Where TV Is Just So Much Product

The trip to the National Assn. of Television Program Executives convention here began on an unnerving note, as a circulation problem on a Continental flight forced everyone to quickly disembark from the smoke-filled cabin and board another plane.

The really disquieting part, however, was the realization that John Walsh and John O’Hurley were also on board, meaning had the situation actually turned dire, the New York Post headline would have read “ ‘America’s Most Wanted’ Host Dies in Air Mishap; Guy Who Played J. Peterman on ‘Seinfeld,’ 150 Others Also Perish.”

Such is the program executives convention, an annual ritual where rubbing elbows with celebrities assumes almost surreal dimensions.

Perhaps more than anything, strolling the vast convention floor provides a reminder that TV programs--however glamorous they may appear from the comfort of our living rooms--are simply a product to the people who sell them, no different from any other merchandise peddled amid the usually hyperbolic claims.

At the convention, in fact, stars are reduced to the role of accessories--there to be ogled and examined like a 2000-edition BMW or Mercedes. Indeed, one suspects the station executives touring the exhibition would kick the tires if they could get away with it.

This auto show analogy actually holds, right down to the buxom models used to generate attention from the mostly male clientele--in this case, owners and operators of TV stations in more than 200 television markets across the U.S., whose support is vital to launch the next “Wheel of Fortune” or generate hundreds of millions of dollars selling reruns of “Friends” or “Seinfeld.”

Stars of new programs (O’Hurley, by the way, is hosting a revival of “To Tell the Truth”) are the year’s new models, paraded out at regular intervals for picture-taking sessions. Lines wrapped around the exhibit spaces for fleeting moments with Internet queen Cindy Margolis, Gena Lee Nolin (who will play “Sheena” in a new action show) and cast members from “Battle Dome” and “The Lost World,” many of whom were forced to strut around in costume.

In similar fashion, actors from network shows being sold into syndication are trotted out to pose for hours on end with general managers from places like Salt Lake City and Des Moines.

At CBS’ booth, the “Everybody Loves Raymond” gang patiently waited as hundreds of people filed by, though series star Ray Romano admitted he doesn’t excel in this particular endeavor.

Co-star Patricia Heaton, he said, “is very good at the smile thing. I’m not a smiler in general, so it is a little weird for me. You go through streaks where you feel like you can’t get your face to do it anymore.”

Still, Romano added that such glad-handing at venues like this convention is just another part of the job. “We’re here to syndicate, and I own a piece of the show,” he noted. “So shut up and go cry in a bag of money. It’s a good problem to have.”

Any way you slice it, the convention is all about selling, or at the very least customer relations. If the more than 17,000 people who made the trek to New Orleans were mostly affiliated with show business (minus the few thousand dot-com geeks), the clear intent was only sparingly about the show and all about business.

Warner Bros. offered free shoeshines to program buyers, under a banner that read “You buy. We shine.” Columbia TriStar Television put out lavish spreads catered by celebrity chefs Wolfgang Puck and Emeril Lagasse. Cocktails flowed, and scantily clad women handed out cards directing you to visit one booth or another.

Amid this carnival-like atmosphere, the glitz people normally associate with Hollywood somehow disappears. The product could just as easily be utterly mundane, from Fuller brushes to vacuum cleaners. Programs are boiled down to numbers and demographics. Quality is seldom discussed. Opulent parties begin to feel like little more than a diversionary tactic, designed to loosen up buyers and thus the latches on their wallets.

To really see the program executives convention at this most fundamental level, one need only venture away from the pageantry of the major studios to the outer reaches of the exhibition space, where tiny companies operate. For most of them, the convention is all about commerce, with no pretensions regarding art to get in the way.

One booth, which would have fit in a closet at Paramount or Disney, was pitching something called “Loserland: The Men’s Club,” proudly billing itself as “television at its worst.” The fellow manning the exhibit referred to himself only as “Mr. X.” “For liability purposes,” he said.

There were plenty of companies with a few exploitation movies to sell, another featuring outlandish real-life video dubbed “Over-the-Edge TV” and several more with just a special or two to offer, among them Total Video, distributing a show about the Oakland Raiders cheerleaders entitled “Raiderettes 2000.”

“We’re getting a lot of interest from abroad,” said Ed Klitsch, Total’s sales and marketing manager. “The first guy who came by today was from Bolivia.”

Yet it is also in the fringes of the convention you get a taste of the Hollywood myth and allure. People regularly stand up at panel discussions to ask how they can get their idea on screen. “I have a concept for a children’s show I know could be successful,” one woman begins. During a session with manager Bernie Brillstein, a young man launches into an inexplicable rap act, finally giving up--to the relief of a puzzled audience--by saying, “Well, failure’s good, too.”

Usually, these people are encouraged to persevere, even though they have a better chance of being struck by lightning than landing the big score they seek.

In this one respect, this convention stands apart from the average auto show, since you suspect few folks fervently believe they can stagger in off the street and create the next Infiniti or Lexus. Here, however, there is no shortage of hearty souls willing to risk humiliation in pursuit of a dream--convinced they have the blueprint for the next “Oprah” or “Jeopardy!”

Then again, in this peculiar world of television--where luck and timing often trump hard work and planning, where “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” can rapidly vault to the top of the ratings and Jerry Springer can become a multimillionaire presiding over brawls--who’s to really say, with any certainty, that they don’t?

Brian Lowry’s column appears on Tuesdays. He can be reached by e-mail at brian.lowry@latimes.com.