Programming by Word of Mouth: More Talk Shows : Television: Executives hawk a slew of syndicated shows and hosts at their annual convention. At least a half-dozen new talk shows will hit the airwaves in the fall.

Once viewed as strictly bush league by prime-time network programmers, a crowd of 1,200 salespeople, producers and TV executives known as “first-run syndicators” rolled into Los Angeles this week with two overriding topics on their minds:

Talk shows and time slots.

The one-time second-class syndicators--who have taught the networks that TV does not just happen between the hours of 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.--are chiefly interested this year in finding morning or afternoon time slots on the nation’s 1,440 TV stations for talk shows.

At least a half dozen new talk shows will be unveiled to TV audiences this year, hosted by everyone from dour, tired-eyed David Hartman to TV’s original tabmeister, Maury Povich. By fall, there should be more talk on TV than any other brand of programming, if those syndicators assembled at the Century Plaza Hotel today and Saturday for the 18th annual Assn. of Independent Television Stations conference have their way.

The conference--titled “Programming the ‘90s: Feast or Famine?”--traditionally offers a peek at new off-network programs planned for next fall. As little as five years ago, the annual National Assn. of Television Programming Executives convention hosted in late January, with its elaborate booths and star-studded parties, was the recognized showcase for new syndicated shows. This year’s 28th annual NATPE convention opens Jan. 14 in New Orleans.

According to several first-run syndication executives, the instantaneous feedback that overnight Nielsen ratings have given TV’s commercial time salesmen has deflated NATPE’s importance as a “first-look” convention.

Nowadays, TV stations and their advertisers know literally overnight whether a show is a flop and start looking around for suitable replacements for fall TV season stinkers as early as October.

This year, in keeping with INTV’s theme, those overnight ratings have shown that the feast in syndication in 1991 is talk while a famine has set in on the game-show circuit.

Last fall, the flood of game shows that sold at the 1990 INTV and NATPE conventions turned out to be ratings disasters. Donald Trump’s “Trump Card” led the pack of flops, followed by such bombs as “Tic Tac Dough,” “The Quiz Kids Challenge,” “The Challengers” and “The Joker’s Wild,” which went over so badly in Boston that WBZ-TV relegated it to a 2:30 a.m. time slot.

Hence, TV is about to talk, talk, talk.

But not just any talk show. America may be ready for something a bit more individual and sophisticated than “Hard Copy” or even the odd array of sweeps season guests who pop up regularly on Oprah, Geraldo or Phil.

“What’s known as the ‘nuts and sluts’ category seems to have run its course,” said Scott Carlin, senior vice-president for first-run syndication at Warner Bros. Domestic Television. “We have an opportunity to bring things back down to earth by talking about issues which are really very important but at the same time meaningful.”

Carlin’s own talk offering will be “The Jenny Jones Show,” featuring the bubbly comedian who is known on the comedy-club circuit for her “Girls Night Out” act, aimed at the young to middle-aged woman that Warner Bros. hopes to wrest away from the likes of Oprah and Joan Rivers. There may be some celebrities from time to time, but Jenny’s drawing card will be more topic-oriented with lots of audience participation, as in the pilot program, which dealt with the agonies of being the wife of a gynecologist.

Light-hearted is also the by-word of “Love Connection” host Chuck Woolery whose “Chuck Woolery Show” bills itself as the only talk show that deals strictly with entertainment. “It’s very celebrity-driven,” said a Woolery spokesman at Orion Television, the show’s producer. “From his days as the original host of ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ Chuck has tested very well with women audiences. A very high marketability.”

James Garner, Brigitte Nielsen and Kim Coles of “In Living Color” were among the celebrities featured in the pilot. In future shows, Woolery will cook and Woolery will have animals on the show, a la the semi-regular petting zoo that graces the stage of “The Tonight Show.”

Thus far in the clearances derby, Woolery is second only to the formidable Povich in the number of stations that have already signed up for the show. Povich, the former host of “A Current Affair” and a one-time anchor for CBS’ Los Angeles TV outlet KCBS-TV Channel 2 (then known as KNXT), will return to KCBS and more than 70 other stations around the country next fall as host of his own hourlong program, geared around hot news, gossip and cultural topics.

Unprecedented advance commitments by stations in the nation’s 50 largest TV markets have led to unprecedented full-page congratulatory ads in the TV trade press, paid for by Povich’s employer, Paramount Communications Co. The ads read, simply:

“The Man” . . . “The Personality” . . . “The Experience” . . . “The Momentum” . . . “The Phenomenon”

“The hype,” muttered a disgruntled promotion executive from MCA TV/Fox Stations Inc., whose own offering in the talk-show race will feature former First Son Ron Reagan as a late night gabfest host.

“Up Late With Ron Reagan” has weighed in late in the battle for time slots and places a heavy burden on Reagan, but promises to utilize a wiseacre approach to interviewing, aimed toward the young insomniac who now has only David Letterman, Ted Koppel or Arsenio Hall as alternatives.

Reagan told The Times that the original title of the program was “On the Edge With Ron Reagan” but he successfully lobbied for a name change on grounds that TV critics might see it as an invitation to call it “On the Brink With Ron Reagan” should it start out shaky in the overnight ratings. No need to invite disaster, he explained.

Another latecomer among talkers is New York-based Viacom’s “Realities” with former “Good Morning America” host David Hartman. More akin to “60 Minutes” than “Donahue,” “Realities” had five segments packaged into a pilot to show prospective buyers last fall, but it was so ill-received that producers called the pilot back for revision. The new package was scheduled for its debut this week at INTV.

Also in the wings as potential talk show hosts are Tim and Daphne Reid, the sitcom pair late of CBS’ “Frank’s Place” and “Snoops,” and Sarah Purcell whose highest-profile to date was anchoring the early ‘80s network fluff magazine “Real People.” Both of those shows are still in the development stage, however.

Reagan sums up the reason for the flood of talk shows as well or better than any syndication veteran:

“They’re cheap. You don’t have to pay actors. Just get some fool like me up there and you’ve got a show,” he said.

Talk shows are relatively inexpensive to produce: an estimated $150,000 to $300,000 a week for an hour a day of programming. They’re also relatively easy to stock with guests because actors always have a show to plug and authors always have a book to sell.

While Jenny Jones has no shortage of gynecologists’ wives to go before the cameras, Reagan has also been able to work up three pilot hours around themes and has had little trouble with his guest list because, as he explained it, media creatures seek media exposure.

Despite all the talk, conventioneers will not be forced to watch only chatter during the three-day INTV and four-day NATPE showcases.

They’ll also get a chance to see resurrected chestnuts (a new “Candid Camera” hosted by Dom DeLuise instead of Allen Funt), reruns (both “Roseanne” and “The Wonder Years,” beginning rosy years of afternoon repeats) and even a couple game shows (“The Puzzle Game” from Tribune Entertainment and “Scrabble,” overseen by wordsmith Steve Edwards).

And, should the talk shows fail next season the way game shows did this year?

Well, Jenny Jones for one may go on a cruise.

“I’ve had offers to do my stand-up on a Caribbean cruise ship and it’s really a pretty good deal. You only perform twice in one week because they rotate the shows,” she said.

Her most recent such offer prior to taking up her talk show offer with Warner Bros. was as a warm-up act for Toni Tennile who briefly hosted a talk show in 1980.

“At least I’ll have something to fall back on,” Jones said with a laugh.