When Shows Have Long Coattails

Imagine ordering a steak and being told you must buy a salad and dessert, even if you don’t want them.

How about voting for George W. Bush and being forced to also pick the Republican nominee for Congress, sight unseen? (OK, it might happen in Florida, but you get the idea.)

If this sounds consumer-unfriendly, welcome to the world of television; in fact, it’s one reason entertainment companies have consolidated and grown bigger, the better to bully program suppliers and buyers.

For years, broadcasters overseas have been saddled with what are known as “output” deals, meaning if you want a studio’s blockbuster movie titles--of the “Titanic,” “Batman” or “Mission: Impossible” variety--they come packaged with a bunch of box-office flops and failed television shows.

In the U.S., making the purchase of one program contingent on buying another is illegal, but that doesn’t prevent accusations that such arm-twisting takes place.

During a press conference last week outlining Warner Bros.’ plans to gain better time slots for “Access Hollywood,” Dick Robertson, the studio’s head of program distribution, said one stumbling block was that some television stations couldn’t commit to moving “Hollywood Squares” or “Inside Edition” “until they see what’s happening with the ‘Oprah’ renewals. So, you can draw your own conclusions from that. But if I were Oprah, I’d check with my lawyers.”

The clear inference was TV stations were receiving not-so-subtle cues from King World Productions, which distributes all three shows, that their prospects of renewing “Oprah” might be influenced by how they treat other, less-enticing King World properties.

King World vehemently denied the allegation. Chairman Roger King called Robertson’s statement “a blatant lie,” adding, “Everyone in the industry knows that we sell each of our series individually and honestly, and we suggest that Mr. Robertson take a page out of our book.”

Mother always said never to get in the way of an irate salesman. Yet the fact a senior studio insider would openly discuss such practices, whether or not it has any merit in this particular case, indicates they are not the stuff of science fiction. Indeed, within the industry the understanding appears to be a competitor might behave illegally or at least unethically, whereas your company is simply employing “leverage” when it does the same.

While this may seem of interest only to lawyers and accountants, legitimate issues are at stake here--least among them whether a star such as Oprah properly pads a fortune she would already have to live 1,274 years to spend, an aspect that boils down to basic fairness and honoring contracts, even when they entitle a producer or star to a payday with more zeros than a box of Cheerios.

More significantly, broadcasters are ostensibly charged with putting on programs they think will serve the public. If those choices are made based on coercion, subtle or otherwise, then the public is theoretically being short-changed and its airwaves misused. This is hardly an academic question when behemoths such as Time Warner and Viacom--the latter now encompassing CBS, Paramount and King World--control such a staggering amount of the programming we see.

Also worth considering is the enduring dream that great ideas can stagger in off the street attached to some wide-eyed unknown--a hunger on display at any seminar for aspiring writers and producers, who pay good money to learn how to break into the business.

While this may have happened to Gene Kelly in old musicals, today’s reality is that no amount of fancy footwork matches arriving in town with the assembled firepower of Fox or Disney riding shotgun. In other words, the easiest way to sell a show is to have an existing hit on the network or stations you’re pitching. Better yet, have two hit shows, one under a contract that’s about to expire. Or heck, just buy a network and excise middlemen from the deal.

Further evidence suggesting Hollywood’s current approach to deal-making makes “WWF Smackdown!” look like “Sesame Street” can be found in recent court cases detailing alleged abuses of corporate power.

The producers of “Homicide,” for example, maintained in a lawsuit that NBC, in selling the show’s reruns to a cable network, combined those rights with Danielle Steel movies and miniseries the network owned. Sources say the producers of “Home Improvement,” who sued ABC for cutting what they felt was a “sweetheart” renewal deal with parent company Disney, were similarly suspicious about the studio using the sitcom’s popularity to dump other Disney-produced programs on TV stations.

Fox, meanwhile, has seen more court action lately than Ally McBeal. The studio settled litigation brought by actors David Duchovny and Alan Alda regarding profits from “The X-Files” and “MASH,” respectively. Suits are pending from producer Steven Bochco--questioning the sale of “NYPD Blue” reruns from Fox to its own FX cable network--and “Cops” co-creator John Langley, who has probably met a few guys even Fox wouldn’t want to mess with.

One of the problems, of course, is that programming decisions are inherently subjective, so exertions of undue leverage are hard to prove. There’s little science to determining whether “Inside Edition” is preferable to “Access Hollywood,” or if ABC is favoring “The Geena Davis Show,” which comes from Disney, over another new comedy like “The Trouble With Normal,” which doesn’t.

Confounding things further, there are also rare cases when a programming parasite--much like one of those little fish that follow the sharks around--actually begins to fend for itself. Consider “Wings,” which stayed on NBC largely because Paramount also supplied the network “Cheers.” NBC’s desire to keep the bar open meant the studio was able to foist show after show onto the network.

Most of those sitcoms failed miserably, but along the way a funny thing happened: By the time “Cheers” finally retired to the great comedy graveyard, “Wings” had developed its own fan base and remained aloft another four seasons.

Ultimately, screenwriter William Goldman summed it up best with his oft-repeated quote that in Hollywood, “Nobody knows anything.” That said, it’s worth remembering that success has its privileges, and when TV executives begin an elaborate dance to prove otherwise, it’s a distinct possibility you’ll be getting some fries with that shake, whether you want them or not.

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