Syndicators Seek Rx After ‘Dr. Laura’

Organizers of StopDrLaura.com quietly dismantled their Web site this week, saying its mission had essentially been accomplished, with the “Dr. Laura” television show relegated to the wee-morning hours in key U.S. cities and unlikely to survive beyond this season.

“Looking back on it, StopDrLaura.com may be one of the only dot-com success stories of the year 2000,” John Aravosis, one of the site’s founders, quipped in a farewell message.

Yet while Paramount’s talk show fronted by radio personality Laura Schlessinger was doubtless the highest-profile daytime series entering the fall, plenty of syndicated programs have flopped ratings-wise without Web sites devoted to their demise. The trend is clearly on the minds of television stations and distributors as they pack for next week’s National Assn. of Television Programming Executives convention in Las Vegas--a supermarket of TV programs where syndicators try to finalize programming commitments for September 2001.

Daytime and late-night syndicated shows introduced this season are on average being watched in less than 1.4 million U.S. homes, down from more than 2 million just two years ago. With viewership so fragmented thanks to the proliferation of choices, some producers fear distributors are unduly stressing cost over concept--seeking to develop cheaper shows to avoid the seven-figure losses that can stem from failing to beat the odds gambling on big-name talent such as Dr. Laura.

Unlike network television, syndicated fare is sold on a market-by-market basis and may occupy different time slots from city to city.

Even that dynamic is changing, however, with consolidation of ownership leading to more centralized decision-making--both among TV stations, who commonly purchase shows as a group; and program suppliers, as companies such as Viacom, News Corp. and Disney strive to develop series to broadcast on the stations they own and operate.

The NATPE convention approaches with the television business facing a degree of upheaval. The latest tremor involves News Corp.’s pending acquisition of the Chris-Craft TV stations--which include KCOP-TV locally--meaning a single company will own the Fox and UPN stations in eight major markets, among them New York and Los Angeles.

Though Nielsen Media Research monitors more than 200 TV markets in the U.S., because New York and Los Angeles jointly account for 12% of the country’s homes, Fox’s control of multiple stations in those cities would provide the studio enormous power over which syndicated programs ultimately see the light of day.

“They’re the gatekeepers now,” said one source at a major program distributor.

Moreover, the Federal Communications Commission, under a new Republican administration, could spur further consolidation by relaxing the existing cap on how many stations can belong to a single company. Current rules limit one enterprise from owning stations reaching more than 35% of U.S. households.

How all this might influence programming trends remains unclear. Inexpensive court shows were all the rage at last year’s NATPE, as the search for another “Judge Judy” left a dozen court franchises in circulation.

Of those, “Power of Attorney”--a 20th Century Fox show airing on the Fox-owned stations--and “Judge Hatchett” have exhibited the most ratings promise, while a legal series from “Law & Order” producer Dick Wolf, “Arrest & Trial,” is also faring reasonably well.

Beyond that, first-year shows have generally struggled, opening the door to an onslaught of new series hoping to land those time slots.

After a shortage of new talk shows this season, the search resumes for the next star who needs no surname, a la Regis, Rosie or Oprah. Comic Caroline Rhea, for example, is testing the waters in a Paramount show being pitched to run in afternoon time periods “Dr. Laura” had occupied.

King World, meanwhile, the distributor of “Oprah,” is behind “Ananda,” hosted by MTV’s Ananda Lewis. Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times, has agreed to add the series to its stations in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Another talk show with an “Oprah” connection is “Iyanla,” featuring motivational speaker Iyanla Vanzant, an occasional guest on Oprah Winfrey’s program. Produced by Barbara Walters’ company, Vanzant’s show comes from Disney and is earmarked for several of the ABC-owned TV stations.

As usual, most programming concepts entail a slight variation on an existing hit, such as “The Other Half”--an NBC project modeled after “The View,” attempting to interest women with a disparate panel of men (among them Dick Clark and KYSR-FM [98.7] morning man Danny Bonaduce) chatting about life and love. As for so-called relationship or dating shows, the lengthy list includes “Shipmates,” which places the genre on a cruise ship; and “The Fifth Wheel,” in which two men and two women mingle before a fifth person is thrown into the mix.

The latter is designed as a companion to “Blind Date,” a surprise hit last year that gradually found its audience.

“We were under the radar in the first season,” said David Garfinkle, a partner in Gold Coast Productions, which is responsible for both shows. “People didn’t know about us. All of a sudden, it started to build this cult audience and got bigger and bigger.”

Alternative Formats May Be Ready for the Big Time

In fact, even major networks increasingly view such alternative formats as potential ready-for-prime-time players, inspired by the popularity of “Survivor,” “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and now Fox’s “Temptation Island.” “There’s a lot of opportunity now for guys like us,” Garfinkle noted.

Underscoring that relatively few major programming deals occur at NATPE anymore, the convention will devote considerable time to future-gazing and technology--particularly the question of “convergence,” or what happens when TV, computers and the Internet finally come together in the same little box.

According to NATPE President Bruce Johansen, the convention has evolved into a forum exploring areas such as global television, convergence and industry consolidation. Even many panels aimed at TV executives probe these themes, with titles like “News & the Internet,” “Interactive TV Opportunities Today” and “Where’s the Dough? Discovering Online Revenue.”

As for pushing program content and selling shows to the sidelines, Johansen acknowledged, “That’s no longer the main focus of what happens here. It’s more a corporate gathering of people from disparate parts of our business. . . . We’re reflecting that.”