‘Simpsons’ Help Fox Send a Signal : Programming: Despite fewer affiliates, the fourth network is making a stronger showing.

“The Simpsons” is an even bigger phenomenon than most viewers realize. The Fox show’s ability to finish among the nation’s 15 most-watched programs and frequently outdraw the Sunday-night competition on ABC, CBS and NBC is somewhat analogous to RC Cola ringing up better sales than Coke, Pepsi and 7-Up.

The reason: Fox has only 129 affiliated stations that collectively reach only about 90% of the country. By contrast, each of the three major networks has at least 209 affiliates that together cover virtually every TV household in the nation. And many of Fox’s stations transmit comparatively weak, UHF signals that the residents of those communities previously had ignored in the same way that most Los Angeles area viewers rarely turn to KDOC Channel 56.

So Fox shows are automatically handicapped in their ability to compete for national ratings. But Fox executives are hopeful that the skyrocketing success of “The Simpsons” and “Married . . . With Children” will help the upstart fourth network overcome that handicap in the years ahead as its affiliates attract new viewers and new advertisers, then plow at least some of the increased revenues back into the stations for equipment and transmission improvements that will make them, and Fox, a more formidable threat to the three major networks.

Take, for example, WCOV Channel 20, the Fox-affiliate in Montgomery, Ala.

Before Fox, said station chief David Woods, WCOV was only months away from going dark. “We didn’t even have money to buy toilet paper,” he said.

“When we would try to sell ourselves at an ad agency, they would laugh us out of their office. Now they give us the nice chair.”

In the spring of 1987, WCOV was airing reruns of the 1982 sci-fi series “Voyagers,” attracting a pitiful 1% of the audience in the Sunday night time slot that now houses “The Simpsons.” Fox’s animated series routinely comes in second in its time period in Montgomery with about 20% of the audience, beating both NBC and ABC. And with adults between ages 18 and 49--the demographic that advertisers prize most--”The Simpsons” grabs a 30 share, crushing even top-rated “Murder, She Wrote” on CBS.

It does all this despite the fact that WCOV is vastly inferior in terms of power and reach to Montgomery’s three major network affiliates.

“If we were drag racing,” Woods said, “they all have V-8s and I’m an old four-cylinder. I have an 800-foot (transmitting) tower, and they all have 2,000-foot towers.”

That means that up to 30 miles from the center of town, Montgomery viewers can tune in all four stations with equal clarity. Beyond 30 miles, the reception for WCOV gets increasingly fuzzy up to 50 miles away, when the WCOV picture is nothing but snow. But the three network affiliates can be seen up to about 85 or 90 miles away, Woods said.

Such technical inferiority is typical at many of the Fox affiliates nationwide. Compounded with the network’s 10% disadvantage in the amount of territory it covers, this helps explains why “The Simpsons” or “Married . . . With Children” could be No. 1 in Los Angeles and other big cities and then barely make it in to top-20 in the week’s national ratings. Last Sunday, for example, “The Simpsons” attracted a whopping 37% of the Los Angeles audience to rank as the week’s most-watched program, but got only 25% nationally and placed 13th. “Married . . . With Children” was fourth in Los Angeles and 18th nationally.

Fox executives say it will take years before their affiliates grow strong enough to enable the network to compete on the same playing field with the Big Three. Though Fox has been adding two or three new stations to its lineup each year, additional stations simply do not exist in the majority of areas Fox cannot reach. But “the tremendous performance” of “The Simpsons” and “Married . . . With Children” will shorten the time frame, said Peter Chernin, president of Fox Entertainment Group.

“When you think of a small UHF station that is not a factor in its market and all of a sudden you put what may be the strongest show on television on that little station, it’s an extraordinary event,” he said. “Now all of a sudden people that never paid any attention to this station have to go find it. That has an enormous impact on the rest of the station.”

At WCOV in Montgomery, Woods confirmed that “sampling of other programs here has increased considerably. Prior to Fox, no one watched us. Now they tune in for ‘Married . . . With Children’ and they may see a promotional spot for ‘Arsenio’ or ‘Hard Copy’ and come back for that. Once you have the audience watching, it’s easier to retain them.”

Harry Pappas, whose Pappas Telecasting Companies owns Fox affiliates in Fresno, Omaha, Neb. and Greenville, S.C., said that the huge ratings for “The Simpsons” and “Married . . . With Children” have helped to double and in some cases triple prime-time ratings at his stations, doubling and tripling revenues on the three nights that Fox supplies programming. Those gains have also rubbed off on the rest of his programming lineup, he added.

For many of the Fox affiliates that have long been saddled with weak programming, Pappas said, such revenue jumps will enable them to invest in technical improvements and promotional efforts that will build their audience--and Fox’s--even more. The Fox blockbusters have also made it easier for many stations to obtain financing for such improvements, he noted.

WCOV’s Woods said that his station has purchased land at a more strategic site to build a new, taller transmitter that will beam the signal farther. Completion is still several years away, but WCOV already has built a new control room in the last two years, complete with modern graphics equipment that he said dramatically improved the look of the on-air product.

“These stations never had a reason to make these kinds of investments,” observed Jaime Kellner, president of Fox Broadcasting. “Now they have a reason.”

And what of Fox? Does the fact that the fledgling fourth network has proven it can draw a huge mass audience with certain programs raise expectations for Fox’s other shows, such as “The Outsiders” and “The Tracey Ullman Show,” which last week were the two lowest rated programs in prime time?

Chernin said that the hit shows have certainly “raised the ceiling of our expectations. Six months ago, if you would have said we were capable of such national numbers, I would have said, ‘No way.’ But this network is based on our ability to target specific (demographic groups). And the weakest show we have is still doing impressive numbers with teens and adults 18-34, and we get advertiser premiums for them.”

In other words, Fox is structured so that it is able to turn a profit with ratings that would drain the other three networks.