Telethons Get a Busy Signal at the Networks : Fund Raising: The Easter Seals event follows a trend and will be seen on cable tonight. Organizers say that’s not so bad-- but the revenue tells a different story.

If the waning enthusiasm of the local network television affiliates is any indication, the age of telethons, those marathons of glitz, celebrities, vaudeville and fund-raising, may be coming to an end.

KNSD-TV (Channel 39), the NBC affiliate, recently decided to sever its relationship with the Muscular Dystrophy Assn., the annual granddaddy of telethons hosted by Jerry Lewis. MDA has found a new home with XETV (Channel 6).

Easter Seals, which begins its annual 21-hour event at 8 tonight, hosted nationally by Pat Boone, will be on cable systems in San Diego County, not on broadcast television, as it will be in many other markets. It has been shown on cable-only locally for two years, since it was dropped by KFMB-TV (Channel 8), the local CBS affiliate. The local chapter of United Cerebral Palsy has followed a similar route, spending two years on cable after its nine-year relationship with KGTV (Channel 10) ended two years ago. In January, UCP did an abbreviated six-hour telethon on Channel 6, and its future format is uncertain.

“You have to assess interest level,” Channel 39 General Manager Neil Derrough said. “I just think the whole concept (of lengthy telethons), like any programming concept, has started to get tired.”

Representatives of charities emphasize that it is not horrible to air telethons on cable or smaller stations. But the numbers tell the story.

In 1989, the last year Easter Seals was on Channel 8, the telethon raised $56,000 from local on-air pledges, according to Chuck Love, executive director of the local Easter Seals chapter. The next year on cable, it received $24,000. Last year, the amount fell to $16,000.

While many factors contributed to the decline, there is no doubt that the support of a network affiliate is a big advantage to a telethon. Love said his attempts to place Easter Seals on broadcast stations over the past two years fell on “absolutely deaf ears.”

Without the connection of a broadcast station, Easter Seals was forced to negotiate with each local cable system to coordinate time and space. (The drive will air tonight on Channel 5 on Cox Cable, Southwestern Cable and Jones Intercable systems; Channel 33 on Daniels, and Channel 28 on Dimension Cable.)

And while cable penetration is high--about 80% in the city of San Diego--not every home has the service.

Telethons need the largest possible audience, not only to attract pledges, but alsoto keep corporate sponsors happy. Beyond altruistic motives, corporate sponsors appreciate the exposure they get from making donations during telethons.

“The telethon is more or less a thank-you vehicle these days,” said Dave Carucci, associate executive director of the local chapter of United Cerebral Palsy.

Without the connection with a network affiliate, it’s also harder to get local celebrities involved in a telethon, since the network affiliates have their own news personnel and personalities.

“I’ve found in the last two years (since Easter Seals left Channel 8), we’ve had fewer and fewer television personalities and more radio personalities,” Love said.

Of the telethons, MDA is the biggest and most powerful, the one that really started the telethon phenomenon; it raised $805,435 locally last year. MDA’s relationships with stations around the country have lasted an average of 17 years, according to Scott Vaughan, director of television network development for the national MDA office. MDA only had to find new partners in three markets around the country this year, he said. The relationship with Channel 39 was seven years old.

“It’s no editorial statement toward MDA,” Derrough said. “We just felt that it had run its course (on Channel 39) and that it was time to take a step back.”

Although the switch to Channel 6 means MDA won’t have the power or the audience of one of the “big three” networks behind it, Channel 6 is a growing VHF station that carries Fox programming.

“It would be ideal to be with the number one station in the market, but it is most ideal to be with an enthusiastic station,” Vaughan said. But he doesn’t deny that MDA would prefer to have maintained its long-term relationship with Channel 39.

“The business is in a state of constant change,” Vaughan said. “You just can’t count on everything being the same” each year.

One of the changes, representatives of television stations point out, is that there are more alternatives for charities than there were in pre-cable days. There are plenty of other channels available to carry telethons, they say.

Of the three network affiliates, Channel 39 has no plans to air any telethons this year; Channel 10 will do one, the 6 1/2-hour United Negro College Fund event in December, and Channel 8 will do only the 21-hour event in June for the national network of Children’s Hospitals.

Channel 10 Program Director Don Lundy said his station prefers to work with the United Negro College Fund because the station has an on-going relationship with the local group. It’s that same close relationship that has led Channel 8 to stick with Children’s Hospital.

“We found we could get more involved, and there was more immediate emotional involvement with Childrens Hospital,” said Channel 8 Program Director Jules Moreland, noting that Channel 8 can tie the event to the San Diego Children’s Hospital. “It’s very local. You can go and see the children and what they’re doing.”

Although it is not common knowledge, a charity usually pays for the station’s expenses and pays a fee for preempting regular programming during a telethon. But the amount paid is still far less than stations normally earn during the time period, and the production puts a tremendous drain on a station’s resources.

It’s that drain, more than any commitment to public service or financial hardships, that has caused stations to rethink telethons, according to Channel 39 General Manager Derrough, noting that there are so many telethons that they are not as “unique” nor as exciting as they were many years ago.

At the same time, most stations are experiencing financial hardships for the first time in many years.

“Where we could be philanthropic in the past, we’re running the station more like a business now,” said Channel 10’s Lundy. “Twenty-one hours is hard to handle.”

Although Carucci said that it is becoming “more and more difficult to obtain large blocks of time” on stations, the stations are still active in charities, albeit in their own way. Channel 10 for example did its own mini-telethon this year for the San Diego Job Exchange.

Channel 8 has “not abandoned” Easter Seals, Love said. The station still donates money from two to three fund-raisers a year to Easter Seals. But Love has noted an overall change in stations’ attitudes toward charities.

“We know our (public service announcements) don’t get run as frequently as they once did,” Love said.

Television has been deregulated over the past 10 years, and stations are no longer required to submit detailed reports of their public service activities when they seek to renew their operating licenses. Love believes there is “some credence” to suggestions that it is more than a coincidence that broadcasters’ enthusiasm for charities has waned during the same time period, although the broadcasters heartily deny it.

In response to the changing attitude of the network affiliates, telethons are changing. In the realm of how telethons are evolving, cable is not a bad outlet, charity executives say. The percentage of people who actually follow through on their pledges is 15% higher on cable than on broadcast television, said Love of Easter Seals chapter, despite the fact that the total amount coming in tends to be lower.

Cable is also willing to donate air time to charities, which dramatically cuts the telethon’s overhead costs.

“There are fewer viewers on cable, but it doesn’t cost as much,” said Carucci. “I think we did as many phone pledges in six hours (on Channel 10) as we did in 21 hours on cable, but it was more expensive.”

Charities are already rethinking the value of telethons. Although the pledges are valuable, much of the corporate fund raising is arranged long before the company representatives are shown handing over checks during the telethon.

As a fund raising arm, the telethons usefulness may have been diminished over the years, but charities still appreciate the television medium. No other technique can beat the exposure and chance to dramatize the organization’s deeds in the community.

“For an agency, it’s their weekend in the sun,” Carucci said. “It’s hard to put a dollar amount on that time to educate the public.”

Love believes telethons are still worth it, but he also believes that charities will eventually rework the concept.

“In my forecast, telethons will start cutting their losses and will become more extravaganzas than ‘thons,’ ” he said. “They will rely more on corporations and less on individual callers.”

To attract more attention, Easter Seals is attempting to spice up its telethon. This year’s event will include an auction of sports memorabilia collected by the local chapter.

“You have to keep building a better mousetrap,” Love said.