Angst in the afternoon

MARTHA’S back on daytime, hanging out at a wolf sanctuary and “wrapping” with Diddy.

Tyra’s there too, arguing with her mother and making Plain Janes glamorous.

Men share their feelings! Women look 10 years younger! And witches change the course of lives with a tsunami!

This is daytime television in its own brand of makeover mayhem. Desperate to change its image as the bottom feeder of the TV food chain -- and to reach younger viewers -- daytime is experimenting with some high-profile new shows (the unshackled Martha Stewart, the energetic Tyra Banks), new time slots (Tony Danza at 9 a.m., Ellen at 4 p.m., Dr. Phil moving from KNBC to KCBS and KCAL), a new “Starting Over” house featuring couples in crisis in Encino and a new courtroom (“Judge Alice”).

What appears to be a frantic burst of energy is aimed at attracting increasingly restless and distracted daytime viewers, commonly known in the industry as married women lacking fancy educations and disposable incomes.

To get the attention of these viewers, Stewart and Ellen DeGeneres will be shooting segments on location where they surprise ordinary people in their homes or workplaces; the soap “Days of Our Lives” will hold a viewer election to name a new baby; “Passions,” another soap, will continue its news-driven story line about the fallout and new hookups resulting from the show’s summer tsunami.

Like broadcast television in general, daytime has been losing market share to cable over the last decade. Competition has taken the form of prime-time reruns such as TNT’s “Law & Order” as well as original shows such as the Learning Channel’s “A Baby Story,” following the progress of newborns, and “10 Years Younger,” in which middle-aged women learn nonsurgical ways to reduce wrinkles. Participants also agree to sit in a plastic box in public and let passersby guess their age, before and after.

“The Oprah Winfrey Show,” daytime’s top syndicated gun, didn’t responded to requests for comment about plans for this season. But No. 2 “Dr. Phil” plans small tweaks. The set has been redesigned, said executive producer Carla Pennington Stewart, to bring the audience closer to him and his guests, who will be working all year with the theme of transformation. Stewart isn’t worried about competition from Ellen since the styles of the shows are so different, she said -- “Dr. Phil doesn’t dance.”

Maury Povich, whose show ranks No. 4, said he was glad to see Danza’s show getting a chance at a second season in a better time slot. “We don’t want the daytime programming to be in turmoil. We want stability and long lives. I don’t want people to question whether daytime talk shows work or not. They work. They are truly an American form of television.”

But TLC’s successes showed that “daytime audiences wanted more choices” besides familiar soaps and talk shows, said Jon Murray, creator of “Starting Over,” an unscripted show in which women going through emotional crises are guided by a team of coaches to change themselves for the better (about to enter its third season, it airs on NBC in Los Angeles). “That’s why NBC Universal was willing to syndicate a show like ‘Starting Over.’ It combines what [viewers] like from Dr. Phil and Oprah with great storytelling,” he said.

This season, the show will experiment with a three-week “relationship boot camp” in which four troubled couples work with the show’s “life coaches.” The bet is that audiences will thrill to the sight of “these men cutting through ingrained behavior and getting down to the emotional core women always are wishing their men could get down to,” Murray said. After that, the show will return to its focus on women.

AN ELUSIVE FORMULA

TELEVISION executives said the daytime audience has always been a tough nut to crack.

For every Oprah, Maury or Dr. Phil, at least six Sharon Osbournes or Martin Shorts fall by the wayside. In daytime TV, “there’s a lot of carnage on the road to success,” said Robert Thompson, a professor of pop culture at Syracuse University in New York.

Recent network consolidations have made it even more difficult for some new ventures as those with marginal ratings are allowed longer runs and openings are further reduced. Some networks are repeating their shows on sister stations.

But while desperate times may call for creative innovations, they can also produce some that reek of desperation. “You’ve got a lot of old forms having life being desperately breathed into them,” Thompson said.

The eternal question on daytime TV, as it is almost anywhere else, is what do women really want?

According to conventional wisdom, they want a first-name-basis friend they can trust to entertain and inform them. The right personality in the right talk show, the thinking goes, should equal daytime gold. They like characters that evolve and grow, no matter whether they are fictional or real.

WINNING PERSONALITIES

BEYOND the conventions, though, it’s “all in the execution,” said Jim Paratore, president of Telepictures Productions, which produces “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and “The Tyra Banks Show.” And that, he said, is “sometimes more art than science.”

DeGeneres, for instance, said the reason her show has become a long-term franchise after two years is that she ignored conventional wisdom. Surveys don’t represent all the people who watch television, she said. “I’m not represented at all. I don’t answer the phone and have time for the survey.”

She said she wanted her show, a blend of observational humor and a nighttime aesthetic, “to be that type of show it didn’t matter what time it was on.... I’m the one who told all the affiliates who were skeptical at first who will watch me. I just knew they weren’t giving the audience enough credit. Everyone tries to dumb down their shows because everyone assumes the audience is not as sophisticated. It doesn’t have anything to do with economics.”

Last year, “Ellen” won the Daytime Emmy for best talk show; this year, it ranks eighth among talk shows with 2.6 million viewers compared to Oprah’s 8.8 million and Dr. Phil’s 6.6 million, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Creators of “Martha” are hewing to the goal of bringing more entertainment to the cooking and household tips Stewart made famous on her previous “Martha Stewart Living” show. They promise a “Martha like you’ve never seen her” on the hourlong, daily syndicated show, which premieres in Los Angeles at 3 p.m. Sept. 12 on NBC and rebroadcasts in the early evening on the Learning Channel.

That means, they said, she will risk the hazards of appearing live with an audience (three days a week), be funny, imperfect and interested in things like wild wolves and pop culture. Co-executive producer Rob Dauber said, “One of her loves is animals. She wants to do a day on the show when every audience member brings their dog.”

Stewart won’t avoid talking about her five months spent in a federal prison camp for obstructing justice, he said. “She used the microwave in Alderson. She will show some of the recipes she concocted [there].”

In what some executives suggested might be risky “stunt casting,” Stewart will host celebrity rap producer Diddy (the former P. Diddy) in a show called “Martha (W)raps” in which he teaches her about rap and she teaches him about making pretty packages and dumplings.

Tyra Banks, 31, the star of “America’s Next Top Model,” is still developing the look and feel of her syndicated show, “The Tyra Banks Show,” a mix of celebrity guests, ordinary people, musical performances and fashion tips that starts Sept. 12. In Los Angeles, it will air on KCOP (UPN) at 5 p.m.; the same episode will re-air two weeks later on KTTV (Fox) at 10 a.m.

“My goal is to reach my generation of women,” Banks said. “Maybe I’ll be talking about something Phil Donahue talked about 15 years ago, but it’s how I tell it, which guests I book, which spin I put on it that’s different from what anybody’s done before.”

That translates, she said, into “topics discussed as honestly as possible. The women of my generation don’t want to see things sugar-coated. The lingo they use is a lot racier, saucier than what our parents talked about.”

As daytime evolves, even more attention is expected to be paid to building contact with the audience.

Daytime viewers are like sports fans, said Sheraton Kalouria, NBC’s senior vice president of daytime programs. “There’s that huge desire among the audience to identify itself as part of a community. There’s the Oprah community. The ‘Passions’ online community. The Ellen fans.”

Like Stewart, DeGeneres will also bring her show to viewers, showing up in surprise locations this fall. In one show, she surprises a Los Angeles waitress at work and takes her to visit the set of her favorite show, “The O.C.” On Sept. 19, the show will air live as she prepares to host the Primetime Emmy Awards.

Bumped by “Martha” to 4 p.m., she will now compete in Los Angeles with “Dr. Phil,” which will air starting Sept. 12 on KCBS and KCAL.

Perhaps surprisingly, most talk show hosts wish only the best for their competitors -- especially Stewart. In the world of syndication, shows air in different times in each city, according to where local affiliates place them.

Personally, DeGeneres said, “I’m thrilled for Martha. It’s incredible that she went through what she went through. And she’s back.”

Business-wise, it’s also a good thing to follow her on the air. “I’m thrilled she’s our lead-in here. You have to have people watching in the first place to start watching you.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

QUICK HITS: IT’S A TREND?

Men cook.

On “Kitchen Confidential” (Fox) and “Freddie” (ABC), the leads are professional chefs; on

“Related” (WB), one of the main characters is dating a chef. On “Sex, Love & Secrets” (UPN), a main character runs a restaurant and whips up seductive dishes at home.

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A main character resurfaces from some kind of breakdown.

It’s an anxiety-induced nervous breakdown on “Head Cases” (Fox); a post-traumatic-stress-related breakdown on both “Criminal Minds” (CBS) and “Killer Instinct” (Fox); a stint in rehab in “Kitchen

Confidential” (Fox); a stint

in a mental institution on “Crumbs” (ABC, midseason).

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Lotsa babies.

Central characters are new

parents on “Close to Home” (CBS) and “My Name Is Earl” (NBC). Babies abound in both “Inconceivable” (NBC) and “Misconceptions” (WB,

midseason). Subgroup: Black

babies born to surprised

white parents:

“My Name Is Earl” (NBC) and “Inconceivable” (NBC).

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Grown children who work/live/hang with

their parents.

“Freddie” (ABC); “Twins” (WB); “Out of Practice” (CBS); “Crumbs” (ABC, midseason); “Thick and Thin” (NBC, midseason).