Studios’ Taste for TV Grows : Paramount’s interest in 5 stations is Hollywood’s latest dabbling in the field.

Television stations have been one of the hot acquisitions of the 1980s. And their appeal hasn’t been lost on several of the major movie studios, which in the past three years have been gradually but steadily accumulating them.

The Hollywood studios’ interest in the broadcast business was again evident Tuesday, when Gulf & Western’s Paramount Pictures disclosed that it was taking an option to buy control of the ailing, five-station TVX Broadcast Group. Paramount executives had earlier spoken of their interest in entering major TV markets, which they will do if the Salomon Bros. investment house, which owns 79% of TVX, sells them control of non-network stations WTXF-TV, Philadelphia; WDCA-TV, Washington; KTXA-TV, Dallas-Ft. Worth; KTXH-TV, Houston, and WLFL-TV, Raleigh-Durham, N.C.

Such an acquisition would also make Paramount the fourth studio to buy stations. Last month, Walt Disney Co. completed its $320-million purchase of KHJ-TV Channel 9 in Los Angeles, which followed by one year MCA Inc.’s $387-million acquisition of WWOR-TV, in the New York area. Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Inc., the parent of 20th Century Fox Film Corp., bought the seven former Metromedia stations in 1985 for $1.6 billion.

The Hollywood studios value TV stations for several reasons: as guaranteed outlets for their TV programming, test markets for new shows, new means of using their entertainment talents and--not least--another good way of making money. “They’ve got a handful of reasons, and they’re reasons that make pretty good sense,” said Andrew Wallach, an analyst with the Drexel Burnham Lambert investment firm.

The acquisitions are part of the trend toward “vertical integration” of the entertainment business, which has seen the studios also buy theater chains and cable television networks in their effort to control their movies and television programs from conception to consumption, analysts say.

Television stations give a studio an outlet for syndicated shows if the studio isn’t satisfied with what broadcasters in the particular market bid for programming. Naturally, the studio can also broadcast the show on its own station if it believes it will be popular and wants to strengthen the station’s lineup.

MCA’s WWOR carries a number of shows that are produced or distributed by its parent company’s Universal Studios, including “Magnum, P.I.,” “Simon & Simon” and “The Morton Downey Jr. Show,” notes Lisbeth Barron, analyst with McKinley Allsopp Securities, a New York investment firm. “It’s an instant outlet,” she said.

Such an outlet is valuable at a time when a glut of programming has made it harder to have shows “cleared,” or broadcast, in the biggest television markets. “There’s a major market bottleneck,” says Drexel’s Wallach. “And if you can’t clear the major markets, your show won’t be competitive.”

The studios would naturally like to have stations in all three of the top markets--New York, Los Angeles and Chicago--but having one in any of the three gives an important advantage in reaching a maximum slice of the national audience. Blanketing the New York region, WWOR gives MCA 7.4% of the nation’s viewers, while KHJ gives Disney 5.7% of the U.S. population.

This guaranteed audience also gives the studios more leverage in their competitive struggle with broadcasters, who meet them at the negotiating table to haggle over program prices. At the moment, with the surfeit of programming, the studios need as much leverage as they can get, says Wallach.

Provide Test Market

Paramount could presumably use such an outlet for its shows, since it is the largest supplier of programming to the independent, or non-network, television stations.

Stations can also provide an important test market for a studio’s programming. A studio that is trying to sell a particular show nationwide could run it at its own stations and gather demographic and audience ratings information that it could use to market the show to other broadcasters, says Jeffrey Logsdon, analyst with the Crowell, Weedon & Co. investment firm in Los Angeles.

Still, some studio officials downplay the importance of the station as a means of distributing and testing programming. Paramount “wouldn’t be interested in any station that wasn’t a successful, stand-alone business,” said an industry official familiar with Paramount’s thinking.

Indeed, Barry Diller, 20th Century Fox’s chairman and chief executive, warns that “any studio that is getting into broadcasting just to extend their programming function may regret it.”

He said Fox never intended to use its stations to help carry the studio’s output, and they have carried only one of its programs, “The Tracey Ullman Show,” on the Fox network. The goal in setting up the network was that “we wanted to set up a national program service. That had nothing to do with our existing studio,” he said.

Studios have also been drawn to the television business because of its profitability. Pretax operating income, in many cases, amounts to 35% to 40% of revenue, says Logsdon of Crowell Weedon, noting that the CBS station group has gushed profits in years when the CBS network earned almost nothing.

In recent years, however, as station prices have stayed high and inflation has cooled, TV stations’ profits have also leveled off, analysts note.

In any event, analysts said, the next time a studio buys a station may be several years off. “These stations come on the market only rarely,” Wallach said.

MOVIE STUDIOS WITH TV STATIONS

Walt Disney Co.

KHJ-TV, Los Angeles

MCA Inc.

WWOR, Secaucus, N.J. (New York market)

Fox Broadcasting

KTTV, Los Angeles

KRIV, Houston

WDAF, Dallas

WFLD, Chicago

WFXT, Boston

WNYW, New York

WTTG, Washington

Paramount (tentative) *

WTAF, Philadelphia

WDCA, Washington

KTXH, Houston

KTXA, Dallas-Ft. Worth

WLFL, Raleigh-Durham, N.C.

* Agreement with TVX Broadcasting Group would give Paramount a 79% interest in the five stations.