New Shows Find Tough Going in TV Syndication : Television: Most of the fall entries, including ‘You Bet Your Life,’ have failed to live up to their advance billing.

If you pick up television trade magazines and glance through the advertisements for syndicated TV shows, proudly boasting of strong ratings and desirable demographics, it would appear that the industry has quite a few new hits on its hands.

In truth, the fall syndication class of 1992, which premiered throughout September, is struggling to make the grade. Although “Roseanne” and “Designing Women,” which recently went into syndicated reruns, are doing well, the original programs airing five times a week are not.

“ ‘You Bet Your Life’ declines absolutely every week in the ratings. Whoopi Goldberg loses her lead-in audience in 20 out of her (top) 25 stations,” said Janeen Bjork,programming vice president for Seltel, a New York company that sells advertising time for a group of 117 TV stations. “I mean, there are some very unflattering things to say about these shows.”

“You Bet Your Life,” “The Whoopi Goldberg Show,” “Rush Limbaugh,” “Star Search,” “Vicki!,” “Infatuation” and “That’s Amore” are all receiving, on average, lower ratings than their lead-in programs, and “Limbaugh” has been the only one to show any growth at this early juncture, according to the top 25 markets measured by the A.C. Nielsen Co. through last Friday.

Those same conclusions are reflected in Nielsen’s national numbers, which are about two weeks behind. Figures for the week ending Oct. 4 were released Wednesday.

“They all got good sampling by viewers in the first week,” Bjork said. “Because there was nothing else to write about in the trade publications, you would have thought that ‘You Bet Your Life’ was the Second Coming. But in truth, none of these shows are doing well.”

“Limbaugh” has come the closest to meeting his projected numbers. Multimedia Entertainment sold the late-night talk show to advertisers at a 3 rating, and in the latest national ratings “Limbaugh” finished with a 2.9 for the week ending Oct. 4, up from 2.7 the week before, and 2.5 the week before that. “You Bet Your Life” and “Whoopi,” meanwhile, both took drops of almost half a point in the latest national ratings.

“You Bet Your Life,” one of the highest-profile programs ever to enter first-run syndication, has drawn the most heat. Because the ever-popular Bill Cosby was starring in a proven format--a remake of Groucho Marx’s 1950s game show--Carsey-Werner Distribution predicted that the show would emerge as an instant hit. To that end, the company sold advertising time based on a spectacular 10 to 13 rating (each rating point represents 931,000 households).

But “You Bet Your Life” has averaged a 4.6 rating nationally. That’s by far the best showing by a new syndicated program this fall and, by any reasonable syndicated ratings measure, would qualify the show as a success. Yet because of Carsey-Werner’s predictions, the program is perceived as a disappointment.

“The doom-and-gloom story is a joke,” said Bob Jacobs, president of Carsey-Werner Distribution. To prove the point, Jacobs is expected to announce shortly that “You Bet Your Life” will be back next season with another 195 original episodes, assuming stations want it.

“Just ask any one of my 140 stations how the show is doing,” Jacobs said, noting that the show is pulling in more young viewers than critics anticipated. “Go find another show in 20 years that came out of the box this strong, went to No. 1 in Washington, went to No. 2 in Pittsburgh. This is a big story, but we’re not doing well in the two major markets (New York and Los Angeles), and that’s throwing cold water on the whole thing.”

Because “You Bet Your Life” has not achieved the ratings Jacobs predicted, advertisers who bought time on the program--for as much as $75,000 for a 30-second spot--have two options. They can pay less in December when their money is due for the end of the show’s first quarter, or they can receive “make-goods”--free spots on future programs to compensate for the lower-than-expected ratings.

A rival syndicator defended Carsey-Werner’s approach to selling “You Bet Your Life.”

“When you go out to sell syndicated advertising time, the point is not so much to sell the spot, it’s to get the advertisers to agree to your projection,” said Keith Samples, president of Rysher Entertainment, which distributes the new weekly syndicated series “The Highlander.”

“What if you flipped what they (Carsey-Werner) did?” Samples said. “What if they guaranteed a 5 rating, and then delivered a 10 rating? They never would have gotten their money. Hey, who knows, maybe it does become ‘Wheel of Fortune’ right off the bat. And if it does, you damn sure want to collect every nickel of the money due you. So what they did was smart business, although they attracted negative attention.”

Another measure of success for a syndicated show is whether it draws bigger ratings than the program that was in its spot the previous year. Only “You Bet Your Life” and “Vicki!,” a talk show hosted by Vicki Lawrence, are accomplishing that on a regular basis.

Genesis Entertainment, meanwhile, has been doing significant consumer testing of “Whoopi Goldberg” to get that program on track. Critics have called the late-night talk show boring, despite such big-name guests as Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Douglas and Tom Selleck.

“The direction of the changes has been to establish Whoopi’s presence in the program and to improve the pace of the show,” said Phil Oldham, executive vice president of Genesis, which sold “Whoopi” to advertisers on a projected 3 rating. The program has a national season-to-date rating of 2.3, and Oldham says that some make-goods will be in order.

One problem was that numerous episodes of “Whoopi” were in the can before the show even premiered, making adjustments slow to come. “She was feeling it out in some of the early shows,” Oldham said, “not really taking control of the interviews. And the pace was slower than viewers were comfortable with.”

Instead of opening with a wide shot of the whole set, then languidly moving in on Goldberg with light piano music in the background, the opening now jumps right into the interview with upbeat music. In addition, Goldberg has been more involved in pre-interviewing and preparing for her guests to help keep the conversation lively.

Dan Cosgrove, president of Group W Productions Media Sales, points out that household ratings are not the key to success in syndication. The daytime talk show “Vicki!” has been hovering around a modest 1.9 national rating--below its 3 projection--but is doing well because of its demographics, Cosgrove maintained.

Women 18 to 49 are a desirable target for advertisers, and for every 1,000 homes that tune into “Vicki!,” 390 of them include women 18 to 49, Cosgrove said. As a result, “Vicki!” has added 10 new stations since premiering six weeks ago.

* NETWORK CANCELLATIONS

“Frannie’s Turn,” “The Round Table” are among shows cut by networks.