Letterman,” the other two networks and an independent program supplier all are jockeying for positions in the post-11:30 p.m. time slots.

They’re seeking out attention-getters for the droopy-lidded in such out-of-the-ordinary places as the Toluca Lake home of a former local news personality, the New York haunts of a popular comedian and a Canadian production company.

“There’s money to be made” in late night, said Ted Harbert, ABC vice president for program planning and scheduling.

ABC takes its shot beginning tonight at midnight, when “The Barbour Report,” a half-hour show hosted by former KNBC entertainment critic and “Real People” star John Barbour, begins a two-week tryout following “Nightline.”

CBS, finding its best ratings ever with its mix of series reruns and brand-new dramatic programming, such as “Night Heat” and first-run episodes of “T.J. Hooker,” is developing other new programs for the time period, including two new crime dramas and a comedy.

King World, syndicator of “Wheel of Fortune,” the top-rated non-network show, is about to jump in the game with its own half-hour talk show, “Night Life,” co-produced by Motown and starring comedian David Brenner. It’s scheduled for a fall start.

This frenzy of late-night competition brings with it a certain sense of deja vu. Only two seasons ago, Alan Thicke and his “Thicke of the Night” was presented as a new contender for King Carson’s throne. But it became apparent almost overnight that Thicke spoke loudly but carried too little shtick.

Yet program executives are convinced there’s still gold to be mined in late night.

“We happen to think that ‘Alan Thicke’ was the right idea but a bad show,” said Stuart Hersch, King World’s chief operating officer. “There is a need for another good show out there.”

At ABC, good is a relative term. “Nightline” and its host, the verbally agile Ted Koppel, both are highly acclaimed by critics, but the show is delayed or preempted by many ABC affiliates who find shows like “MASH” or “Barney Miller” a bigger draw. Too, viewership falls off markedly after “Nightline” when “Eye on L.A.,” a clone of “Entertainment Tonight,” comes on the air at midnight.

So ABC’s initial goals are to stave off affiliate defection in late night and hang on to whatever viewers Koppel has.

Barbour seemed to offer the requisite compatibility with his proposed blend of humorous field reports, in-studio guests and a “warped look at the news.”

“I describe the show as Phil Donahue meets Johnny Carson done for a buck-and-a-half,” Barbour said from his Toluca Lake home, where he does preliminary editing using a couple of videocassette machines and a plastic Radio Shack microphone. The show will be presented “almost live from Van Nuys.” The in-studio portion will be taped every day at 5 p.m. at the Valley Production Center on Van Nuys Boulevard, located between a Mexican restaurant and an all-night drugstore.

But big budgets are not as important in the wee hours of late night as they are in the slick land of prime time. Barbour’s shoestring production shows promise with segments such as “The Great Wine Challenge” in which Beverly Hills matrons and skid-row winos participate in blind taste-tests of $55-a-bottle Chateau Lafite-Rothschild versus $1.79 California screw-top. Recurring features will be the “Barbour Pole” man-in-the-street interviews; “Inside the Mind of . . . , “ in which Barbour narrates the imagined thoughts of luminaries such as Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, viewed in the background during President Reagan’s latest televised speech, and “Goodnight Nancy and Ronnie,” in which we hear supposed presidential pillow talk.

Will “The Barbour Report” be different enough from the other late-night fare to gather a loyal following in only two weeks?

“It’s intelligent, so it’s radically different,” Barbour said. “My prediction is I will not be out of television after the 10 days. If it’s not midnight on ABC, then it will be 10:30 on an independent network. I’ve had offers.”

If ABC is satisfied with viewer and affiliate reaction, the show could go on again in September for another six months with an expanded budget.

By then, it might be facing new competition from Brenner and “Night Life.” Brenner, like Barbour, believes he will be offering the public something different. “It’s not the Carson game because it’s a half-hour. Second, it’s got a great music director” (former Beatles and Rolling Stones sideman Billy Preston).

But mainly, Brenner said, “now I can really be myself. What you’ll see different is me not being in the walls of someone else’s house, as it were.” The latter is a reference to his roughly 100 appearances on “The Tonight Show,” many of them as guest host.

Brenner said his own creative stamp will be seen in field reports, such as one that will have him standing with a New York toll-booth operator in the middle of the night.

“I don’t think of it as going up against Johnny,” he said. “I think of it as an opportunity for me to have my own TV show after all these years of coming close to and turning down so many.”

CBS, in its own quiet way, may be going the most original route of all. “I think the strongest package we could have would be first-run series every night,” said George Berntsen, vice president for theatrical feature films and late-night programming.

Buoyed by the success of “Night Heat” and “Hooker,” CBS has in development a series about an investigative lawyer, another about a criminologist, plus a comedy, Berntsen said.

Action-adventure is nothing new in late night. Part of CBS’ current 11:30 p.m. weekday lineup consists of reruns of “Remington Steele” (still in first-run on NBC) and “Simon & Simon”; series like “Police Story,” “Quincy” and “The Rockford Files” at one time were prominent late-night reruns.

But first-run is a different, and relatively new, success story.

The obstacle CBS had to overcome was funding: How do you get an hourlong show that costs a fraction of what you’d pay in prime time--when viewership and thus commercial rates are at their peaks--but looks good enough to viewers accustomed to those very prime-time shows?

The initial answer came from two sources. One was Canada, where “Night Heat” is produced and sold to Canadian Public Broadcasting for prime-time airing. CBS pays less than CPB does but airs the show first, thereby getting a first-run bargain.

The other source was Spelling-Goldberg Productions and Columbia Pictures Television, producers of “T.J. Hooker,” starring William Shatner. When ABC canceled “Hooker” in 1985, the producers decided to take on more than their usual share of new production costs in order to get another 17 episodes on the air; that would up the total “Hooker” package of reruns to more than 100 episodes and vastly increase the value of the show in future syndication to independent stations.

CBS thereby got another first-run show at a cut-rate price.

Now, Berntsen said, other production companies are “coming in and doing the same thing”--either making a deal with Canadian television or finding some other broadcast partner to share financing.

“Johnny’s always the one to beat,” Berntsen said. “He’s the top show. But this is the best we’ve done.”