Indie TV Studio Still Goes It Alone

These days, the TV business has the look of an old western: Four or five big guns own all of the land. Failed projects blow down Main Street like tumbleweeds. And nearly all of the producers in town have circled their wagons around studios that are tied to a major network.

Only one maverick firm remains: Carsey-Werner-Mandabach.

The independent production company that created such colossal hits as “The Cosby Show” and “Roseanne” continues to buck the trend in a rapidly consolidating media landscape.

After nearly two decades making TV shows that have generated nearly $3 billion in revenue, the boutique studio run by Marcy Carsey and partners Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach is rolling the dice in a big way this season: It has three prime-time comedies on different networks and two waiting in the wings.

“You really have to have a gambler’s heart to be an independent producer, particularly these days,” said Carsey, co-founder of the firm based in Studio City.

If government regulators approve General Electric Co.’s plan to buy Vivendi Universal’s entertainment assets, the last of the unattached networks, GE’s NBC, will pair up with Universal Television. That will leave only two Hollywood studios that produce scripted shows -- Sony Pictures Television and Carsey-Werner-Mandabach -- that are independent from a network.

Chances are slim that new firms will spring up, industry veterans say.

“No one can afford to get into independent production these days,” said John Connolly, president of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Networks have been racing to marry companies that own studios ever since the elimination in 1995 of federal rules that prohibited broadcasters from profiting from the shows they air. Now, if broadcast networks can keep their shows on the air long enough to be sold into syndication, they stand to reap the fortune that used to go to independent producers.

Without deep pockets, few independents can afford to bet their own money producing scripted programs, particularly since more than three-quarters of new shows fail. Half-hour comedies typically cost more than $1 million an episode to produce and hour-long dramas about $2.2 million.

Critics say the networks’ grip on production is strangling creativity and diversity, leading to a dearth of quality programming. They note that some of the most popular shows on television, including “Friends,” “Law & Order,” “ER” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” were created by producers and studios that were independent of the networks.

“The networks no longer have an incentive to put the best shows on the air,” said Jon Mandel, co-chief executive of advertising buying firm Mediacom, who helped form the Coalition for Program Diversity. “They’re putting on the ones that have the potential for the highest margins, the ones they can monetize across all of their owned networks.”

Some groups, including the Writers Guild of America, have asked Congress to mandate that networks buy more scripted prime-time shows from independents to create more opportunities for upstarts. This fall, the six major networks together own 77% of prime-time shows, and unscripted shows make up the bulk of the rest, according to the Coalition for Program Diversity.

Mandel said networks are too focused on reaching the same audience: young adults aged 18 to 49, the demographic that advertisers pay the most to reach. And that, Mandel and other critics say, leads network executives to select safe concepts and shows that look alike.

By contrast, Carsey-Werner-Mandabach has specialized in the offbeat.

This fall, the studio’s big project is “Whoopi,” a show about a brassy, politically incorrect innkeeper and her handyman from Iran. NBC picked up the show starring Whoopi Goldberg largely because it pokes fun at topics that other sit-coms avoid. Although “Whoopi” has gotten off to a wobbly start, the network -- and the studio -- say they are hopeful it is finding its legs.

If the show fails, it wouldn’t be the studio’s first dud. It has birthed several short-lived series, including “Normal, Ohio” with John Goodman and the animated “God, the Devil and Bob,” in which God looked a little like Jerry Garcia, the late Grateful Dead guitarist. Last year, with just two shows on the air, the company was forced to lay off about two dozen employees.

Some networks, including Viacom Inc.’s CBS, don’t do much business with the firm. Executives there point to such pricey and high-profile disappointments as the “Cosby” re-do that CBS bought in 1996. Others complain the studio’s shows sometimes suffer because it gives its sometimes-difficult stars too much latitude.

But many networks are only too eager to partner with the studio.

News Corp.’s Fox Entertainment President Gail Berman says she immediately calls the studio when she’s rustling up new concepts and shows. “I say: “What have you got for us?” Berman said. “There’s no one else that I’d rather work with.”

Kevin Reilly, NBC’s president for prime-time development, said Carsey-Werner-Mandabach’s collaborative process is different from most producers’.

“They cook things for a while internally, identifying talent that they feel can work for a show,” Reilly said. “And then they figure out how to get that person’s voice on the air.”

Over the years, NBC and CBS have tried to buy the company out. After Walt Disney Co. bought ABC in 1996, executives there asked the partners to run the network.

But they wanted to stay independent. And their shrewd decision to own and distribute their own shows, including overseas, has allowed the partners to never look back.

“Network executives have other agendas and voices -- from sales departments to affiliates -- that they must listen to,” Carsey said. “We don’t have to clutter our heads or our minds with fears that we might lose our jobs if a show doesn’t take off.”

Carsey began her show business career in New York as an NBC tour guide and later became an assistant for “The Tonight Show.” She went on to work as a programming executive in 1974 for ABC, where she joined Tom Werner, who had produced an award-winning documentary.

In 1980, Carsey left ABC to strike out on her own. Werner followed her a year later. Success was far from guaranteed for Carsey-Werner Co., though, and Carsey had to take out a second mortgage on her house to finance the shooting of a pilot for a new TV series.

The star would be Bill Cosby. He was interested in doing a show, but he wanted to play a TV detective. The producers, however, didn’t want to waste Cosby’s comedic talent, so they persuaded him to play a physician and father instead.

Carsey tapped her first hire, Caryn Mandabach -- who had established her credentials working on comedies such as Norman Lear’s “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” -- to oversee what would become “The Cosby Show.”Networks initially were cool to the concept.

“No network wanted to buy the show,” Werner recalled. “The standard refrain was that comedy was dead.”

NBC eventually ordered the show in 1984, agreeing to pay Carsey-Werner a modest licensing fee that didn’t cover production costs. Still, network executives were nervous about the show’s simple themes. How funny could an episode about the death of a goldfish that belonged to Cosby’s TV son be, they asked. Carsey-Werner resisted the network’s suggestions for souped-up story lines.

Rather than heeding the network’s notes, the producers got a little creative with their stories: “We would return their calls before they got to work,” Werner said. “Or we’d say things like: ‘Didn’t you get the tape?’ ”

“The Cosby Show” quickly became one of television’s biggest hits, lifting NBC out of the ratings cellar and establishing the studio as a creative force in Hollywood.

The show continues to produce a river of syndication revenue, more than $1.5 billion in the last 15 years. Much of the money has financed the studio’s overhead and subsequent series. The studio has one of Hollywood’s best batting averages for getting shows into syndication. “The Cosby Show,” “Roseanne” and “3rd Rock From the Sun” still make money. Its latest hit in syndication, “That ‘70s Show,” runs in more than a hundred countries, including Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Mozambique.

Today, syndication revenue makes up an estimated three-quarters of the studio’s profits and nearly two-thirds of its annual $320 million in revenue.

The riches from the shows, which have won 21 Emmy Awards, have allowed the partners to build a life outside of the studio. Carsey, 58, renovates old homes. Werner, 53, a major partner and owner of the Boston Red Sox, gets even more attention for dating Katie Couric, co-anchor of NBC’s “Today Show.” Mandabach, also 53, likes to travel.

The partners say they’re not ready to retire. Explained Mandabach, who in 2001 became a named partner in the studio that she helped run for two decades: “There are still ideas to get excited about.”

But they are cognizant of the threat media consolidation poses to their company’s survival and have sought to diversify. In 2000, the company invested as an equity partner in cable network Oxygen Media, which has been slow to get traction. The studio also recently landed a three-year co-production deal with Paramount Pictures to make feature films.

In many ways, Carsey-Werner-Mandabach continues to stick to its formula for the star-driven comedies that first put it on the map. In addition to “Whoopi,” the studio also has shot more than six episodes of “The Tracy Morgan Show” for NBC. Morgan, a former “Saturday Night Live” player, will star as an auto mechanic trying to make a better life for his family.

It’s a different tone for the network of “Friends.” But family dynamics worked for “The Cosby Show,” “Roseanne” and many of the others. Trusting their instincts and controlling the creative process, the partners insist, has long been their trump card.

“It just feels better to be independent,” Carsey said. “When you control the purse strings, you control so much more of the creative stuff.... Now, it’s our own ... fault if we don’t get a hit show on the air.”

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TV shows

Carsey-Werner-Mandabach, the independent TV production studio behind such shows as “The Cosby Show,” “Roseanne” and “3rd Rock From the Sun,” has one of Hollywood’s best batting averages for getting shows into syndication. Over the years the shows have helped bring in nearly $3 billion in revenue from worldwide distribution. A look at the shows it is producing for the current season:

“That ‘70s Show”: Fox Broadcasting

“Whoopi”: NBC

“Grounded for Life”: WB

“The Tracy Morgan Show”*: NBC

“Game Over”*: UPN

*Scheduled to premiere mid-season

Source: Carsey-Werner-Mandabach