Salaries for Comedy Writers No Laughing Matter for Fox : TV: The network is paying $60 million to bring in sitcom teams. But some balk, saying these are ‘not A-list talents.’

For Hollywood studios angling to cash in on the runaway success of television comedies such as “Seinfeld” and “Home Improvement,” the stakes just got higher--again.

In an effort to shore up its anemic comedy stable--and perhaps help the ratings of its sister network--Twentieth Century Fox Television is paying what sources estimate is in the neighborhood of $60 million this week to lock in long-term deals with a handful of comedy writer-producers.

Fox’s buying binge is further evidence of how industry consolidation is changing the economics of Hollywood. Studios like Fox are scrambling to control talent, fearful that competitors such as Walt Disney Co., which plans to acquire Capital Cities/ABC Inc., will keep their best shows for their new networks.

“We wanted to make a preemptive strike while our competitors were busy announcing mergers and focused on their new fall shows,” said Peter Chernin, chairman and chief executive of Fox Filmed Entertainment. “Now we can sit on the sidelines as prices go up.”

The big-ticket signings could make the sitcom business even costlier for newcomers such as C3, the production arm of Comcast Corp., and competitors such as MCA Inc., which brought in new management this week to rehabilitate its weakened television studio. Prices for comedy talent have already climbed in the last year because of bidding wars waged by new prime-time TV studios DreamWorks SKG and Brillstein/Grey Entertainment.

“This is outrageous,” said one rival studio executive. “Some of these people are not even A-list talents.”

Fox announced four-year contracts Tuesday with Danny Jacobson, the co-creator and executive producer of the popular NBC comedy “Mad About You,” and Vic Rauseo and Linda Morris, executive producers of “Frasier.”

The Jacobson deal alone, according to sources, is worth an estimated $21 million, making it one of the richest in recent memory to a comedy producer. It will not kick in until June, when Jacobson’s contract expires with TriStar Television, which dropped out of the bidding when the price soared.

Other writer-producers to sign with Fox this week include Jeff Greenstein and Jeff Strauss, from “Friends” and “Partners”; Eric Gilliland, from “Roseanne,” and Chuck Lorre, from “Cybill” and “Grace Under Fire.”

Gilliland, who only this year became a co-executive producer of “Roseanne,” is getting an estimated $9 million, according to industry sources, while Lorre and the “Partners” team are thought to have signed packages worth about $12 million each.

Few of the deals will result in prime-time series before the fall of 1997, according to Peter Roth, president of Twentieth Century Fox Television.

By making the deals, Fox hopes to capitalize on the high prices comedies have fetched in syndication. At Fox, the balance in recent years has tipped toward drama development than comedy, with David Kelley’s award-winning “Picket Fences” and “Chicago Hope” and Steven Bochco’s successful “NYPD Blue.”

Comedies have drawn huge sums in syndication recently. “Home Improvement,” for example, is racking up $2.8 million per episode in syndication for Disney, totaling about $600 million. Castle Rock’s “Seinfeld” will make roughly $2 million an episode.

Fox’s own stations have been among the most aggressive buyers of these shows--much to the chagrin of Rupert Murdoch, the Fox founder and head of News Corp., who has built a vertically integrated company with studios and cable, satellite and network distribution.

Though Fox executives said the programs produced under these contracts will be sold to all the networks, sources say the company’s primary motive in locking in comedy talent is to bolster its own Fox network, which has had little success in comedy since its trademark shows, “Married With Children” and “The Simpsons.”

“Murdoch’s mandate is to control as much of the talent as possible so he can supply himself,” said one television executive. “Rupert has been saying, ‘Where’s my “Seinfeld? How come my network doesn’t have a hit like that?” The trouble is, the theory of paying a high price to lock up talent is not proven.”

Disney took a similar risk in the late ‘80s when it paid dearly to sign a corps of writer-producers, including Matt Williams and the Carol Black-Neal Marlens writing team. Its reward: “Home Improvement” and “Ellen.”

But a more typical scenario is the deal Columbia signed with James Brooks for a reported $30 million or more. It yielded two network duds.

The fact that some producers signed by Fox are not marquee TV names makes its buying spree riskier. “Companies like DreamWorks, Brillstein/Grey, Fox and MCA are having to buy their way in with deals that are not economically based,” said one television executive. “This kind of frenzy happened in 1989 and 1990, and two years later the studios all took write-offs.”

Industry executives equated Murdoch’s willingness to pay a premium to overcome his weakness in comedy to his bold bid a year ago to enter sports broadcasting by winning the National Football League franchise.