Company Town : Can Sony TV’s Chief Tune His Style to the New Job? : Television: Jon Feltheimer, called a natural as head of production, must adapt to a more strategic post.

Jon Feltheimer wants it all. When he came to Hollywood as a struggling musician in the mid-1970s, he played guitar in a pop band called Lightheart at night while working as a stockbroker by day. “I didn’t want to be poor,” he said.

His driven style helps explain why after a dozen years in the television business, Feltheimer is considered among its most effective salesmen--and was catapulted last week to the top rung of Sony Television Entertainment.

Feltheimer, who is 43, already sits among the inner circle of executives who shape the look and feel of TV. The question now is whether what made him great as the head of production will translate to his new role overseeing the big revenue generators of television: distribution and international development.

“He was made for the old job,” said one Sony executive. “It will be interesting to see how he adapts. The new job is much more strategic, more behind-the-scenes, and he’s not that kind of manager.”

Feltheimer defines himself as a hands-on executive, although some colleagues call him controlling. They say he has a low tolerance for incompetence and an aggression that can make hair stand on end. Still, his quick comebacks and engaging charm have kept a swarm of employees devoted to him for a decade.

Just how hands-on is he? For the time being, Feltheimer doesn’t plan to fill his old job as head of Columbia TriStar Television, although he may soon find his plate overflowing.

“He has a steep learning curve in these new areas,” said one television executive, who said he admires Feltheimer’s curious mind and eclectic feel for programming.

Sony could face rough waters ahead as television’s past formulas are reconfigured. Networks are racing to own the programs they put on the air. Worried that networks will favor their own shows, studios such as Warner Bros., Paramount and Feltheimer’s old shop at New World Entertainment have been busy locking in distribution outlets by launching networks, aligning with broadcasters or buying stations of their own.

Sony, along with Disney and MCA, lacks such a security blanket.

Feltheimer is not alone in insisting that distribution means little if the shows are dogs, though he doesn’t rule out the possibility of “a strategic investment.” He cites the new United Paramount Network as an example of how frail the protection is: “They took off all but one show after the first season because they didn’t work.”

Still, the alliances are cutting the number of time slots available to studios that rely heavily on syndication, such as Sony, whose “Ricki Lake” talk show was a break-out syndication success last season.

“The lack of distribution is a real weakness for Sony,” said Jerry Katzman, president of the William Morris talent agency, who has been a close friend of Feltheimer’s for a decade. “It will be much harder two years from now to launch a ‘Ricki Lake.’ ”

Feltheimer has licked tough problems in the past. He eked out hits despite a meager budget as head of television at New World Entertainment, under owner Harry Sloan, Feltheimer’s friend and mentor.

“We had to be scrappy and entrepreneurial because we couldn’t afford the overall deals most studios paid,” said Feltheimer, a TV talent manager before joining New World in 1984.

Consider the 1987 pitch to ABC for “Sledge Hammer!” an offbeat sitcom about a guy whose confidant is his gun.

The New World staff was in New York for the final sales push before the networks locked in their fall lineups. It was the year “The Cosby Show” on NBC was the most feared contender.

“The ABC executives were all in their hotel rooms,” said Feltheimer, at ease in an overstuffed white chair in his office at Sony’s studios in Culver City, decorated like a country living room out of House Beautiful. “We slipped these posters under every door picturing Sledge Hammer and the slogan ‘We’ll even go up against Cosby.’ ”

It worked. “We were killed.”

When Ronald Perelman bought New World, the New York financier sold its television assets to Sony, finding the risks of financing prime time unbearable. Alan J. Levine, the head of Sony Pictures Entertainment, had served as Feltheimer’s lawyer in the past and asked him to build a studio from scratch around the TriStar Television name. Within a year, with the help of a new hit show called “Mad About You,” TriStar became the darling of Sony.

When management changed at Columbia last year, the two labels were merged under Feltheimer, who took the operation to new heights. Feltheimer sold more prime-time series to the networks than any executive in town this season except Leslie Moonves, then the head of Warner Bros. Television.

The two executives, in fact, are best friends and competed to see who could land the most shows on the network schedule. The score at the end of the selling season for fall: Moonves, 20; Feltheimer, 11.

Some people in the business even claim the contest drove up costs and spread the talent pool thin. “To say there was a cavalier attitude toward costs would not be unfair,” said one executive at Sony. “There is the philosophy of ‘Let’s throw it against the wall and see what sticks,’ and of course, to see who can outdo the other.”

To land eight new shows on the four network’s fall schedules, Columbia TriStar made 24 pilots, double the previous year. (Three shows, “Mad About You,” “The Nanny” and “Married . . . With Children” were invited back.)

Warner Bros. made nearly 20 pilots to get eight new shows to stick.

By way of contrast, one television executive said, “Carsey Werner has not made as many pilots in the last 10 years as Jon and Les made in one.” Carsey-Werner Co., one of the last independent production companies, created “Roseanne,” “Grace Under Fire” and “Cybill.”

That can make for some twisted economics. A half-hour pilot costs $1.2 million, with the network typically financing 70% of the costs. That means Columbia spent nearly $9 million to secure eight new spots, with the potential of losing far more before making any profits.

Television shows only make money if they hold on for three--ideally four--years, time enough to store up episodes to cash in on syndication. The trouble is, most shows die in the first six months to a year. And the more shows that fall, the bigger the loss for the studio.

In some managers’ views, that could be Feltheimer’s greatest challenge.

“What will be most difficult for him to adjust to, after focusing on network sales for so many years, is quality over volume,” an executive said.

Feltheimer admits that he may have been a bit excessive with pilots, but says he was still building the TriStar brand. And he says several were last-minute, low-budget presentations and that some of the rejected pilots have a good chance to air mid-season.

Some Sony executives say part of the trick is figuring out new twists for generating revenue. Helene Michaels, an executive vice president of programming at Columbia TriStar Television, said Feltheimer turned a rejected CBS pilot called “Forever Night” into a show for USA Network and also put it into syndication. “You’ll see a lot more crossover between divisions with Jon at the top,” she said.

Some in town suggest that Sony might also enjoy new reception for its shows at CBS now that his friend Moonves is calling the shots. Feltheimer squirms.

“It’s harder to do a sales job on a friend,” he said, without mentioning Moonves’ first act: He moved the TriStar show “Matt Waters” to mid-season and replaced it with one from Warner Bros.

Readjust the fall scoreboard. Moonves: 21, Feltheimer, 10.