Court Shows Continuing to Rule Syndication

The 2000 edition of the National Assn. of Television Program Executives conference at times looked like the American Bar Assn., as a handful of new court shows, a series featuring O.J. Simpson trial attorneys and two top radio personalities are among the new offerings that will invade TV screens next fall.

Buoyed by the success of “Judge Judy” and to a lesser degree this season’s daytime revival of “Divorce Court,” TV stations have purchased several new programs in courtroom settings. Moreover, almost all of them feature African American jurists, including “Curtis Court” and “Judge Hatchett.”

Larry Elder, the local drive-time host on KABC-AM, will appear on “Moral Court” (a concept initiated with another KABC personality, Dennis Prager). Fox’s syndication arm, meanwhile, is launching a new daytime show, “Power of Attorney,” featuring well-known lawyers such as Gloria Allred, Christopher Darden and F. Lee Bailey representing regular folks in legal disputes.

“Every one of them thanks God every day for O.J.,” said Janeen Bjork, senior vice president of Millennium Sales & Marketing, which represents TV stations and recommends programming.

“Law & Order” producer Dick Wolf has also come up with a daytime hybrid of that long-running franchise, “Arrest & Trial,” combining interviews, file footage and dramatic reenactments to chronicle real-life criminal cases.

“It’s as far from a court show as you can get,” Wolf insisted, having largely been lumped in with that genre. “There is nothing on the air like this, which isn’t bad news. That’s the good news.”

Yet if the programming at this year’s convention remains largely unchanged--with countless variations on currently popular themes, such as “Sheena,” starring “Baywatch” alumna Gena Lee Nolin as TV’s latest “Xena”-like warrior--the convention itself has undergone significant changes.

In syndication, programs are sold individually, market by market, meaning historically a series might play on the CBS station in Los Angeles, an NBC outlet in Detroit and an independent station in Nashville.

Industry consolidation has altered that formula, creating vast station groups owning outlets in 20 or 30 cities that buy most of their programs collectively. A similar dynamic has affected program suppliers, with Paramount absorbing several syndicators in the last year and poised to merge with CBS, the owner of King World, the distributor behind “Jeopardy!,” “Wheel of Fortune” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

“Television was born out of localism,” noted Barry Thurston, president of Columbia TriStar Television Distribution. “[But] everybody’s trying to increase their profit margins, and you’ve got to get bigger in order to do that.”

As a result, the number of broadcast executives at the convention shrank this year--some laid off, some simply choosing to stay away--only to be offset by an infusion from new media companies. In all more than 17,500 attended the New Orleans gathering, with Internet outfits accounting for nearly a fifth of this year’s convention attendance, exploding from a mere 1% last year. The number of international attendees also rose, to almost a quarter of those on hand.

“Obviously, there’s consolidation on both sides” of the domestic equation, said Steve Rosenberg, president of distribution for Studios USA, which syndicates the Jerry Springer and Maury Povich talk shows. At the same time, he said, “the dot-com booths are spreading like crazy. The dot-coms have recognized that eventually there will be convergence [of TV and the Internet], although nobody knows what that means.”

In the more here-and-now world of programming, the court genre clearly appears to be in ascendance, with as many as 10 on the air next fall. By contrast, talk shows--after high-profile disappointments featuring Martin Short and Roseanne--are waning somewhat.

“Daytime viewers are predominantly soap opera viewers, and a court show is really a soap opera,” said Madelyn Bonnot, senior vice president of Emmis Broadcasting and general manager of its Fox affiliate in New Orleans. “There’s drama and [conflict], and hopefully justice prevails in the end.”

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The most prominent new talk show features nationally syndicated radio personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger, whose program has been sold by Paramount to TV stations covering more than 90% of the U.S., including CBS-owned stations in most major cities.

“We have never been involved with a program that’s been sold as quickly as it was,” Joel Berman, president of Paramount Domestic Television, told a group gathered here to celebrate the launch.

Rival distribution companies--always eager to see something fail and thus claim valuable real estate for themselves--are already trying to plant seeds of doubt regarding “Dr. Laura,” suggesting name recognition is no assurance of success in syndication.

“Experts have never worked,” said one competitor. “They talk down to people.”

Syndicators are also fond of pointing out the last 15 years have produced just three instant hits--talk shows hosted, in sequence, by Oprah Winfrey, Arsenio Hall and Rosie O’Donnell. Even “Judge Judy,” which is almost single-handedly responsible for the influx of courtroom copycats, took two years to blossom.

When a show takes hold, however, the rewards can be staggering. Sources say “Judge Judy’s” gavel-wielding Judy Sheindlin currently garners a payday of roughly $8 million annually.

If there is another genre to watch in 2000, it could be so-called “relationship” shows, which seek to pair couples in increasingly provocative ways. Among the concepts for next season, for example, is “Wed at First Sight,” which matches people via a Web site, then brings them together to see if they will choose to get married on their first meeting.

“That’s part of the drama of the show,” said producer Pat Finn, adding that participants must undergo psychological, credit and criminal background checks to “give them the best odds of being a perfect match.”

Even some veteran convention-goers were surprised by the shortage of business conducted at this year’s convention, which concluded Thursday. Indeed, the biggest buzz, at one point, involved the hordes lining up to have pictures taken with Verne Troyer, the diminutive actor who played Mini-Me in last summer’s “Austin Powers” sequel.

Perhaps foremost, the National Assn. of Television Program Executives serves as a gathering place for the TV industry heightened by the carnival-like New Orleans atmosphere, where a stroll by Jerry Springer down Bourbon Street reportedly drew a crowd chanting his name.

“This is a two-party town,” quipped Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) during a speech to broadcasters, “because we believe one party a night ain’t good enough.”