Tartikoff Exit Leaves NBC Affiliates Braced for Fall

While its Burbank headquarters remains upbeat in the wake of Brandon Tartikoff’s announced departure from NBC, station executives are a little less confident out in Paducah, Macon, Peoria and Palm Springs.

General managers of Peacock affiliates across the country will gather in New York on May 22 to hear Tartikoff’s farewell and listen to his heirs, Warren Littlefield and Perry Simon, tout the NBC lineup for the fall.

While “stark fear” may not best describe the mood among affiliates--which have weathered two hitless seasons with NBC as they watched the age of their overall audience climb from 30 something to 42--there is certainly a nail-biting tension in the land.

“Brandon seemed to be right more often than wrong about dropping a program or staying the course,” said L.A. Sturdivant, general manager of WMGT-TV in Macon, Ga. “I think the fall schedule is pretty much already selected, so if they (Tartikoff’s heirs) face a problem, it’s going to be getting the programs they’ve already picked in the right slots in the schedule and knowing when to pull back.”

“Everyone’s concerned about Brandon’s leaving, but he hasn’t had a hit lately either,” said Ray Watson, general manager of KGET-TV in Bakersfield. “I’m a little unsure whether NBC has the talent on board now to replace him, but if he’s out there, General Electric can certainly find him and hire him.”

Littlefield, president of NBC Entertainment, and Simon, executive vice president for prime-time series, were too busy screening pilots for the fall last week to be interviewed, according to NBC media relations vice president Susan Binford.

But the affiliates themselves, to whom Littlefield and Simon must answer in three weeks, had plenty to say.

“We’ve been a little bit alarmed at the slow slippage and the loss of our audience over the last two seasons,” said John Conte, general manager and co-owner of KMIR Channel 36 in Palm Springs for the past 23 years.

“It’s obvious they don’t go into a room and say, ‘What kind of a mess can we make?’ ” said Marcy Levine, general manager of KIEM-TV in Eureka, Calif. “Part of the problem, I think, is that some of the shows that the mass audience likes aren’t necessarily the best shows. That’s why cable is doing so well.”

“I think that generally there may be a lack of confidence in Warren and the team,” said Penny Martin, programming director for the past eight years at KNSD Channel 39 in San Diego. “Certainly (we’re concerned with aging demographics). I think I see it more as an overall network trend, not just isolating NBC. We’re concerned with the demographic decline and the aging of some of the programs on NBC’s schedule.”

NBC’s biggest prime-time trouble spots remain Fridays and Sundays.

“Friday is just a real problem for NBC,” said John Williams, general manager of WPSD-TV in Paducah, Ky.

Because it’s been more than a decade since NBC racked up substantial ratings on Friday, it has become a running joke among the affiliates. Williams’ solution would be to anchor a quality show there that hasn’t found its niche elsewhere on the schedule and build around it, but he despairs of that happening in an atmosphere where a good show can’t seem to hold on to its slot for more than a few weeks at a time.

“I think the sleeper that we’ve got on now is ‘Law and Order.’ It’s one of the finest programs since ‘Hill Street Blues,’ ” he said. “I hope NBC finds a home for it and quits moving it around.”

Cable, VCRs and Fox Broadcasting, coupled with hard times and fading ad revenues, have turned network TV into a new kind of business in the past five years. To many affiliate veterans, Tartikoff represents the last of a dying breed: the dominant TV executive who towered over all aspects of network programming.

The new breed has to work in a more competitive world under a new set of rules.

“Certainly the ratings of the network in February, when Brandon was in the hospital (recuperating from an auto accident), made the affiliates apprehensive,” said Dennis Upah, general manager of WEEK-TV in Peoria, Ill., referring to NBC’s second-place finish behind CBS. “Only time will tell whether they (Littlefield and his programming lieutenants) can succeed him. We’re cautiously optimistic.

“But the corollary to that is true too,” Upah added. “There’s some cautious pessimism as well: Whether the network can fill shoes that are so large.”