A TV Ratings Hunk : Kissing and Telling Sells Big--’Studs’ Attracts Coveted Under-35 Crowd

A 26-year-old woman in a tight blue dress sits with her bare legs crossed and describes how her blind date with a good-looking commodities trader didn’t end until she left his bed at 10:30 the next morning.

“Yeah, and the sheets and pillowcases were ripped off and thrown all around the room,” the hunk clucks proudly. But when it comes time for the muscle-bound Casanova to choose which of the three women he’d like to date again, he selects one with whom he didn’t sleep. The woman in the blue dress, who backstage admits that she is “devastated,” looks as if she is about to cry.

For those who yearn for the days of public floggings, televised dating wars may be the next best thing.

That’s the battleground of “Studs,” the TV show that sends two young men on blind dates with the same three women, then brings the five of them together on screen to talk about what they think of each other’s eyes, biceps and derrieres. The racier, the better.

Airing weeknights at 6:30 and again at 11 p.m. on KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles, and at 10:30 p.m. on XETV Channel 6 in San Diego, “Studs” is the latest twist on the TV gossip-and-romance genre represented by “Love Connection” and, earlier, “The Newlywed Game.” Only 8 months old and expanding into new areas of the country every week, it seems on the verge of becoming a staple of today’s youth culture alongside “The Arsenio Hall Show” and MTV.

Last month, “Studs” was the top-rated program at 6:30 p.m. in Los Angeles, according to Arbitron, raising KTTV’s rating 71% over the previous year and beating all three network newscasts, “Hunter” and two sitcoms. In Chicago, “Studs” is second only to “The Tonight Show,” while in Washington, it regularly spikes all three network-affiliate newscasts at 11 p.m. And in all of its 34 cities--at least another 17 stations will begin airing the show before the year is out--its audience is made up almost exclusively of the moviegoing, soda-swilling, under-35 crowd that many advertisers prize.

Perhaps even more astounding, especially considering how much most people dread blind dates, the show’s producer reports that about 400 people each week audition to participate on the show.

“People will do anything to be on TV,” said Brian Graden, 28, who created the show for Fox Television Stations with Scott St. John, 26.

In opposition to “Love Connection,” which often thrives on the dating couple sniping bitterly at each other, executive producer Howard Schultz chose to make the show fun and playful. “I personally get uncomfortable watching that kind of nastiness,” Schultz said. “We have some barbs but it never degenerates into real ugliness.”

Even so, one wonders what kind of woman would subject herself to public prodding about where a man she hardly knows put his tongue? And what kind of man would subject himself to public pronouncements about the shape of his rear or the smell of his breath?

Schultz, 39, said that if he weren’t married, he would go on the show. Graden said, “I’d never do it.” St. John said he’d do it only if he were on against Graden. Even Mark DeCarlo, the show’s 29-year-old host, doubted he’d be willing to try it.

Yet hundreds of singles are eager for the chance to go on free blind dates and reveal their secrets on television. Many said they are lured by the men and women they see on the show.

“I hate blind dates and I’m usually really shy around guys,” said Michelle Azenzer, 23. “But I had the best time. In Los Angeles, where you’re always commuting, it’s very hard to meet people. The only place to meet them is in bars or to be set up by your friends. Here, if it doesn’t work out, you don’t owe anybody an explanation. But if your friend sets you up and you don’t like the person, it can be a very uncomfortable situation.”

Since the men are screened by the “Studs” staff, several women said that dating them is safer than dating the strangers they might meet elsewhere.

“They really check out the guys so you know they’re not going to be some real weirdo,” said Suzanne Solari, 27.

Schultz said the show tries to fix up each participant with the kind of date they dream of. He prides himself on being the yenta of TV.

These blind dates often work, Schultz insists, because before appearing on “Studs,” each person stands in the center of a room with two dozen potential contestants and answers questions about the kind of person they seek.

On the show, the talk inevitably turns to kissing, groping and sex. Following the dates, the women are interviewed by the “Studs” staff and from these sessions emerge one-line “quotes” that the women are said to have observed about their men. Most of these, such as “I was in ecstasy when he gave me his creamy pudding,” are designed to titillate, even when describing nothing more lurid than dessert at an afternoon picnic.

On a recent installment, when asked if there was any romance on her date, one woman said: “By morning, he had explored every crevice in my body.” She explained about the kissing and tickling until DeCarlo pressed her: “OK, you were tickling and kissing, and when did the crevice exploration begin?”

Schultz said that, in the beginning, perhaps 20% of the dates ended in sex, but that figure has declined now that the show has become popular and participants understand that these intimate details will end up on television. “But there will always be that kind of sexual stuff and tension between some of these people,” DeCarlo said. “And if someone is squirming around in her seat, I start poking around.”

Schultz brushes off criticism that because the men know their romantic moves will be evaluated on television, the show pressures them into trying something. To do or not to do it is left up “to consenting adults,” he said.

As for why the show always has two men dating three women, inevitably leaving one woman out when the men chose who they’d like to date again, Schultz said that no sexism is intended. Reversing it, he said, just wouldn’t be good TV.

“If a guy said, ‘She has the greatest set of jugs I’ve ever seen,’ it’s not funny because that’s how guys are always portrayed,” he explained. “But if a woman says, ‘His butt was so fine I wanted to goose him,’ that’s something you don’t often see, and it’s funny.”

So far, blacks and whites have been segregated, although Latinos and Asians have been mixed in with Anglos. Schultz plans to schedule interracial dates in the near future and also feature two brothers competing for the favor of the same three women.

Schultz attributes the show’s success to the fact that people can’t get enough of “sex and gossip.” DeCarlo concludes that nothing is more important to young single people than dating.

“People in the dating world can watch and see train wrecks worse or better than their own personal train wrecks,” DeCarlo said. “I remember that it was hard dating in college. You didn’t know if you should pay or open the doors for women. Some were actually offended. So with the sexual rules constantly shifting, I think we are a mirror people can turn to and say, ‘OK, I’m in the ballpark.’ ”