KING SPEAKS : Boxing Czar Don King Wants to Branch Out, Hopes TV Will Buy Him as a Talk Show Host

King, the flamboyant boxing promoter whose hair looks like it was whipped through a Cuisinart, came here this past weekend to promote Don King, who wants to be television’s newest talk show host.

Acting at times like a carnival barker, King stood at a booth for Studio City-based Access Entertainment on Friday and Saturday shouting the name of his talk show, “Only in America,” so often it began to sound like a recording was playing. In between shouts and cackles, King chatted up local station executives, many of whom lined up to put on King-style wigs and pose for pictures with him.

“I do nothing ordinary. I do it extraordinary,” said King, who is never lacking in superlatives when describing himself.

King and Access Entertainment were at the annual convention of the National Assn. of Television Program Executives, the television industry’s annual flea market, where local stations are pitched programs by distributors. Access Entertainment holds the distribution rights to the King show, which will air as a special in April and is being sold as a weekly show for the syndication, or non-network, market.

Dennis Miller, Access Entertainment’s president, predicts that the show will be on the air this fall. On Sunday, he said 88 stations covering about 77% of the country had agreed to buy it.

Miller said the program will cost about $1 million to launch and about $3 million to produce. If all goes well, he said, it could make a profit of $2 million to $4 million annually.

Access Entertainment has been in business three years and sells TV shows for producers.

Miller, 30, is a former entertainment lawyer whose family started the Miller’s Outpost chain of clothing stores. His partner in the privately held Access Entertainment is media buyer Tom Rubin, 39. The company, which Miller said has annual revenue of $15 million to $20 million, distributes cartoons for DIC, a Burbank animation company, and is distributing Motown music specials.

“Only in America” has long been King’s patriotic explanation for his life. King, 55, has made the transition from ex-convict (he served about four years in an Ohio prison for manslaughter) to wealthy boxing promoter. He got his start in the early 1970s with Muhammad Ali’s help. Since then King and promoter Bob Arum have dominated the business end of the fight game, and maintain their rule with iron fists.

King is hardly alone at trying to get a talk show on the air. The convention was full of pitches for them, ranging from a new one featuring Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy to established shows like “Hour Magazine” with Gary Collins, which distributors want to get renewed.

So is America ready for yet another talk show, especially one featuring a host who likes to talk mostly about himself? King thinks so.

“It’s going to certainly reflect my personality, whether it be one of humbleness and submissiveness or whether it be one of outrageousness and, you know, strength and equality,” King said.

Boxing Connections

King is using more than his windpipes to sell the show. He also is using some of the connections he made promoting boxing matches.

According to Miller, King has sold all of the advertising time personally to a Japanese advertising agency, said to be the one he also is involved with as part of the Mike Tyson-Tony Tubbs heavyweight championship fight scheduled later this month in Tokyo.

King also has recruited as a sponsor the Las Vegas Hilton, where he promoted a series of heavyweight title unification fights with Home Box Office that Tyson eventually won.

A week ago Monday, the pilot special was taped at the Hilton featuring as guests actor Bruce Willis and country singer Randy Travis. A Hilton spokeswoman said King used the hotel’s musicians and showroom in exchange for the publicity.

Each show is scheduled to include a King monologue called “The King of Comedy,” a “King’s Court” segment in which he promises to bring feuding people together to resolve their differences and “The King’s New Clothes” in which he will introduce new fashions.

Taylor, Nicholson, Duvall

As for prospective guests, King said, “There is no limit to who I can get. From Elizabeth Taylor to Jack Nicholson to people who never even go on TV like the Robert Duvalls.”

Talking is something King does well. His answers to questions about the program typically ran a couple of minutes and often included opinions on such subjects as U.S.-Soviet relations and his desire to have a song written to promote relations between the superpowers.

“I will be getting people that will come from this country as well as other countries with my international connections,” King said, “and then give an analysis of the difference of what they represent in their country vis-a-vis what we have in our country. I want to be able to show America in every aspect and every light.”