Fox Unleashes More ‘Reality’ Specials

They’re back.

Just when you thought it was safe to turn on the television, Fox is bringing back “Television’s Most Criticized and Notorious Television Specials.”

Of course, that’s not the banner under which Fox is promoting the stream of Tuesday and Thursday specials that starts tonight with “Video Justice: Crime Caught on Tape” and continues through the month of November with titles such as “The World’s Scariest Police Chases” and “The World’s Deadliest Swarms.”

Fox is still smarting over criticism from competing networks and other observers last year when it aired specials that featured video footage of death and destruction. Critics declared that the programs were indicative of a disturbing trend in reality specials that are put together with footage from local news stations, amateur photographers, security cameras and other sources.

“We would never air anything like that,” NBC West Coast President Don Ohlmeyer said last year. Jeff Cole, director of the UCLA Center for Communication Policy, said the programs were “the equivalent of auto-accident programming on network television.”

Fox largely let the blasts go unanswered then, and the specials attracted high ratings while drawing few protests from viewers.

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But now, with four more such programs on tap for the all-important November ratings sweeps, Fox Entertainment President Peter Roth and other Fox executives are going on the offensive. Roth insists that Fox is being responsible in its presentation and in providing viewer advisories and says that much of the footage in the specials has aired on other networks under the guise of journalism.

“These types of specials are not new to Fox or new to television,” Roth said. “One only has to look at our competition. You can see the same footage on ‘Dateline’ or ‘20/20’ or ‘Oprah Winfrey.’ CBS has specials like ‘World’s Most Dangerous Animals.’ ”

In many cases, Fox executives said, footage shown on “Dateline NBC” or other news programs has been more extreme or violent than clips on the Fox specials. Footage in the discontinued Fox specials “When Animals Attack” also appeared in CBS’ “World’s Most Dangerous Animals,” including clips of an elephant killing a trainer in Hawaii and a moose trampling and killing a man. “Survivor Stories” on “Dateline” has also used footage featured in the Fox specials, they said.

NBC spokesmen didn’t return calls seeking reaction, while CBS and ABC declined comment, although one CBS executive said, “We package our footage much differently, like Discovery Channel. It’s more educational.”

Roth argued that the specials should be seen in a larger context.

“I really do believe that within the context of the broadcast season, it is important to present a balance of fare,” he said. “If we are offering ‘Party of Five’ and ‘The X-Files’ and ‘Ally McBeal’ and ‘King of the Hill’ and really compelling drama, I feel we can also offer what clearly are compelling and widely watched specials.”

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Tonight’s program, “Video Justice No. 2: Crime Caught on Tape,” features videotaped surveillance of robberies, undercover police operations and criminals caught in the act, including peeping Toms and a pyromaniac.

“The World’s Scariest Police Chases No. 3” will air at 8 p.m. Tuesday, followed at 9 p.m. by “The World’s Deadliest Swarms,” featuring “masses of terrifying creatures, including piranhas, locusts, mice and bees.”

On Nov. 6, Fox will air “Cheating Death: Catastrophes Caught on Tape,” and Nov. 13 will bring an encore presentation of “The World’s Scariest Police Chases No. 3.”

“Prisoners Out of Control,” which had been scheduled for Nov. 20, has been pulled from the lineup. The program, according to Fox, included “never-before-seen video of the horrors that can happen behind prison walls,” but Roth found the footage too graphic and rejected it.

“We have enormous sensitivity to this,” Roth said. “All of us at the network take this very, very seriously. It is not done without a great deal of analysis and introspection. This is not something as a matter of course that we would do on a weekly basis. But with the proper advisories and content, putting on these specials is not an inappropriate course for us to take at this period of time that is extremely important.”

The controversial specials are replacing one of the prestige series on Fox--”413 Hope St.,” about a Manhattan youth crisis center. Despite Roth’s enthusiasm for the drama and some glowing reviews, the audience for the new series has been steadily declining, so Roth said he made the painful decision to shelve the show during the November sweeps, one of three key periods each year that stations use to set advertising rates. “Hope St.” will return in December.

He said these reality specials are effective in attracting viewers: “Every network has its arsenal of specials. The other networks pull out extraordinary miniseries. Our secret weapon is specials. Is ‘House of Frankenstein’ [NBC’s big miniseries for November] any less or more violent than these specials? They all have exploitative movie titles like [CBS’] ‘Bella Mafia.’ ”

Fox executives said that no one is seriously injured in the four new specials. In “The World’s Deadliest Swarms,” the footage is mainly shot in natural settings, with no humans involved. It does feature reenactments of incidents in which humans were attacked by swarms, but the re-creations are neither graphic nor violent, they said.

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* “Video Justice No. 2: Crime Caught on Tape” airs at 9 tonight on Fox (Channel 11). The network has rated it TV-14-V (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14 because of violence).