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Second pass at crass for ‘Affair’

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Times Staff Writer

During its late-1980s heyday, TV’s “A Current Affair” dived with relish into tawdry crimes and oddball stories, with host Maury Povich providing the requisite disapproving smirk or arched eyebrow.

The staff, including a fair number of refugees from Australian tabloids, delighted in mixing it up with the convicts, local heroes and various unfortunates whose tales were spun for daily ratings gold. Legendary correspondent Steve Dunleavy -- once bitten by an enraged woman on camera as he brandished compromising photos of her -- has described the hard-drinking producers and on-air talent as “the wildest bunch of pirates imaginable.”

“A Current Affair” finally slunk off the airwaves in 1996, as advertisers grew disgusted with its tabloid excesses. But starting today, Twentieth Television, the syndication arm of News Corp.’s Fox television empire, is reviving the newsmagazine (the program will run in the Los Angeles area on KTTV Channel 11 at 11 p.m. Monday through Friday). The premiere episode tonight promises new video in the 2003 case of Nevada teenager Jared Whaley, who fell victim to a mob-style execution at the hands of high school classmates.

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There’s a new host, Tim Green, a former NFL star turned attorney and novelist who represents a clean-cut, all-American alternative to Povich (who left the show in 1990 and was replaced by Maureen O’Boyle and, later, Penny Daniels). But it’s mostly the same wild pirates behind the camera, including the original production team of John Tomlin and Bob Young, consulting producer Ian Rae and creator and executive producer Peter Brennan, an Australian-born syndicated TV veteran who also worked on “Hard Copy” and “Judge Judy.”

Brennan says he believes there’s room again for “Affair’s” biting approach because rival television magazines, such as “Entertainment Tonight,” “Access Hollywood” and “The Insider” are jockeying for dollops of celebrity news, which he describes as “very fluffy.” That, he says, gives “Current Affair” plenty of space to stake out shocking murders and suburban sex scandals that take place far from Hollywood’s red carpets.

“There was more competition [in the 1980s] than there is now,” Brennan said during a phone interview last week from Secaucus, N.J., where the new show is being produced. Indeed, the original “Affair” was so successful that it begat a slew of tabloid competitors, including Paramount’s “Hard Copy” (1989-1999) and King World Productions’ “Inside Edition” (1989-present).

According to Brennan, News Corp. billionaire Rupert Murdoch, who controls Fox, and his son Lachlan, who oversees the company’s enormous station group, were behind the push to rekindle “Affair.” The hope is that the show can compensate for such recent Twentieth Television syndicated disasters as “Good Day Live” and “On Air With Ryan Seacrest,” both of which flamed out despite high expectations.

News Corp. spokeswoman Teri Everett said she did not have firsthand knowledge of the Murdochs’ level of involvement in the new “Affair.”

Sticking with the formula

Late last week, Arthel Neville -- most recently known for her stint co-hosting “Good Day” -- signed on as West Coast correspondent for “Current Affair.” There will be some inevitable updating elsewhere, in terms of graphics and pacing, but Twentieth isn’t planning to stray far from the original formula.

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“The bones will basically be the same, but it will have a more contemporary look and feel,” said Bob Cook, president of Twentieth Television.

If the new version can capture even a scintilla of its predecessor’s tabloid glory, it might have some chance of ratings success. “A Current Affair” helped make household names, at least for a little while, of such figures as Kathy Willets, a Florida woman who enjoyed trysts with a long series of men, which her husband, a police officer, secretly videotaped from a closet; and “Sheriff Corky,” a law-enforcement officer who returned a rented camcorder but neglected to remove the explicit sex tape he had made with his wife.

But “Current Affair” may have reached its greatest journalistic heights with its reporting on Robert Chambers’ “Preppy Murder” case in the mid-1980s. The show’s coverage helped ensure that Chambers’ story became something of a national obsession.

Finding an audience

Whether such a pedigree guarantees a second life for “Affair” remains to be seen. Viewers are not necessarily clamoring for more salacious TV exposes. Many local newscasts already allot generous amounts of time to multiple homicides and other gruesome crime stories. CBS’ true-crime magazine, “48 Hours Mystery,” has struggled with underwhelming ratings. And bloggers are proving adept at ferreting out scandals of every stripe.

The number of media outlets today makes it hard for any new show to stand out, no matter how arresting the content.

“They need to find a way that they can’t be ignored,” Bill Carroll, who represents local stations for Katz Media in New York, said of the new “Current Affair.” “That’s their challenge.”

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At first, “Affair” producers will troll for stories in many places where people can’t even get the show. The program will be available in slightly more than half the country, mostly on stations owned by or affiliated with Fox, according to Cook. It will likely need strong ratings in the first few months to persuade more stations to sign on.

Except for a few successes like “Dr. Phil,” the first-run syndication business has been in a funk lately, with very few new hits and many veteran programs struggling to find growth. Last season, for instance, ratings for “Inside Edition” slipped 4%, to 4.7 million total viewers, according to data from Nielsen Media Research.

But there’s at least one bright spot: Probably no one will accuse “Affair” of being too tabloid-y this time around. Starting with events surrounding the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995, the mainstream media have increasingly adopted tabloid content and even techniques, as evidenced by the recent extensive coverage of the Laci Peterson murder case and the Michael Jackson child-molestation trial.

The danger for “Affair,” in fact, seems to be that it might not go far enough in shock value and prurience.

“Everything that ran” on “Affair,” Carroll said, “would be considered acceptable [today] for ‘Dateline’ or ‘Primetime Live’ or

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