TARTIKOFF: ‘SOMETHING IS OUT OF WHACK’ IN TV

The man who brought “Supertrain,” “Chuck Barris’ Rah Rah Show” and “Manimal” to network television is worried about the future of quality programming--and his tongue isn’t even in his cheek when he says so.

What kept NBC entertainment chief Brandon Tartikoff from being laughed out of the Century Plaza during a Wednesday address delivered to members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is that he is also responsible for bringing “Hill Street Blues,” “The Cosby Show” and “L.A. Law” to network TV.

The long-range nurturing that often goes along with gambling on such programs is in danger, Tartikoff warned, and the villains are not just network programmers.

Bottom-line broadcasting has crept into every aspect of television in the past several years, he said, from the three major networks to small-town independent stations.

ABC was bought out 18 months ago by cost-conscious Capital Cities Communications and CBS got a new principal stockholder and chief executive officer in Laurence A. Tisch last September. Tartikoff’s own network was taken over last year by General Electric, which installed its financial services chief, Robert Wright, as NBC chairman last June following the departure of Grant Tinker.

But Tartikoff’s warning Wednesday was a different kind of bottom-line advice, aimed at Hollywood’s producers, writers and distributors: Don’t confuse making good TV shows with making a quick buck in syndication.

One of the major problems now confronting the TV industry is the fact that hourlong network series are not selling well in the syndicated rerun market. Since that is where producers traditionally make their profits on a series, some companies are now saying that they’d rather make game shows and sitcoms than a more expensive hourlong drama like “Moonlighting” or “Cagney & Lacey.”

“Recently, in a heart-to-heart about ‘Hill Street (Blues)’ with the head of MTM (the company that produces the NBC police show), Arthur Price, I asked him if he knew then what he knows now about the less-than-lucrative syndication market awaiting the show, would he have gone forward with the series?” Tartikoff said. “He thought for a moment and replied, ‘I honestly don’t know.’

“Something is clearly out of whack when the syndication distributors are determining what gets made for network television. . .,” Tartikoff continued.

As another example, Tartikoff referred to a recent syndication convention in New Orleans, where independent stations shunned “Miami Vice” reruns. He said that the same executive who was bemoaning that show’s future sales potential was excited about the prospects for profits from a home-shopping program.

“Something is out of whack when my future prospects as a viewer are greater for seeing ceramic Dalmatians being auctioned off at 3 in the morning than seeing ‘Miami Vice’ Friday night at 9,” he said.

Greed has violated “the sanctity of the realm of ideas,” Tartikoff said. Affiliate stations that used to depend heavily on the networks for their daily lineup are now able to dictate what they want from the networks, and what all too many want is immediate profits.

“The tail is starting to wag the dog, and the dog hardly looks the better for it,” he said.

Tartikoff, who has been president of NBC Entertainment for the past seven years, reeled off a five-point plan for how the networks can fight to ensure the survival of quality programming, beginning with a call for the networks to step up production themselves if the shows that independent producers offer start to look as though they were made “at Cost Plus.”

“This will bring more diversity to our schedules and keep us from losing vital forms of television just because KCOP may not want to buy it four years from now,” he said.

Tartikoff also recommended:

--A year-round ratings “sweeps” formula to eliminate “$20 million of hyped programming” during the Nielsen sweep months of November, February and May. Those are the times when the performance of every station in the country is monitored--thus the increased pressure for the networks to deliver winning ratings.

“It’s an archaic and costly ritual,” Tartikoff said. “The money could be better spent buying original programming on a more year-round basis. Right now the only things being accomplished by the current sweeps arrangement is that the big sweeps ‘weapon’--the miniseries ‘golden goose’--is once again facing extinction, and Southern California nude beaches are being kept in business by the ‘timely’ local station in-depth reports.”

--A reduction of the $100 million in annual program development costs at the networks so that the money can be used to renew good existing shows. That way, they will have a chance to find their audience the way “Hill Street Blues” and other late-blooming NBC series did.

--Thinning out the ranks of network program executives.

--Tougher standards for judging what is innovative programming.

“Ever since the establishment of consecutive-night miniseries almost 10 years ago, there has been little or no innovation in the way networks choose to present their programs,” he said.

“What’s been lost in this town is the Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney spirit of ‘Let’s put on a show.’ The show has always been the point. It’s what’s made the business go.”