Syndication Mantra: ‘Let’s Make a Deal’

The major networks like to unveil their new shows and new stars each fall with the haughty air of people doing you a favor. But the salesmanship is more grass roots at the National Assn. of Television Programming Executives convention, the annual home show of first-run syndicated programming whose 2001 edition concluded Thursday at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

These are the shows that truly fill up the airwaves--during the day, on weekends, late at night--everything from guilty pleasures to unsung dramas, sold domestically and overseas. This year, for instance, in addition to the “Blind Date”-inspired “The Fifth Wheel” and the talk show “Iyanla” (she’s a member of the Cult of Oprah, having appeared regularly on Winfrey’s show), there was Andrew Dice Clay, blockbuster comedian/cultural scourge of the late 1980s and early ‘90s, selling a series called “Colosseum.”

Produced by Pearson Television, whose current successes include “Baywatch Hawaii” and the game-show revivals “Family Feud” and “To Tell the Truth,” “Colosseum” would star Clay as a boxing promoter who gets transported back in time to ancient Rome, where he finds himself working the heavyweight division of the gladiator set. (“Colosseum,” it seems important to point out, is envisioned as an action-dramedy). For the sales pitch, Pearson had a short presentation video shot in Canada, at a modest cost of several hundred thousand dollars, and Clay was expected to be on hand for several days of networking.

The ostensible goal at NATPE is to sell to enough stations across the country--most notably in key markets such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago--to launch a show in the fall, while picking up new markets for returning shows. The selling of Dice took place at the Pearson Television booth, a set piece the size of a house on the Westside and yet not as James Cameron-esque in its carpeted square footage as the demi-worlds built here by syndication giants like Universal or Buena Vista or Sony’s Columbia TriStar.

Pearson is no slouch; it’s a multibillion-dollar global company, the result of two mergers that made it one of the biggest TV companies in Europe and the international supplier of such U.S. franchises as “The Price Is Right” and “Baywatch.” But Pearson is not aligned with a major Hollywood studio, which puts it at a disadvantage domestically amid consolidated giants such as News Corp. or Disney, which increasingly own both the shows and the stations on which the shows air.

At NATPE, one visits the “booths” as if at Epcot. There is a tremendous amount of mingling and meeting and picture-taking, and the stars of shows are supposed to make themselves as available as costumed characters at Disneyland. Columbia TriStar, for instance, trotted out Pamela Anderson and the rest of the cast of “V.I.P.,” her syndicated action series, in addition to the stars of “King of Queens” and Katie Holmes of “Dawson’s Creek,” two network series set to be syndicated by Columbia.

By 11 a.m. Tuesday, an hour into the convention, John O’Hurley, host of “To Tell the Truth,” and Louie Anderson, host of “Family Feud,” were working the reception lounge at Pearson, along with Antonio Sabato Jr., star of the other action show Pearson was selling, this one a motorcycle-racing series called “Lean Angle.”

But still no Dice. “He’s having his attitude put in,” Anderson offered, sipping a Coke. He meant no disrespect.

Clay showed up by midday, to negligible buzz, and almost immediately you could tell he wasn’t in his element. He gave an interview to a trade reporter (“There’s never been, in the history of syndication, an hourlong comedy drama,” he said of “Colosseum.” “So we’d be making history.”), but mostly he stayed backstage, in the green room, smoking lots of Benson & Hedges Lights and hanging out with a buddy, Todd Rosken, whom Clay identified as an old compatriot from Brooklyn. Rosken was slight where Clay was burly, and goofy-sweet where Clay was mock-gruff. He tended to Clay’s soda cans and ashtray. It appeared they had a master-to-lackey routine worked out.

As the day wore on in the green room, suited men on smoke breaks came and went.

“You give me a three [rating] and I’ll give you back a five,” a sales guy boasted to Clay. “OK,” Clay said. “I don’t know what either of those things mean.”

“You will,” the sales guy said.

“Colosseum’s” prospects were not as strong as other shows being shopped at NATPE--or by Pearson. Game, judge, relationship and hybrid talk are all hotter syndication sells than action-drama. Of the top 10 shows in syndication, none are dramas. Indeed, by Day Two, Pearson had already announced renewals for “Family Feud” and “To Tell the Truth,” and a probable pickup for another revived game show, “Card Sharks.”

But Clay was convinced “Colosseum” was a done deal. He was dressed in baggy black pants, baggy black sweatshirt, silver chain and workout gloves--the gloves part persona, part the fear of picking up germs from all the hand-shaking. He was in Vegas for the week, doing several shows at the Venetian, where he is under contract. It has been a long time since Clay was publicly Andrew Silverstein, and after the multimillion-dollar love-hate phase of his career, during which Clay packed arenas but saw then-”Saturday Night Live” regular Nora Dunn boycott his appearance and other important comics distance themselves from him, he soldiered on.

Over the years, Clay made two short-lived sitcoms, some movies, and became a husband and father with two boys. He has also kept doing his unabashedly filthy comedy--recently releasing a new CD and playing to his devoted fans last October in Madison Square Garden--a show for which Clay said he sold 13,000 tickets.

But what does the rest of the country think?

“A lot of the meetings will be for people to see him and smell him and see what he’s like,” Matt Loze, Pearson’s president of drama, had said before the convention.

Dice himself understood this. “I think it’s to meet me and make sure that I do act human,” he said, asked what his sales role was. “I’m treated like I just got out of prison. Like, ‘What’s he gonna do?’ And it’s like, all I do is make people laugh.”

Convention Protocol

At NATPE, station general managers book the so-called “strip shows” first, because they air five days a week and fill up more time slots and generate more revenue. Dramas and action shows, which stations air on the weekends, tend not to know their fate until several weeks after the convention concludes, Loze noted.

Neither “Colosseum” nor “Lean Angle” were anything like sure bets, but by Tuesday afternoon, Dice was clearly being upstaged by Sabato, the Italian model and actor. As Sabato posed, happily, on a fancy Ducats racing cycle, representatives from the French cable TV outlet Canal Jimmy drank him in. Sabato, they said, was well-liked in France, thanks to a short-lived science-fiction series he’d been in called “Earth 2.”

Joe Scotti, Pearson’s head of domestic distribution and marketing, presided over the scene like a restaurateur making sure all of his tables were happy. He estimated his sales staff would conduct upward of 400 meetings. “As those doors open and close, that’s all I care about,” he said, facing a row of temporary meeting rooms.

Clay was back in the green room with his agent and his sidekick. They were talking about where “Colosseum” would be shot. Most likely in Canada, but Clay said the director had mentioned Spain. “I’m not going to Europe, for nobody,” he said. “I don’t like leaving my house. . . . [Director] Renny Harlin had a hard time getting me to go to Malibu for ‘Ford Fairlane,’ and that’s a 40-minute drive from my house. You talking about Spain? Forget it.”

Back out on the sales floor, O’Hurley--otherwise known as Mr. Peterman from “Seinfeld”--was chatting up executives from WHDH, the Boston affiliate for “To Tell the Truth.” He still looked impeccable, down to the handkerchief in the breast pocket of his suit. “Listen, I’m a die-hard Red Sox fan,” he was overheard telling the Boston people. “Until May, when they’re mathematically eliminated.”

Still, it was hard to determine how much this celebrity song-and-dance ultimately mattered. Much of the discussion at NATPE this year was about NATPE’s very relevance--and whether the major studios would continue to show up. In the old days, the veterans said, with only three broadcast networks and lots of time slots to fill, the field was more wide open. But now there are six networks gobbling up time, and media consolidation has put buyers and sellers under one corporate roof--i.e. Disney or Time Warner or Viacom--making the convention more an exercise in expensive PR.

“This is no longer the most efficient way to sell a TV show to 80,000 general managers,” Bruce Johansen, NATPE’s president and CEO, said in an interview with the industry trade Broadcasting and Cable.

But NATPE also set an attendance record this year, with more than 20,000 people on hand, according to a convention estimate. And one needed only to roam the floor to realize that television is a resilient beast. The major studios offered the best food and the most eye candy, but the guts of the convention were made up of exhibitors from overseas, dot-coms and new-media companies showcasing the latest technologies.

Those dreaming big included the Alexandria, Va.-based marketers of “Jazz the Dreamdog,” a line of children’s books being pitched as a TV show. In the series, kids are empowered to solve their own problems. In one story, Angie conquers her nighttime fears when she discovers that the creatures scaring her at night are actually homeless people in need.

At the other end of the spectrum there is Dice--famous for beginning X-rated nursery rhymes with “Hickory dickory dock.”

“My understanding is that he’s toned his act down,” said one buyer, having emerged from a “Colosseum” sales pitch. “It’s a fish out of water [story], and in this particular case, it’s a barracuda out of water. And it’s just crazy enough that it might work.”

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CHANNELING: Lynne Rader, above, a TV psychic from Orlando, Fla., brings her syndication energy to Las Vegas. F34

MOMMIES: After two failed shows, Caryl Kristensen and Marilyn Kentz try to muscle their way back in. F34