Tuning In The Global Village : ‘Wheel’ Making a Fortune : The world’s most popular TV game show symbolizes America’s dominance of the airwaves. Yet each country puts its own stamp on the program.

The weary international traveler lumbers into his hotel room in Istanbul after a long plane ride, collapses on the bed and flicks on the television for electronic companionship.

What appears on the screen is strikingly familiar: a game show contestant leaning over a large wheel that clacks loudly when he gives it a spin. The studio camera shifts to an illuminated game board flanked by a pretty woman, smiling vacuously. The contestant blurts requests for letters from the Turkish alphabet. Panels light up on the game board, accompanied by a special effects computer “ping” and appreciative murmurs from the studio audience.

The weary traveler rubs his eyes, but the image remains. “Wheel of Fortune” has struck again. The American masters of the world’s most popular television game show--possibly the most widely watched show on Earth--have added yet another country to their international conquests.

In Turkey, the newly launched show is called “Carkifelek,” which translates roughly as the “Hoop of Fate.” In Scandinavia, where it runs on the Scansat satellite network, it is aired two days a week in Swedish as “Lychohjulet” and two days a week in Norwegian as “Lykkeehjulet.” Here in France it is known as “La Roue de la Fortune.”

Since it first went on the air in 1987, the French “Wheel” has consistently dominated the ratings in its time slot. The story is the same in most of the 25 countries where the syndicated American game show appears, each with its own home-grown version of Pat Sajak and Vanna White. In Turkey, for example, the show is broadcast at 8:10 p.m., the same time as the main news programs, but it still leads the ratings. Handsome host Tarik Tarcan and comely hostess Yesemin Kosal top the Turkish celebrity list.

Each week, the “Wheel” reaches an estimated 100 million people, making a fortune for Merv Griffin Enterprises, its producer, and King World Productions, its distributor. Last year, King World, which also holds first-run syndication rights to “Jeopardy” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” earned $93 million based on total revenue of $476 million.

About 26%, or $120 million, of the King World revenue came from the domestic and international syndication of “Wheel of Fortune.” Company officials refuse to break out the foreign market percentage. However, King World President Michael King said that as of this year, the show has more foreign viewers than domestic. The latest push is in Eastern Europe, where King World international salesmen are negotiating with television authorities in Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria.

“We provide them with a program ‘bible’ and send over production executives who know the show to help them,” said King World’s international division president, Fred Cohen. “It’s a franchise like Coca-Cola or McDonald’s or Benetton. All we require is that they stick to the basic format.”

Perhaps more than any other industry, international television programming is dominated by American products. According to Neal Weinstock, media project director for the New York research firm Frost & Sullivan Inc., the United States will account for about $2.3 billion of the $3.4 billion total world television program export market this year.

The American domination may someday face serious challenges from abroad, as it already has from the booming Latin American telenovela soap opera trade. But in key markets such as Western Europe--where the populations have the money to buy products peddled by advertisers--U.S. productions lead by a wide margin.

In 1989, Herb Granath, president of Capital Cities/ABC Video Enterprises Inc., estimated that 35% of all programming across Western Europe was American. According to a study conducted for the U.S. Information Agency in 1989 by international television expert Elizabeth Fox, the United States sold 137,000 hours of programming to Europe. Britain, ranked second, sold only 16,000 hours.

Periodically, political figures such as France’s minister of culture, Jack Lang, sound alarms about the American hegemony over the European airwaves. A glance at any European television schedule shows the disproportionate presence of American shows. France’s powerful TF1 network shows the American soap “Santa Barbara”; the state-owned France2 counters with “The Bold and the Beautiful.” Both shows are distributed internationally by Los Angeles-based New World Entertainment.

Among the most successful American exports are the formatted game shows like “Wheel of Fortune,” “The Price is Right” and “The Dating Game.”

But how American is “Wheel of Fortune”--this symbol of American television dominance?

Not very--and quite a bit--said Cohen in a telephone interview. The key to the success of the American-formatted programs, Cohen said, is in converting them into local programs in the language of the host country.

“When you are talking about the borderless world,” said Cohen, former chief of the international division for the Public Broadcasting Service, “you need to recognize that the No. 1 shows in all the countries of the world are always the local productions. Our policy is, ‘Think global, go local.’ That is where formats and formatting are very valuable.”

Even a common language is often not enough to sell programs across borders.

Both Holland and the neighboring regions of Flemish Belgium speak Dutch. Despite the shared language, however, Flemish-produced programs have very low viewership in Holland. Conversely, programs originating in the Netherlands fare very poorly in the Flemish territories.

“It shows that people would much rather watch their TV than someone else’s,” concluded Paris-based television expert Bill Grantham, who has studied the Belgian and Dutch markets.

“We like the idea of trying to make the shows as local as possible so they last longer on the air,” said King in a telephone interview from his Malibu home. “It’s just like the board game Monopoly. They have changed the board so there is a French Monopoly and a German Monopoly, each with its own street names and railroads.”

“Wheel of Fortune” was invented and launched 17 years ago by television personality/entrepreneur Merv Griffin, who adapted it from the childhood game Hangman that he played with his sister as they traveled in the car on long trips. Just as in Hangman, players try to find a hidden word or phrase by guessing letters.

Essentially, the game is the same in Istanbul as it is in Paris or Buffalo, with small cultural variations or adjustments in the role played by the host and hostess. In France, said Executive Producer Mark Gurnaud, the clues tend to be more literary than in the American counterpart.

In Italy, the show is hosted by 68-year-old Mike Bongiorno accompanied by sultry Madonna look-alike Paola Barale. In Portugal, the show is hosted by stand-up comedian Herman Jose, who sometimes drops his pants to get a laugh.

The local variations help, but getting the whole world rolling on “Wheel” is the result of several factors.

Very important, said TV expert Grantham, is that “Wheel” came on the scene when international audiences were becoming more open to game shows with cash prizes and brand-name products. “It is the paradigm of a particular trend in TV at the time,” Grantham said. “Greed and the rule of money.”

The international trend to privatize television networks also opened a big door for “Wheel” and other American shows. “Wheel” was one of the first new shows to premier on the biggest French network, TF1, after it went private in 1986, and for several years it reigned as the most popular show in France.

The end of government-controlled programming in France and other countries created an instant hunger for American shows and American themes that remains strong today. Jim McNamara, president of New World International, credits the pro-American wave in popular culture for the immense success of “Santa Barbara,” the No. 1 daily serial in the world.

“You can’t get away from the fact that Ronald Reagan was in the White House and that his weekend hideaway was in Santa Barbara,” McNamara said in an interview.

The breakthrough pioneered by Roger and Michael King, the brother tandem that runs King World, was to persuade newly privatized television networks around the world to accept what is called the “strip programming format”--the relatively new practice of running the same program in the same evening prime-time slot for six or seven nights a week.

Michael King says the show’s worldwide success was just a matter of understanding human nature and the universal need in the human soul for a comforting nightly program like “Wheel.”

“Each part of the world has its own idiosyncrasies,” said King. “But everyone likes entertainment. We are all creatures of habit, and we like to watch the same shows every night.”