TV Buyers, Sellers Focus Mostly on the Bottom Line

A senior executive from one of the TV studios sat in a noisy, garish booth at the National Assn. of Television Program Executives convention here this week and gestured around him to banks of stacked TV monitors, flashy banners, costumed TV characters and celebrities posing for photos.

All the wowing and wooing was designed to draw TV station buyers off the floor to look at the latest syndicated programming the studio had for sale.

“This is ridiculous,” he said. “It’s indulgent beyond reason. Why do I need this? Why do I need this convention when I have a dozen salesmen who spend five days a week, all year long, canvassing the country to sell our shows? I’ll pick up a few sales here, but I’ve already made the majority of my sales weeks ago.”

The only real marketplace for the entire broadcast industry to rub elbows and show off their wares officially concluded Friday. This year’s convention theme, “Managing Change,” was telling. With the economy weak, advertising revenue down and the syndicated market relatively flat--in contrast to a boom in the 1980s--most buyers and sellers of TV programming indeed found themselves adjusting to new times.

“What’s different this year is the attitude,” said David Goodman, president of Goodman Entertainment. “We’re in flux as an industry. People have been in denial that broadcast is changing. But it is changing, and how we adjust to that change will determine our success or failure.”

Fox Inc. chairman Barry Diller started off the week calling for cable companies to pay for the right to carry network television. On the floor, there was more talk than ever of co-ventures with overseas partners to reduce production costs and the importance of gearing up for a global marketplace.

“It’s all different,” said Robert Jacquemin, president of Buena Vista Television. “Our buyers are not strictly television stations anymore. This convention is directed at advertisers, cable television and foreign buyers as much as anything.

“What’s most significant is the nature of the business, which seems to be changing exponentially. . . . What we knew 10 years ago is obsolete today. And what we’re doing now will most likely be no good to us five years from now.”

How successful the convention was and its continuing importance to the industry as anything other than a goodwill gathering depended on who you asked. If attendance is an indication, there were fewer domestic buyers and fewer distributors with programming for sale. At week’s end, there appeared to be no clear indication of which shows pitched will actually get launched--with the possible exception of Bill Cosby’s revival of “You Bet Your Life.”

Part of the problem is that most of the key time slots in syndication are locked up right now. “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” for example, has station commitments in 110 TV markets covering 80% of the country through the 1994-95 season. “Oprah” was launched nationally in 1986 when the economy was bursting and record prices were being paid in syndication.

Today, the emphasis is on the bottom line, and distributors cannot command the license fees from stations that they used to. An increasing number of barter deals are being made in which program distributors and stations divvy up advertising time, thereby sharing in the relative success or failure of a show.

“There’s a dangerous pattern developing in the business,” said Shelly Schwab, president of MCA TV. “Because of economics, the studios are bringing programming to the marketplace with an eye on the downside.”

What that means in practical terms is that the studios are producing less original, first-run programming for syndication because it’s costly and runs the risk of failure. There were repeated comments from the reporters and buyers in attendance surprised by the sameness of the programming.

“It’s a funny convention this year,” Goodman said. “People get a little scared by change. Either you’re reactive or proactive, and a lot of distributors in the marketplace have become reactive. They’re holding back on products they would have released a few years ago.” Two studios bucked the trend to gamble on major new series for syndication, perhaps throwing down a gauntlet to the major networks in the process. Paramount was pitching the expensive dramas “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” a spinoff of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and “The Untouchables.” And Warner Bros. was offering the science-fiction series “Time Trax” and “Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.”

By offering lush, two-hour blocks of programming to stations with potentially lucrative advertising deals, the studios are hoping to tempt some network affiliates to preempt weaker network fare.