Sitcoms’ status no joke to networks

With “Friends” and “Frasier” ending their long runs this spring, the beleaguered sitcom genre -- a TV bulwark since “I Love Lucy” -- will suffer a double blow. Now uncertainty is clouding two more hit comedies, CBS’ “Everybody Loves Raymond” and NBC’s “Will & Grace.”

“Raymond” star Ray Romano said Friday that there would be “no quick resolution” to the question of whether he and executive producer Phil Rosenthal would return to the series for a ninth and final season, or call it quits in May.

NBC, meanwhile, is locked in an increasingly nasty legal dispute with the creators of “Will & Grace,” and the network is threatening to bar them from overseeing the gay-themed comedy hit.

Such problems with well-recognized hits are anything but good news for broadcasters, who are already reeling from serious prime-time ratings declines this season, particularly for scripted shows. Hit sitcoms are so lucrative to studios, which sell reruns to local stations, that they help compensate for the expensive process of developing future shows. Moreover, television has suffered a paucity of smash comedies for several years as viewers drift away for unscripted fare such as “American Idol,” “Survivor” and “The Apprentice.”

Aaron Kaplan, co-head of television at the William Morris Agency, said it’s “a big enigma” why new sitcoms have failed to break through recently, although he also noted the genre has gone through boom-and-bust cycles in the past. “ ‘The Cosby Show’ brought back the sitcom business” after years of decline in the early 1980s, said Kaplan, whose agency represents Romano. Kaplan declined to comment on Romano’s situation specifically.

In their syndication afterlife, some sitcoms remain so popular that they never stop airing on local stations and cable outlets such as TV Land. “The reruns of ‘Seinfeld’ sometimes beat the ratings for original series in their slots,” Kaplan said.

That helps explain why the problems with “Raymond” and “Will & Grace” loom large.

In the case of “Raymond,” time is running out, because writers need to start working on a finale if the series is indeed going off the air. CBS, relying on “Raymond” to anchor its Monday night schedule, is pressing the duo to sign for another season, but that won’t come easily.

The producers are insisting on making far fewer than the 22 episodes usually delivered to the network each season, says one person close to the show.

Moreover, in early negotiations, Romano’s representatives have pressed for a per-episode fee of $4 million, according to informed sources. That would more than double the actor’s salary and make him the highest-paid series lead in TV history.

By comparison, the six leads of “Friends” make $1 million apiece for each episode. Romano’s representatives declined to confirm or deny the figure.

Promoting his film “Welcome to Mooseport,” which opens Friday, Romano scoffed good-naturedly at speculation over his TV salary. “How much money does my wife need, really?” he joked.

But the comic added that the talks over “Raymond” -- produced jointly by David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants and a unit of HBO -- may drag on well into next month, despite earlier promises to reach a decision by the end of January. “It’s going to go for another couple weeks -- even more than that, maybe,” he said. “I don’t see a quick resolution.... Even my mother calls me every day and says, ‘I want to be the first to know.’ ”

The delay could prove excruciating to CBS, not to mention to staffers who will need to find other jobs if the show goes away. “Raymond” is the network’s top-rated sitcom and one of the most-watched series on television, although its total audience has slipped 6% this season to an average of 17.6 million viewers per week, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research.

“We obviously hope it comes back,” CBS chief Leslie Moonves said last month. The network promised the producers, “We’ll do whatever you want to come back for an extra year,” Moonves added. He could not be reached for comment on this story.

Meanwhile, a different problem is afflicting “Will & Grace,” which is virtually certain to return to NBC’s schedule next season. NBC is battling with the sitcom’s creators, the writing team of David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, who have told the network they want to come back and run the series in September after a couple of seasons tending to NBC’s ill-fated comedy “Good Morning Miami.”

Fans might welcome such a move, as “Will & Grace” has tumbled in the ratings -- and, according to some critics, meandered creatively -- this season. Even so, the gay-themed sitcom remains a top 10 show in the adults 18 to 49 demographic favored by advertisers, and will likely become a particularly crucial asset now that “Friends” and “Frasier” are bowing out.

But NBC is upset because Kohan and Mutchnick filed a lawsuit in December alleging that the network’s production arm, NBC Studios, cheated them out of millions of dollars in potential profits from distribution of the hit show in off-network syndication. (In addition to its regular 8:30 p.m. Thursdays time slot, “Will & Grace” airs several times a day on KTLA and cable’s WGN.) NBC executives have told the duo that as long as the suit is pending, they are not welcome back to oversee “Will & Grace.” Attempts to reach a settlement have gone nowhere, sources closed to the show said.

Representatives for the pair did not return repeated calls, and a call to the “Will & Grace” production office was referred back to NBC, which cited a policy against commenting on pending litigation.

The “Will & Grace” suit is the latest in a spate of litigation filed since 1997 over the profits of hit series. Regulatory changes in the mid-1990s allowed networks to own a stake in their programs for the first time in decades. Since then, the studios have been accused of selling hit shows at artificially reduced prices to their sister networks, thus diminishing the potential profits for producers and actors. Among the series that generated suits were “Home Improvement,” “MASH,” “The X-Files” and “NYPD Blue.” All the cases were settled out of court with undisclosed terms.

The “Will & Grace” suit, however, may be reaching a new level of nastiness. In the past, the studios and their adversaries have put aside their differences long enough to continue working together on shows such as “Home Improvement” and “The X-Files,” insiders said.

“It’s not a warm and cuddly atmosphere whenever litigation develops ... but this sounds like a change in attitude to me,” said Larry Stein, a Century City attorney whose lengthy client list includes actor Alan Alda, who sued and settled with 20th Century Fox over his share of the “MASH” profits. Stein does not represent Kohan and Mutchnick. “These companies are trying to teach people a lesson. They’re saying, ‘Don’t mess with us.’ ”

Correspondent Adam Tschorn contributed to this report.