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www.americanradiohistory.com CliANNELS THE BUSINESS OF COMMUNICATIONS

VOL. 6, NO. 6 OCTOBER 1986 COMPANIES 4 PUBLISHER'S NOTE COLOSSUS OF CABLE 6 cable No doubt about it, America's largest LETTERS company, Tele -Communications Inc., likes to throw its weight around. While cable operators 9 and programmers may not like it, Wall Street and REPORTS TCI's shareholders do.. What will TCI president New and John Malone want next? noteworthy in the BY MERYL GORDON electronic environment RADIO 15 TALK SHOW MIAMI'S RADIO PICANTE Goings-on behind South Florida radio stations run by Cuban exiles the screens have brought no -holds -barred street politics to 22 the airwaves-and free speech to its knees. THE PUBLIC EYE BY MARC FISHER Not Necessarily 26 M -A -L, O -N -E, M.S., Ph.D. the Demise He'll be buying you real BY LES BROWN soon! FOCUS: EXCELLENCE 24 THE CLASS OF '86 THE BUSINESS SIDE HBO Fights 42 The Letterman Gang, BY JAMES TRAU B Back 46 BY JOHN CARMAN CBS Sunday Morning, BY MERRILL BROWN 50 Jay Sandrich, BY ANDY MEISLER 52 Cagney & Lacey, BY WILLIAM A. HENRY Ill 72 54 Continental Cable, BY JERI BAKER PRIVATE EYE 56 APR's Bill Kling, BY J. J. YORE Why Golden Girls 58 Group W Television, BY TERRY ANN KNOPF Glitters BY WILLIAM A. INTERNATIONAL TV HENRY III 74 THE EMPEROR'S NEW WOES WASHINGTON Italian media magnate Silvio Berlusconi once had The High Court's European television all sewn up, but shifting Erogenous political winds have seen his empire start to Zoning unravel. BY JOEL SWERDLOW BY HARRY JAFFE 76 HOLLYWOOD INC. CRITICISM Cut-rate Comedy Chic LOVE BOAT GOES TO COLLEGE BY PATRICIA E. BAUER Is I Love Lucy a drama of frustrated female 77 desire? What do Miami Vice and medieval sin PROGRAM NOTES have in common? A new breed of academics Hunting for analyzes prime time TV as if it were Milton. Les Bons Mots gang, clockwise, The Letterman BY JAY ROSEN 67 BY MICHAEL RIPS beginning with Letterman: Head writer Steve O'Donnell; writers Joe Toplyn, 78 PROGRAMMING Adam Resnick, Chris Elliott, Jeff Martin, SOUND BITES Kevin Curran, Larry Jacobson, Sandy The Eye of Frank, Fred Graver and Matt Wickline. MORNING BECOMES the Storm: Behind Letterman: Director Hal Gurnee ECCENTRIC From an interview (left) and producer Barry Sand. with former CBS News chief Move over Gobots, Smurfs and My Little Van Gordon Sauter -wee Cover design by Walter Bernard and Ponies. Here comes Pee Herman to Milton Glaser, WBMG Inc. Cover photo: Saturday morning TV. Better save a couple of 80 Carl Fischer. Hand tinted by Carl Fischer. seats for Mom and Dad. RUNNING THE Issue art direction: Carol Layton. BY DIANA LOEVY 70 NUMBERS 2 OCTOBER '86

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www.americanradiohistory.com 1986 AAAS-WESTINGHOUSE SCIENCE JOURNALISM AWARDS

For 35 years the AAAS-Westinghouse Science Journalism Awards have recognized outstanding reporting on the sciences and their engineering and technological applications (excluding medicine). Awards honor science reporting in newspapers and general circulation magazines and on radio and television. Entries are judged on the basis of their initiative, originality, scientific accuracy, clarity of interpretation, and value in promoting a better understanding of science by the public. Excellence Good Business Five awards of $1,000 each are made in Is the categories of: over 100,000 daily circulation newspapers; under 100,000 n this issue, we present The Class of '86, the individuals and companies circulation newspapers; general circulation magazines; radio; and television. our editors, in their third annual search of the electronic landscape, The 1988 Contest Year is 1 January - found to be truly excellent in their fields. What's particularly satisfying 31 October. All entries must be postmarked before midnight, 14 November about the process of identifying our selections is the discovery that a 1988. commitment to professionalism and excellence invariably proves to be a sound The 1986 Awards will be presented at the National Association of Science Writers' business strategy. It's also interesting to note that the breadth and variety of banquet during the Annual Meeting of the the group-from the manic, innovative comedy team putting out Late Night American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago in February 1987. with David Letterman to the creative, financially astute management of The Awards are administered by the Continental Cable-reflect the changing world of Channels. American Association for the Advancement of Science under a grant from the Westinghouse As you may have noticed, we changed our formal name from Channels of Educational Foundation. Communications to Channels, The Business of Communications. It's all part For further information and entry forms, of our repositioning of the magazine, a reflection of the changing nature of the contact the MAS Office of Communications, 1333 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005 or media businesses we cover and serve. No longer dominated by technology as it call (202) 326-6440. was five years ago at the time of our birth, the industry is now driven increasingly by programming and fmance. For that reason, people in each part of the industry need to understand what's going on throughout the electronic environment. It's not enough just to keep track of the news generated by the business-programming announcements, acquisitions, financings and the like. Dress up the Our monthly frequency gives us a chance to tell the stories differently. Tele -Communications Inc., for instance, the subject of an intriguing Meryl holiday with Gordon profile this month, is buying cable systems like mad. If you work in any facet of television, it's important to understand how TCI's chief strategist, John Malone, thinks and why his programming aspirations may revolutionize Christmas the cable network game. What Malone does, as the dominant figure in cable today, will be felt throughout the entire communications world-at local TV stations, in Hollywood, on Madison Avenue and on Wall Street. In our Seals®. September cover story, we took you behind the scenes at the Coca-Cola entertainment empire, to report that it's on an acquisition binge, and also to explain how it came to be the nation's leading producer of syndicated programming. Our own efforts focus not just on recognizing excellence but on striving for it ourselves. We've hired Charles Mohr from Broadcasting as our vice president of sales and marketing, and our next issue will introduce a new art director, Traci Churchill, who joins us from Personal Computing. Just as our editorial team is deeply involved with the industries it covers, our advertising and marketing team is similarly positioned. For with our aggressive efforts to promote Channels through the national media, various mailings and other promotional activities, we think we're serving the communications community in an important way. We mean for Channels to be a great magazine and a good business. Our excellence selections affirm our sense that the two go hand in hand. We know you share our sense that the pursuit of excellence is worth the effort.

TAKE CARE OF YOUR LUNGS. THEY'RE ONLY HUMAN. AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION ta The Ch,.stmas Sea, People a Space contributed by the publisher as a public service.

4 OCTOBER '86 www.americanradiohistory.com CHANNELS

Editor -in -Chief LES BROWN Publisher GEORGE M. DILLEHAY M/ä-IANNEI.S Executive Editor MERRILL BROWN Managing Editor PETER AINSLIE Art Director TRACI CHURCHILL Senior Editors STEVE BEHRENS, RINKER BUCK Associate Editors The Museum of JOSEPH VITALE, CECILIA CAPUZZI West Coast Editor PATRICIA E. BAUER Broadcasting and Washington Editor JOEL SWERDLOW Contributing Editors CHANNELS Magazine JOHN F. BERRY, DAVID BOLLIER MERYL GORDON, WILLIAM A. HENRY III WALTER KARP, MARTIN KOUGHAN will co -host two DAVID LACHENBRUCH, MICHAEL POLLAN JAY ROSEN, JAMES TRAUB, RICHARD ZACKS Assistant Art Director seminars on Television DIANE LEMONIDES Editorial Assistant CARYN R. SINGER Syndication. Leadirsg Interns DIANA WILLIAMS, MATI LASZLO national experts will MATTHEW GRIMM, CYRUS REED

Editorial Consultant JACK NESSEL discuss this topic from Associate Publisher BRONNA A. BUTLER a historical perspective, Production Manager SUSAN C. TURK examining the current Subscription Director ROBIN D. ANDREWS Assistant Controller situation, future CATHERINE PAONE Office Manager prospects and the CARLTON HILL Administrative Assistants DEBORAH GERMAN, BRYAN FUORRY implications for Sales and Marketing Vice President CHARLES E. MOHR programming content. Account Managers LINDA J. ROSS, DEENA HOLLIDAY Research Associate October 28, 1986 JOSEPH E. EDELMAN 12:30-2 PM. Advertising Sales Offices New York: 19 West 44th St., New York, NY 10036, 212-302-2680 October 29, 1986 West Coast: Channels Magazine, 1800 Century Park East, Suite 200, 12:30-2 PM. Los Angeles, CA 90067, 213-556-8220 England: Jack Durkin & Co. 55 Hatton Garden, London ECIN 8HP England Museum of Broadcasting Tel: 011-441-831-1131 C.C. Publishing Inc. 1 East 53rd Street President PAUL DAVID SCHAEFFER New York, NY 10022 CHANNELS The Business of Communications (ISSN 3276-1572) is published ten times a year by C.C. Publishing Inc., 19 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036. Application Reservations (212) 752-4690 Lo mail at seccnd clam postage rates is pending at New York, NY and additional mailing offices. Volume 6, Number 6, Octo- ber, 1986. Copyright e 1986 by C.C. Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. Su n tions: $39.50 per year; all foreign countries add $8. Please address all subscription mail to CHANNELS of Communications, Subscription Service Dept., Box 2001, Mahopac, NY 10541, or call 914-628-1154. Postmaster- Send address changes to CHANNELS of Communications, Subscription Service Dept., Box 2001, The seminar series is being underwritten by a generous grant from Mahopac, NY 10541. Editorial and business offices: 19 West 44th Street, New LLBS Communications Inc. to the Museum of Broadcasting. York, NY 10036; 212-302-2680. Unsolicited manuscripts cannot be considered or returned unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without written consent. ABC membership applied for January 1986.

CHANNELS 5

www.americanradiohistory.com certainly wish that Mr. Davis had looked People Meters 11 closely enough at his subject to have discovered the reasons for himself. your article on the people meters Michael McCormick ["Invasion of the People President Meters," June] was so blatantly WTMJ-TV biased that one has to suspect Milwaukee Michael Couzens' motives for writing it. To my knowledge, Couzens did not Advocacy Quagmire speak to anyone at Nielsen. Why else would there be an absence of quotes or your discussion of "The Trouble opinions? With Advocacy Ads" Just look at the way Nielsen is [July -August] treats only one described: "scrambling just to survive"; Fairness for Farrow small aspect of advocacy "troubles long abrewing"; "hastily advertising's downside. While advocacy developed new system is virtually a not in-depth The minor fault you find with ads do offer discussion of knockoff of AGB's"; "Nielsen has Harold Farrow [June] seems to ideas, they do bring controversial issues maneuvered itself into an uncomfortable be that he's not cuddly. The before the public. Some FCC and potentially crippling position"; "it major indictment-not so clearly interpretations have even indicated that could be clobbered out of existence." stated-is that Farrow doesn't buy any the purchase of time to discuss an issue Yet Couzens describes AGB this way: of your chic ideology that preaches more is prima facie evidence that an issue is an "AGB invaded America with a new, government regulation as the answer to authentic public issue. And therein lies sophisticated device"; "Audits of Great the dreadfulness of broadcast radio and the greatest difficulty with advocacy Britain perfected its ratings service in TV. Farrow's answer is not a rap against advertising. England"; "continued to tinker [with] its government, you understand, just Under the Fairness Doctrine, the Boston prototype [people meter]." Why against government intrusion into the broadcaster is obligated to provide tinker with perfection? media. Government is terrible at it and it varying points of view on controversial There's also the matter of A.C. is downright dangerous. issues. Some interpretations of that Nielsen Jr.'s photograph. The one used Don't you think, in the interest of doctrine have led broadcasters to believe in the article is 30 years old. Perhaps it fairness, you should follow up the story they must provide time for opposing was Couzens' intention to make the by noting that after your piece went to points of view whether or not the Nielsen Company look out-of-date. press, the Supreme Court agreed with opposition can afford to buy that Laurence Frerk the Farrow (in the Preferred case) that cable advertising. Therefore, acceptance Promotion Director television is a form of speech and of public -issue advertising, according to A.C. Nielsen Co. entitled to First Amendment some interpretations, carries with it the Northbrook, Ill. protections? Sure, all the returns are not responsibility to provide response time yet in, but the Court delivered to for varying points of view. While preparing Farrow everything that the posture of This presents a number of problems: his article, Michael Couzens interviewed the case permitted them to deliver. And Who will pay for the time? Who will several A.C. Nielsen unanimously. When was the last time decide whether the opposition can or executives, including John A. cannot Dimling, now the senior vice president that happened in a free -speech case? "afford" the time? Where do you in charge the Sol Schildhause find the additional advertising of company's people -meter Farrow, Schildhause availabilities necessary to fill the time? project. The photo of A.C. Nielsen Jr. Which of the many viewpoints available was furnished to by the & Wilson Channels in company Washington, D.C. do you put on response? itself -Ed. The second major concern with advocacy advertising is that it carries for the broadcaster the same obligations Amen Corner Clown Jewel regular commercial advertising does. Except for commercials from candidates As a college professor whose your publication's depiction of for public office, the broadcaster remains master's thesis was a content John Sias [July/August] was the responsible for what is broadcast. What analysis of religious TV shows, journalistic equivalent of kind of substantiation should the I was disappointed with Alex circulating a portrait of Harry S broadcaster demand from both the Heard's unprofessional examination of Truman with a pencil -thin mustache original advocacy advertiser and the Jim Bakker [" ... and Pass the painted on his upper lip because he liked respondee? Should the scope of the Contribution," June]. The article to play the piano prior to his bringing his response include discussion of the issue continued to promote the idea that TV personal stamp of leadership to the on a broad basis or only speak directly to evangelists spend most of their airtime world as President of the U.S. As for the the original advertisement? I would asking for money. award-winning Mr. [L.J.] Davis' literary argue that these reasons are much Heard's contention that Bakker's portrayal of Sias, he caught nothing of greater deterrents to the acceptance of "primary missions" are "1) fund raising the extraordinary talents he brings to advocacy advertising than a concern for and 2) fund raising" is unfounded. In the his newest task. the public's acceptance of them. content study I conducted at the Al Kriven, one of the most astute and Irwin Starr University of Minnesota, I found that talented broadcasters ever, said more Vice President and Bakker spent only 11 percent of his than 20 years ago: "Someday John Sias General Manager airtime asking for money, about half of is going to head a major network." I KGW-TV what a commercial broadcaster uses in don't wonder why Al said that, but I Portland, Ore. airing ads.

6 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com What makes religious fund raising foreign to commercial television viewers (and writers) is the technique used: Bakker asks his viewers to send in $25 to support his program, while Bill Cosby asks you to spend that money on Jell-O pudding in order to keep his program on the air. Stephen Winzenburg Assistant Professor of Journalism University of Wisconsin/ River Falls

Amos 'n 'Andy Again Iwish to commend William A. Henry III on his outstanding essay about Amos 'n' Andy ["Buried Treasure," July -August]. If the NAACP is so dead set against resurrecting this series because of how it From the moment the first telecast depicts blacks, perhaps that organization a living might also consider protesting the airing made its way into handful of of The Jeffersons, whose main character rooms, audiences were entranced, is often shown as loud-mouthed, entertained and enlightened. Now, and arrogant, belligerent racist-traits television is in nearly every house- the characters on Amos 'n' Andy seldom exhibited. hold. Viewers receive more channels Charles P. Gagliardi and have more choices than ever Philadelphia before. Television. It's the media choice that reaches 98% of all households. That's why advertisers invest Breaking Silence a whopping 21 billion dollars each been Iwas disappointed with the manner year. How do we know? We've in which Motorola was portrayed in watching audiences watch TV since "Code of Silence" [June Reports]. 1949 -longer than anyone. And, as First, we take offense at being the medium and the audience grow referred to as an "instigator" in the switch -over trend [to police radios that and change, so do we. Developing cannot be monitored by reporters]. new ways to define and describe These new systems are a result of a who they are and what they watch. study performed by the Associated Public Safety Communications Officers Arbitron. We know the territory. under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Justice. The APSCO study established specifications that, if met, would enable public safety agencies to obtain communication systems with certain vital operating functions. You mentioned that "a desire to reduce waiting time for an open channel" was a factor behind the move to trunking. While this is a factor, it is not the only one. Other operating functions that public -safety officials are concerned with are interagency communications, ARBITRON RATINGS dynamic regrouping for disaster and emergency situations, vastly improved reliability and coverage and telephone interconnect capability. David S. Weisz Manager, Public Relations

Motorola Inc. C 1986 ARBITRON RATINGS Schaumburg, Ill.

CHANNELS 7

www.americanradiohistory.com CHANNELS' Fifth Annual Edition Really Covers The Field.

ANNOUNCING THE 1987 ESSENTIAL VCR, broadcasting, satellite, and all the THE FIELD GUIDE COVERS: FIELD GUIDE TO THE ELECTRONIC other media technologies. This year Programming Radio Networks MEDIA. It's coming in the December issue the Guide will put special emphasis on of CHANNELS. Each year, CHANNELS programming sources and media finance. Syndication Pay Cable Networks outlines the state of the industry for its readers with a comprehensive look at the ADVERTISING IMPACT ALL YEAR LONG. Broadcasting Advertising many fields that make up the business. The 1987 Field Guide is a perfect vehicle for advertisers, sure to be referred to again Finance Video Retailing PACKED WITH VITAL INFORMATION. and again. It's absolutely essential for ...and much, much more Our fifth annual edition is better than executives, investors, and researchers in ever and it's packed with insight and every area of the business. understanding. It's essential reading that explains what happened and looks at For more information about advertising in future trends. the December issue of CHANNELS call CHANNELS Charles Mohr at 212-302-2680. Cover your THE BUSINESS OF COMMUNICATIONS INFORMATION YOU NEED. The target market with the guide that covers To Understand The Business CHANNELS Field Guide will feature clearly the field. You Have To Go Through CHANNELS written and authoritative updates on cable,

www.americanradiohistory.com WHAT'S NEW AND NOTEWORTHY IN THE ELECTRONIC ENVIRONMENT REPORTS

SATELLITES that such a mandate is in the best interest of the country," and RCA consultant John Boning said the policy was Protection Gear Could "lacking in definition and intent." When Add to Clients' Costs the operators asked who would pay for the costly high-tech gear, one federal Even before Captain Midnight showed official responded: "The free market how easy it was to raid a satellite in will allow carriers to recoup cost on a orbit, the U.S. government was competitive basis." Meaning, presum- demanding that commercial operators ably, that the added expenses would be install antijamming devices on satellites passed on to commercial users. national traffic. Since Defense Secretary Caspar Wein- carrying security RCA consultant GTE's Leslie Taylor for berger made the policy official in June the government has refused to pay Boning says the wonders about the 1985. the protective gear, the added equip- According to estimates, the economic benefits government's would up ment costs stand to make satellite policy lacks required hardware drive of meeting new The transmissions more expensive. definition. launch costs dramatically. equip- security standards. The government has now handed the ment would cost $3 million and add $1 American satellite industry an ultima- million a year to operating expenses, tum: Add the equipment on sat- according to a 1983 Pentagon study. ellites launched after 1990 or John Pike, a satellite specialist with the risk lucrative government Federation of American Scientists, esti- contracts. (The Defense mates the average price of purchasing Department alone spent and launching a satellite ranges $100 more than $1 billion last million to $150 million, while annual year leasing channels on the operating costs run from $2 million to $3 Westar, Satcom, Comstar and million. To meet the new standards, an Anik satellites.) operator would be saddled with at least The federal policy has been in exist- a 3 percent cost increase, while annual ence for more than a year but commer- operating expenses would rise as much cial operators have not publicized it, in as 50 percent. part because they are uncertain about The question of how commercial satel- how to deal with the added costs, which lite customers will react may depend on are expected to be considerable. Nor what alternatives are available. have the operators informed their com- "We'll take a look at the entire set of mercial clients of the government's vulnerabilities and look at methods of requirements, perhaps because they protecting our transmissions," says don't want to alarm them prematurely James K. Parker, senior vice president about a possible rate increase. of CBS, which leases transponders on Gilbert Rye, president of Govern- some of the satellites involved. ment Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Com- One of the most intriguing alternatives sat, says, "The National Security is fiber optics, which can't be inter- Agency has to take the next step and cepted without the customer know- deliver exact specs on what they want." ing. AT&T a pioneer in fiber, has When the Defense Department first been promising this extra secu- presented a draft of its require- rity to lure customers from the ments in November 1984, the opera- skies. But even the communica- tors' response was negative. Leslie tions giant has had problems. Taylor, GTE Spacenet's director of gov- During the recent AT&T Galaxy I, ernment affairs, called it "vague" and strike, a fiber optics cable the satellite questioned the economic benefits of carrying transmissions from raided by meeting the demands. Arthur Garman defense contractors was cut. Captain of Western Union said it was "not clear DONALD GOLDBERG Midnight.

CHANNELS 9

www.americanradiohistory.com REPORTS

PRODUCTION the brass have complained that the current campaign is geared to undereduca- ted urban youth. There is also the case The Sound of Money of Ayer vice president John A. Bidus, Despite network pressure to reduce who pleaded guilty earlier this year to programming costs, most TV producers federal charges of taking $60,000 in are still springing for the latest tunes in kickback money from a producer of films. shows aimed at affluent young recruitment viewers. "I'd be lying if I said that had nothing Generally, a song's pub- to do with our decision," says Major lisher wants $500 to Bruce Bell, "but it was an isolated incident and we have invited Ayer to - $1,000 per play. The mas- re ter recording goes for solicit the account." More than 20 $1,000 to $20,000, depend- Last year, the Army spent more than agencies are ing on the artist and what is $85 million on advertising. Of that, some hustling for the being negotiated: One- $25 million went into television, with Army's $85 million time -only rights? Later use the bulk into sports programming and advertising on cable or home video? lesser amounts into prime time network account. shows and local spot buys. The last time Record companies are excited about ABC's the new revenue source. Recently, the account was up for grabs, Ayer was Moonlighting is the only serious bidder; but since then Warner Special Products took out a just one of the Army has been under pressure not trade ad listing the shows that had used several network its songs and asking, "What about the to renew contracts without competitive shows releasing bidding. rest of you guys?" its own album. Right now, music budgets appear to This summer, more than 20 agencies be almost immune from the ax. Says were hustling for the account. The Universal's Jim Korris, "I haven't Army hopes to pick one by year's end. heard one word about cutting music." DANIEL PAISNER ABC's Moonlighting is releasing an album; NBC's Crime Story has signed Todd Rundgren as composer; Miami TELECOMMUNICATIONS Vice has put out its second two-hour home video. But it is the TV -music video connec- Video By Telephone? tion that presents the thorniest prob- Researchers for the seven Bell regional lem. "Composers and musicians are companies, looking for more uses for very protective of their rights," says existing equipment, are exploring Korris. If Stevie Wonder sings on The whether films and other video services Cosby Show and it ends up in syndica- could be delivered over telephone lines tion and on video, should he be paid to homes with VCRs. again for his song? That's a sour note At Bell Communications Research the music industry doesn't want to hear (Bellcore) in New Jersey, Charles just yet. MICHELE WILLENS Judice, division manager of speech and image processing, is point man for the "Video on project. Since home video is regarded as demand" could the most important residential business prove to be a ADVERTISING driving the installation of fiber optics bonanza for the systems, most of his research has Bell companies. focused on fiber. But he is also examin- Army Retreats on ing possible hybrids of cable TV and Madison Avenue existing phone lines. To test what he calls "video on Those "Be All That You Can Be" re- demand," one such hybrid, Judice, cre- cruitment spots may disappear from TV ated a theoretical company with 10,000 as early as January if the Army gets a customers and 1,000 movies. According new ad agency. Though the Army to the model, a customer with a TV, claims it isn't displeased with N.W. VCR, modem, keypad and an as -yet - Ayer, which has called America to arms undeveloped piece of hardware could since 1967, it is receiving bids on its scroll through a list of films and order. account for the first time in 19 years. At the vendor's end, a robotized opera- Many factors led to the shift. Some of tor would take the order and send the

10 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com REPORTS

video to the customer's VCR. Judice's analysis indicates that with 10,000 cus- TV's Harvest tomers paying $14 a month, the venture would break even. Farm life is a dawn till dusk undertaking, but American This type of system is theoretically farmers still find time to watch a lot of television. In a sur- possible today, Judice believes, with vey of the 50 U.S. media markets with the heaviest agri- changes in existing phone and cable net- cultural concentration, the percentage of farmers watch- works. But for a more advanced ser- ing TV at any time is greater than or equal to non -farm vice-a video library-separate chan- males. The one exception: late night. Ted Koppel and nels would be needed for each client, David Letterman don't rate when hungry chickens wait at and that means fiber. dawn. But with all these farmers glued to the tube, farm Judice says Bell Communications has product firms still don't consider television an important already home -tested parts of his system means of reaching their audience. Last year, they put just in New Jersey and the results were 14 percent of heir ad dollars into TV. encouraging. In fact, he believes con- sumers would be willing to pay two to four times their current cable bill to obtain a video library. Bell's research is part of an ongoing effort to find new uses for the nation- Farmers Other Men wide phone network. Under the terms Percentage of farmers and non -farming males watching of the AT&T breakup, the regional com- TV during each daypart (Eastern time). panies are permitted to enter new busi- Monday- Friday 7-9 AM 10% nesses. The investment implications are 7% unclear, but several observers, such as Monday-Friday 6-8 PM Morgan Stanley's George Kelly, believe 41% 31% new unregulated businesses, like video, Monday-Friday 8-11 PM wouldn't make much of a mark in the 43% phone companies' financial picture. wwwimn 41% Monday-Friday 11-11:30 PM "What's fundamental is still the rate- 41% setting process for existing phone ser- smmuwm 37% vice," Kelly says. But industry analyst Saturday Noon -5, Sunday 1-6 PM 22% Sources: Richard Wolfe thinks the experiment 21% Kota Television, A.C. Nielsen "could have great significance for cable TV," as well as providing another benefit. "The typical use of a consumer phone line is only about 23 minutes a Besides providing cable networks the day," he says. "A link between the chance to reach more viewers (ESPN phone companies and cable would mean increased its audience by as much as 50 more business going over their lines the percent when given a low channel posi- other 23 hours and 37 minutes." tion), the race for the low numbers has JOSEPH VITALE been spurred by cable's efforts to regionally standardize its network number assignments. Operators claim net- CABLE TV works are approaching them. "Some think it's important to provide financial incentives," says Ted Livingston of Paying For Continental Cablevision. Some opera- Competition for low An Advantage tors are even bumping broadcast sta- channel numbers is tions to make room for cable networks building toward an Because cable networks with low chan- willing to pay. The FCC's new must - all-out bidding war. nel numbers tend to attract larger audi- carry regulation still allows operators ences, some networks are offering oper- to juggle positions as long as the station ators discounted rates or outright remains on the system's least expensive payments to secure choice spots tier. between channels 1 and 13. Operators That may cramp the style of an opera- who put popular cable networks in low - tor in the Northeast who reportedly numbered slots stand to make even bumped a local independent station more money, since increased viewing from the basic to the pay tier-a loss of means more advertising dollars. The 30,000 potential viewers-to make way result may be an all-out bidding war for for a cable network offering a reduced channel positions. per -subscriber fee. CECILIA CAPUZZI

CHANNELS 11 www.americanradiohistory.com R KPORTS

INTERNATIONAL TV intention was to set these shows apart from competing first -run sitcoms in the syndication market, which have smaller Buenos Dias, Espana budgets, some as low as $100,000 an episode. In Spain, where the day starts L -T is hoping to strengthen its posi- at 9 A.M. and dinner is at 10 P.M. tion as a major supplier of network -type (allowing for afternoon siesta), giving the company the the morning routine consists programming, option of syndicating a comedy if it can't of a mad dash for the door. Not with a network. In the best market, surely, for make a suitable deal effect, whether today's American-style morning TV. it's testing market can sup- But a new show, Buenos Dias, expanding syndication port a higher level of production. is now airing weekdays from L -T isn't really running a huge risk, 7:30 A.M. to 9:10 A.M.-the time when its target audience had though. By season's end, Mama's Fam- will have amassed always been either on the run or sound ily and It's a Living Spain's new enough episodes to be sold as summer asleep. morning show was Producer José Antonio Martinez replacement strips airing five nights a cloned from Today week. PATRICIA E. BAUER Soler, the man behind the show, visited and Good Morning, New York last December on a recon- America. naissance mission. A friend at NBC gave him the run of the Today show set. BROADCASTING From 4 A.M. till noon each day for two weeks, Martinez Soler took notes. Then he made the rounds of Good Morning, CBS Drops America. Two weeks later, Buenos Libel Coverage Dias was on the air. The Spanish show includes an elabo- Unlike most broadcasters, including Juries rule against rate greeting in Spain's regional ABC and NBC, CBS is now facing its 30 the media in 85 tongues, four news reports, regional active libel suits without insurance. percent of cases, feeds and a live broadcast from New The network decided to go it alone but are usually York (at 2 A.M. EST). Interviewees thus after its insurer, the Integrity Insur- reversed on appeal. far have ranged from Prime Minister ance Co., balked at paying its part of $2 Gonzalez to bullfighter El Cordobes. million assessed against CBS. The But the show's most clever use of broadcaster had been sued by the American TV is its employment of a Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. for famous American: Bugs Bunny. Buenos a commentary on its Chicago station, Dias always begins with a cartoon. Mar- WBBM-TV. (The case is still on appeal.) tinez Soler's reasoning: "Grab the chil- But CBS expects to save money by dren and their parents will folio ' dropping the coverage. Ron Guttman, ADAM SNYDER CBS' associate general counsel, says the network weighed "the outcome of recent libel cases against the skyrocket- ing costs of premium payments" and decided it was worth the risk. Although juries rule against the media in 80 to 85 SYNDICATION percent of libel cases, most of the ver- dicts are reversed on appeal and dam- ages are substantially reduced-from $2 L -T's Conspicuous million to $100,000 on average. Consumption Many plaintiffs, of course, file frivo- lous suits and Guttman expects judges "Each week, we'll be sending you Lorimar- to dismiss more than half of CBS' pend- $350,000," said Lorimar-Telepictures in Telepictures is ing cases. "The underlying problem," a flier sent to stations that signed up for betting that the says George Faulder, news director at It's a Living, One Big Family or syndication WXFL-TV in Tampa, Fla., "is that the Mama's Family. This was the kickoff market can majority of lawyers don't care whether for a promotional campaign to under- support network - they win or lose." Lawyers' fees often score L -T's claim of producing these size costs. eat up 80 percent of media costs in libel syndicated series for network -size cases and as much as half of plaintiffs' bucks, about $350,000 an episode. The awards. HOLLY GARLAND

12 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com Katz American Television representing major market affiliates Katz Continental Television representing medium and smaller market affiliates Katz Independent Television representing independent stations exclusively id\ Katz Television Group. The best.

www.americanradiohistory.com Thames Television International Presents

A NOVEL FOR TELEVISION BY JOHN VIORTIMER

Paradise Postponed Mystery presentations from Thames raises the curtain on Television International - The Flame Masterpiece Theatre for the PBS Trees of Thika, Edward E3, Mrs Simpson, 1986 Fall Schedule. A major drama serial Reilly -Ace of Spies and, of course, A Voyage in eleven parts, it is a sweeping family saga Round My Father and Rumpole of the Bailey, spanning four decades of English political from the creator of Paradise Postponed and social life since the Second World War. himself. Masterpiece Theatre is presented Paradise Postponed marks the by WGBH Boston and made possible by a latest in a line of Masterpiece Theatre and grant from Mobil Corporation.

PARADISE POSTPONED AN ELEVEN PART DRAMA FROM EUSTON FILMS Written by John Mortimer Starring Michael Hordern, Jill Bennett, Annette Crosbie, David Threlfall, Peter Egan, Paul Shelley INTERNATIONAL Executive Producers Johnny Goodman and Lloyd Shirley Produced by Jacqueline Davis the world is watching Directed by Alvin Rakoff Thames Television International, 149 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9LL, England. Tel: 01-387 9494 4 U.S. Representative D. L. Taffner Ltd., 31 West 56th Street, New York, N.Y. 10019, U.S.A. Tel: (212) 245 4680

www.americanradiohistory.com GOINGS-ON BEHIND THE SCREENS: TOPICAL MONOLOGUES AND SKETCHES TALK SHOW

GOING ONCE, GOING TWICE... William Fox is central brisk bidding. He was wrong. overwhelmed her business sense. casting's idea of an His first invitation passed "I used to have my own radio show," auctioneer: an unflappable unanswered. Nowhere in the room was she said. It was during her teenage barker with a staccato voice and a there the tug of an earlobe or the wag years at Miami Jackson Senior High "What, Me Worry?" grin. As of a forefinger. He pressed on. School. She brightened at the memory. president of Michael Fox "I'll thank you for an offer," he "I guess you could say my life has come Auctioneers Inc., he's well suited to brayed. full circle." the job. He could also be poster boy More silence. With a Dangerfield She wasn't daunted by the task for the free-market philosophy of Mark jerk of his collar, Fox exhorted the ahead-taking over a radio station with Fowler's Federal Communications crowd: "Don't be bashful. I can't bid no music library, an antenna that Commission. for you." But a sidelong glance at the scattered its signal erratically Fox's Baltimore-based company, an first leave -takers convinced him that throughout Maryland (but nowhere "assets disposal firm," claims to be the he'd like nothing better. near the lucrative Washington first in the country to have auctioned a Fox wasn't facing the first reluctant market) and a history of losses dating broadcast property when it sold audience of his career, but with the back to its days as WJOK, the nation's WNTR-AM of Silver Spring, Md., last future of his new sideline at stake, this first all -comedy station. spring. Buoyed by that success (and wasn't just another slow day at the "I take a lot of vitamins to keep me without objection from the FCC), Fox block either. After recessing to consult calm," she said. tried it again this summer, when the creditors, First American Bank of She hadn't inspected the station but creditors of WMTG-AM in Baltimore, he returned with an didn't think she needed outside Gaithersburg, Md., empowered announcement: The minimum bid had assistance. She wanted to run it him to sell the license, studio, been lowered by $25,000. The price was herself, she said, with the help of the tower-everything but the right for Sondra Linden. community. music library. From her seat in the middle of the In the end, it was as much a It's no secret the FCC is now room, the 40ish actress -turned - memorable day for Bill Fox as it was promoting "innovative" licensing attorney -turned-mortgage broker - for Sondra Linden. He had notched his procedures. So just beyond the turned -nutritional counselor raised her second successful broadcast auction Beltway, in a Gaithersburg hotel, Bill hand. Although Fox gave competitors and couldn't resist crowing about "the Fox once again prepared to put that every opportunity to up the ante, he potential of the auction method, which philosophy into practice. eventually gaveled the proceedings extends throughout the entire Because speculation in broadcast closed and launched Linden on her new broadcast industry" and praising the properties is lively these days, Fox had career: radio station owner. FCC for loosening its regulations rejected several private offers, which She hadn't really intended to bid on governing how licenses may be sold. he felt would be topped. He set the the station, she confessed later. A But don't tell that to Mark Fowler. minimum at $500,000-or $250,000 less potential backer had left town that According to one of his aides, "We than the station had sold for in morning and she wasn't sure she haven't done anything to make this any December 1984-and with a crowd of wanted to pony up her life savings. But easier than it would have been ten more than 30 on hand, Fox anticipated in the end, her love of broadcasting years ago." ROBERT O'BRIEN

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MIRKO ILIC CHANNELS IS

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PALEY'S FAILURE people, checking out the scene. Think cool, ladies. Get into character. In CBS' glory days, when William Okay, now I'm going to put on some S. Paley and Frank Stanton were music. No dancing. The commercials running the company that called are not about dancing. They're about itself The Tiffany of Broadcasting, a people. Personalities. You hear the lot of energy was expended on the music. You feel the music. You do not look of things. dance. All right, now I'm going to point Burnishing the CBS public image to each of you. When I do, just kinda was a daily obsession; everything had throw your body off the wall and come to bespeak class. Executives who made toward the camera. Then turn around it big were well dressed and and go back. But before you get to manicured, had a certain swagger, and the wall, stop, look back, and nail knew how to impress a maitre d'. Class the camera with one look. Then mattered so much that Paley once fired keep going. Got it? Okay. Go a network president for refusing to act for it." the part. Among the fellow's sins were wearing a shearskin jacket to work "Everybody on this side of the instead of a topcoat and relieving the room. We're gonna get some slates. chauffeur at the wheel of his limousine You come out, put your toes on while commuting to Connecticut. the line, tell me your name. Stanton bothered about the company I ask you a few questions, graphics and the interior decoration of you move off camera. Ready? the sleek granite skyscraper designed broadcasting and, because he was on a Let's go. Tell me your name. by Eero Saarinen. One of America's learning curve, got burned. "I'm Kimberly Grant." leading graphic designers, Louis Lee Iacocca, who doesn't look the "Kimberly, you're not from New Dorfsman, was (and remains) on the classy executive, saved Chrysler York, are you?" fulltime staff of CBS. All the attention Motors because he knew an awful lot "No. I'm from the West." to detail, and to good taste in dress and about the auto business. Grant Tinker "That's it. You're a Western girl. decor, served the company well in the could hardly be surpassed for Aim at me like you're shooting a days when everything was humming. corporate good looks, but he didn't pistol. Good. Use your other hand. It translated into a high standard rescue NBC from the depths by That's it. Now, both hands. Walk generally for the output of CBS, anything but his knowledge of toward me like you're gonna shoot whether in entertainment or news. programming. Paley himself succeeded me. Keep going. Good. Next. Come But it's possible to carry the not because he had class but because he on, let's go. Tell me your name." obsession with appearances too far, so was a thoroughgoing professional "Mark Silverman." that form comes to matter more than broadcaster, maybe the best ever. Is it "Mark, what do you do?" substance. Some who worked with possible that never occurred to him? "What do I do?" Paley cite that as the reason for the LES BROWN "What's your special thing?" CBS founder's greatest failure-his "I'm just a guy with a Jewish inability, after four tries, to appoint a name who looks Italian." suitable successor. "Are you a stand-up comic?" Paley, they say, saw the image of the CASTING CALL "No, not really." candidate before any other traits. "Tell me a joke. Do a comedy Whoever would lead CBS into the From a morning in the work life routine." future had to be a 42 -Long, sleek and of Jerry Beaver, Manhattan "A joke? Okay. There was this lean, very presentable. He had to share casting director: quadriplegic on a ship-a woman-and Paley's appreciation of modern art and she was in a wheelchair and move about comfortably in social "Did anyone bring any music everything ... " circles. And, of course, he had to be a they like with them?" "Next." dynamic corporate businessman. What "I did." wasn't required, clearly-as was "Whaddaya have?" "I'm looking for people who have evident in Paley's four choices of "Some Springsteen." a personality, who say something. heir-was a flair for show business or a "That's old. Levi's is new. That's what they want. They want genuine feel for journalism. Levi's is inventive. Bruce Springsteen people who look like they Charles Ireland, who died nine is like Barry Manilow now." have something to say. I know months into the job, had come from "I got Dire Straits." a lot of people like that, ITT; Arthur Taylor from International "That's a little better." actors, or I see them on the street. Paper; John Backe from the CBS Like this band. A friend of Publishing Group, and Thomas Wyman "Let's have everybody against the mine saw them on the street one day, from Pillsbury. Only Taylor dabbled in wall. Tighter. You're all East Village doing their thing. You could make

16 OCTOBER '86 www.americanradiohistory.com "Between the one-man office and the Wall Street monolith. That's CEA's niche:'

"Knowing the qualified buyers has a great deal to do with being successful in the brokerage business today. The rush to buy and sell brought on by favorable interest rates and price escalation has created a volatile market for television station sales. The 1987 tax law change proposals and increased pressures in Congress to reevaluate the three-year rule may bring even more sellers to the table sooner. Communications Equity Associates' DIANE HEALEY LINEN professional team of brokers, CPAs, lawyers Senior Vice President Broadcast Services and consultants is qualified to handle even the After graduating most complicated transactions involving equity from Harvard Busi- ness School, Diane and debt placements. In the fast -paced, com- Healey Linen continued her career in plex television industry, that's important. With broadcasting for ten years with NBC in a the expertise of CEA, you won't have to pay number of upper mega for knowl- management posi- -fees bankers whose only tions before joining edge of your business is a crash course CEA to head the Broadcast Services in broadcasting. Division. The ability to arrange financing and advise on a myriad of broadcast -related situations is what sets CEA apart from the rest. Between the limited one-man operation and the huge banking firms of Wall Street, there's CEA an entrepreneurial organization willing to work harder, travel farther and respond faster. Getting the best price is critical. But equally important to our industry is the continuance of a broadcasting system committed to the highest standards. To help maintain this system through work with responsible, professional broadcasters is CEA goal. Energy, specialization and teamwork are CEA's mark. We all talk about being in the people business. Put our people to the test:'

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LICENSE TO SELL Endorsing products has prohibiting news correspondents and Walters ad was benign," says always been a natural source of anchors from appearing in advertise- an ABC spokesperson. "It was not extra income for your ments other than network promotions. really an ad." run-of-the-mill celebrity. But for But that didn't stop ABC's Barbara Walter Cronkite, whose retirement journalists, such behavior smacks of Walters from appearing in a New York chores under his $1 -million -a -year CBS conflict of interest, a debasement of Times ad for clothing retailer Alcott & contract include a seat on the board the profession. Hawking someone's Andrews. The ad was identical to and occasional on -air documentaries, wares deflates the image of others the company runs for its upscale appeared earlier this year in a print ad journalistic impartiality. But women's clothing, but in the small for International Paper, ostensibly to now it seems that if you're print at the bottom of this one, Walters explain "How to Read a Newspaper." prominent enough, you can was identified as the first speaker "The rules don't apply to Walter declare yourself an exception in a series of talks by "prominent" anymore," says a CBS spokesman. to the rule. women at one of Alcott & Andrews' "He's not an on -air personality and, All three networks have policies Manhattan stores. "We believe the besides, it was not an ad. It was more an advertorial." Perhaps the most shameless rule -breaking of the year was by Malcolm Forbes, editor wUremnreer undertaken in chief and chairman of Forbes magazine. Last summer, Forbes appeared in local New York TV spots promoting the editorial excellence of the business pages of Rupert Murdoch's New York Post. (Murdoch is a frequent subject of Forbes coverage.) Forbes spokesman Don Garson didn't even pretend to defend his boss's appearance: "Normally, the policy is that we don't do this, but Mr. Forbes is a friend of Mr. Murdoch's. He did this on his own and, frankly, we were surprised when we saw the ad." RINKER BUCK

A IS FOR ADVOCACY

The image on the screen is Senior Citizens, the national president Nader, who's in six of the spots, says familiar: Consumer advocate of the PTA and two New Jersey the campaign is NBC's attempt to be a Ralph Nader is speaking schoolteachers. For 30 seconds, they more "accepted" institution. He seems critically about television: "As long talk about what they like and dislike unperturbed by the notion that he as the Nielsen ratings tyranny about TV. Then, at a strategic point, might be promoting the medium he's dominates the thinking of network usually when the speaker is talking shown criticizing, and says NBC took executives, they have to go by way of about risk, quality or challenge, up the "more bland" of his comments from a formula that meets the lowest comes the tag: "NBC. Tuned In To a two-hour interview. Would he do it common denominator.... You'll America" in white letters across the again? Yes, but he'd be "more continually be a slave to that formula black screen. cautious" next time about which of his unless you're willing to take risks." What's curious about these spots is comments are used. On the whole, The message is provided by NBC in a that it's difficult to know what to make though, he gives NBC an A for effort: campaign called "Tuned In To of them. Even focus groups that "They may be using them as promos, America," which started this summer screened them "questioned what NBC but consciously or unconsciously, and will run through the year. The was up to," according to Betty Hudson, they're fulfilling their obligation to the spots feature nine speakers, including the NBC vice president who heads the audience. They're providing a glimmer Nader, Steve Allen, former astronaut project. Are they promos? The of talking back to TV, a glimmer of James Irwin and lesser-knowns, such messages, Hudson explains, are only what a letters -to -the -editor of the air as the head of the National Council of meant to say, "We hear you." might be." CECILIA CAPUZZI

20 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com owing

WARNER BROS. TELEVISION DISTRIBUTION A Warner Communications Company

www.americanradiohistory.com THE PUBLIC EYE NECESSARILY Washington. Moreover, no matter how much indepen- NOT dence local broadcasters may gain from satellite tech- THE DEMISE nology, most will want to keep network evening news because it aggrandizes their stations. There's been a lot of gloomy talk lately about the Affiliates displayed some of their newfound power future of network news. Much of it is fueled by recently when they threatened to yank the CBS prophets of the satellite age, such as Stanley Hub- Morning News for their own local versions if the net- bard of Minnesota, who in promoting his Conus satel- work couldn't improve the ratings. CBS panicked and lite news -gathering enterprise likes to talk about how promised a total revamp of the show. But if something this technology ends a station's dependency on the like this had happened with the Evening News, the networks. network would have responded differently. The CBS It's a fact that local anchormen with access to state- Morning News is no more than a distant relative of of-the-art satellite gear can interview the same people the CBS Evening News, with none of its significance. by Les Brown as network journalists. And through news coopera- Any affiliate that might want to dump the premier tives like Conus these stations can serve each other program runs the risk of being dumped itself; the net- with regional coverage of the country. No doubt about works have been known to deal with obstinate sta- it, network news is becoming less important to af- tions by switching their affiliation to a more congen- filiates than it used to be. ial independent in town. On top of this, the net- For all the problems that works are controlled today beset them today, the net- by corporations with little works are still the biggest use for loss leaders and power in the industry. To which demand, especially be affiliated with one of in a time when the advertis- them makes a station at Just because ing market has gone alarm- least twice as valuable as an local stations ingly soft, that news divi- independent in the resale sions earn their keep. market-and therein lies can cover Newspapers make money the network's clout. national with news, they argue, so As for the prediction that why shouldn't the net- the networks will become news doesn't works? mere wire services for the The changing attitudes stations, someone is going mean they'll toward network news to have to tell me how the want the within the industry suggest economics of that would to many that the national work. Who pays for this expense of evening roundups are electronic AP/UPI service? doing it full becoming expendable. Sep- Not the stations, surely, arate articles recently pub- which will resist paying for time. lished by former key execu- what they've always been tives of CBS News-Ernest Leiser (writing in The paid to carry. And if the news goes out in fragments Washington Post) and Burton Benjamin (in Chan- rather than as a structured program, with no guaran- nels)-present a bleak outlook. Both portray a not - tee that all stations will carry all items, what network too -distant future when the nightly newscasts will advertising can there be to support it? Clearly no net- cease to exist, and the networks will serve merely as work is going to offer such a costly service if there are television wire services, like AP and UPI, sending to be no revenues from it. down reports for stations around the country to incor- If we've learned anything these last few years from porate into their local broadcasts. the explosion in communications technology it's that The logic of this pessimistic scenario moved a writer there's a very big gap between the possible and the I know to prepare an essay lamenting the impending likely. Just because stations have the technological loss of the evening news broadcasts and noting how capability to cover national beats doesn't mean they'll they had served for three decades as the meeting want the expense of doing it full time. The ability of place of the nation. I may have held up this literary local newsmen to interview the President may result enterprise by reminding him that the news of the only in the networks' doing less of it. There's more to newscasts' demise is not only as premature as Mark journalism on a national and international scale than Twain's first obituary but also wholly improbable. any single station can handle alone, even with satellite Even if the networks were to take yet more drastic dishes and membership in a news cooperative. steps to cut the costs of their news operations, they For all that may seem portended by episodes of wouldn't hear of ever giving up the franchise. It's audience slippage, the national evening newscasts are much too important to them. News has always been locked so irrevocably into the television system that the networks' most vital link to their affiliated sta- they stand to outlast, even in the satellite age, any tions (practically everything else, except sports, other service the networks provide. They may be could be shipped on cassette with no harm done). It is staffed leaner than before, but they will remain the also their greatest source of power in dealing with nation's meeting place for a long time to come.

22 OCTOBER '86 www.americanradiohistory.com THIS TVM ESSAG E COULD SAVE EVERY AMERICAN A BUNDLE.

Last year, over half a million babies were born to teenage girls. Most of these babies will look forward to a life of poverty and deprivation. And they'll cost our country billions of dollars. We think it's time to do something about teen pregnancy. That's why, in conjunction with the Children's Defense Fund, we've produced a public service television campaign that we hope will call attention to this serious issue. Watch for it soon on the Fox Television Stations. FOX Because when an unwanted baby is born to a teenager, TELEV I S I O N a bundle of joy can turn into a bundle of trouble. SfATI O N S WNYW New York KTTV Los Angeles WFLD Chicago KDAF Dallas WTTG Washington DC KRIV Houston

www.americanradiohistory.com THE BUSKESS SIllN;

subscription offers. In a study for the pay -TV indus- HBO's SECOND WIND try conducted by Jack Pottle, a consultant with Browne, Bortz & Coddington, the percentage of basic subscribers buying pay television fell by as much as 5 Once the toast of the cable -television business, percent from May 1984 to May 1985, a situation Pottle Home Box Office has fallen on difficult times. Just says suggests "a serious problem of an entire rejec- a few years ago, HBO was the most exciting con- tion of the pay product as currently packaged, priced cept in television, the bane of Hollywood and, for and marketed." American business, the model of an innovative com- Pottle thinks the pay -TV crisis stems from an pany that won a wise bet on satellite technology. underlying issue-a diminishing sense among sub- Then, seemingly overnight, HBO became a victim of scribers of the value they're getting from their $10 to the videocassette recorder boom, an unforeseen $12 monthly subscription fees. "The problem is more development that eroded its niche as an "early win- fundamental than marketing," says Pottle, adding by Merrill dow" provider of theatrical films and forced it to that nothing has happened since that would alter the Brown launch nationwide ad campaigns stressing the com- results of his 1985 study. "The pay -TV business isn't patibility of its service with the VCR. going to disappear overnight. But the price -value A lot of cable experts have grown skeptical about relationship is out of sync with the marketplace. They the long-term viability of probably have to bring the pay services, especially price down to reflect the HBO and the number two value people perceive." Home Box national service, Showtime. Another consultant, Ha- At a time when cable com- zel Kahan, who is at work Office is panies are adding about on a study of pay -television counting on two million subscribers a erosion for the Cable Tele- year, HBO has been stead- vision Administration and a new pro- ily losing customers. Last Marketing Society, agrees gramming year, the Time Inc. subsidi- that the public's perception ary lost between 300,000 of what they get out of HBO strategy to and 500,000 subscribers, is sinking. "With a 24 -hour HBO officials concede. By channel carrying 80 movies win back its the end of April this year, you don't watch, the num- spot as another 100,000 subs had ber you reject overwhelms defected, according to Paul the number you accept," cable's Kagan Associates Inc. she says. "That is the expe- number one While no one at HBO rience that stays with you seems ready to panic, the and it becomes part of the network theatrical -film program- perceived low value of pay ming strategy that's been television. The enjoyment and stanch the keystone of the compa- doesn't rise to the surface the flow of ny's remarkable decade of growth is being reconsid- because people spend so much time rejecting. People ered, even as HBO signs a number of costly film deals. don't like waste. People don't seem to talk about their subscription What's emerging is a "big event" strategy that HBO enjoyment, they talk about what they're paying." losses. planners hope will fuel future growth. Even though there are no definitive pricing studies "We have to be nimble," says Seth Abraham, senior of pay -television services, HBO officials say price is vice president for programming, operations and far from the top of the list of subscriber complaints; sports at HBO. "I really believe you can't have a text- number one is repeats, by a two -to -one margin. And book and say, `This is the way we will re -stoke the that's what the emphasis on new programming-orig- engine.' There are so many technological changes tak- inal films, comedy and music specials, sports events ing place that the textbook becomes outdated even like top fights and perhaps, one day, even pro-foot- before it's published." ball-is all about. That's why HBO's management, once it went Meanwhile, the most worrisome competition for pay through agonizing staff cuts last year, isn't tinkering TV may be coming from HBO's cable pals. Even too much with a product that's still dominant in the though HBO played the leading role in attracting field. But there are some things HBO is doing to try to cable subscribers in its go-go years, the hot talk in the recapture the programming glamour and novelty it business these days is about upgrading basic pro- once had. According to Abraham, the ratio of theatri- gramming by creating a powerhouse, mass -audience cal films to other programming on HBO is likely to channel. "We want to be the superchannel," says decline from 70-30 to 60-40. And HBO has already Abraham. "We are the superchannel." If the move raised the number of monthly programs on its sched- away from theatrical films and the competition of ule from about 75 in May 1985 to about 130 last video rentals succeeds, HBO may become cable's August. mass -audience channel. But with others waiting in the Some people, however, say it will be difficult to wings, HBO must regain its dominant position quickly attract those who have already turned down HBO if its future is to be secure.

24 OCTOBER '86 www.americanradiohistory.com FAKE m1M11. s_ Blair's regional offices sell more spot TV time than most other rep firms-in all their offices combined. Because Blair has top dogs in the field to give client stations a real advantage in the fastest growing area in spot television: regional sales. Only Blair has a senior sales executive plus three sales VP's out there, leading savvy salespeople who really know their territories. So wherever you go, Blair's there. And there in force. Television a

www.americanradiohistory.com CHANNELS

COMPANIES Colossus of Cable

by Meryl Gordon

ONE OUT OF every six subscribers in America will soon belong to Tele -Communications Inc., but it's still restless. What's next?

Alot of people in the televi- John Sie, maintains the company wasn't sion business are downright really serious. "The words `threat' ver- afraid of Tele -Communica- sus `scenario' are different things," he tions Inc. Or they simply says, but TCI is still pursuing the possi- don't like the Denver -based bility and Fox still isn't interested. outfit that just happens to be the nation's And there are many such stories in largest cable television company. And between, all of which have caused the why not? For starters, there's the story industry to regard the cable giant with a about what TCI did to the town of Vail, wary eye. "People don't trust us," com- Colo., way back in 1973 at the dawn of plains Stewart Blair, TCI's senior vice cable. When TCI couldn't get the rate president for mergers and acquisitions increase it wanted from the town, it and a former Chase Manhattan vice presi- turned the cable system off and instead dent who joined the firm five years ago. ran the mayor's and city manager's "They think we go back up to our rooms phone numbers-for an entire weekend. each night with an alchemist's stone, do More recently there's the story about voodoo incantations and make a pact with TCI's negotiations with Rupert Mur- the devil." TCI's success, according to doch's Fox Broadcasting, which, like Blair, "can be reduced to hard work, intu- TCI, is trying to launch a "fourth" televi- ition and the freedom to make decisions." sion network. TCI wanted its cable sys- Says Donne Fisher, the company's chief tems to be Fox affiliates. When Fox fmancial officer, "We're just a company balked, TCI threatened to turn Fox's that works for its shareholders." flagship Los Angeles station, KTTV, into Right. And Sarah Ferguson was just a superstation, by putting its signal on another British bride last summer, and satellite and beaming it nationwide. Donald Trump just another 40 -year-old TCI Presi- Although TCI would have trying to make it in real estate. had to pay dent John compulsory licensing fees to Fox, legally Founded 30 years ago in the tiny town it could do just that, no doubt damaging in of Memphis, Texas, by cattleman Bob Malone: Indus- the process Fox's bid for more broadcast Magness, TCI is the undisputed colossus try players call 3.2 million affiliates. TCI's senior vice president, of the cable industry. With its him bright, wholly owned subscribers and more than Meryl Gordon profiled Comcast CFO 50 percent ownership interest in firms aggressive and Julian Brodsky in the June Channels. with 2.1 million more, the company is the arrogant.

www.americanradiohistory.com www.americanradiohistory.com CRITICS SAY Malone and other TCI executives have no qualms about using threats to get their way. To them, TCI is the bad boy of the industry's proverbial 2,000 pound gorilla: shirt and slacks (suits and ties are for cable industry. It can sit anywhere it wants. When meetings with bankers) with his feet present acquisitions are completed, TCI propped up on his-or someone else's- will serve one out of every six cable sub- desk. scribers in the U.S., giving it a degree of His informal manner belies the fact that market power that irks its competitors, Malone has helped build a company with suppliers and many of the city officials an estimated breakup value of more than where TCI has exclusive cable fran- $3.8 billion. TCI has cable systems in 47 chises. "I think they're bullies," says one states and extensive investments in cable programmer. nearly 35 other companies including But Wall Street analysts are entranced other cable operators and programmers with the company's shrewd acquisition (Turner Broadcasting System, Black strategy and its stock, which has climbed Entertainment Television, American a whopping 2,500 percent since the com- Movie Classics and, the latest invest- pany went public in 1970. "It's a great ment, cable's Discovery Channel). In financially managed company," says addition, there's the C.O.M.B. cable Andrew Wallach of PaineWebber. "It's shopping network and a joint informa- on the cutting tion -delivery venture with McGraw-Hill edge of what and Telecrafter Corp., called X*Press. happens in the That new service, expected to be avail- industry." able nationwide at year's end, will pro- Fans and foes vide personal computer owners with alike agree stock market quotes, news stories and that the inno- business data. vative execu- Malone at one time concentrated on tives who run expanding TCI's subscriber base, pri- TCI have enor- marily by buying up existing systems and mous influence building the occasional new franchise. in almost every But now he's turned his considerable area of the attention to the programs on cable-what cable business. drives all those viewers to sign up in the The guiding first place. And he's found it wanting: force behind There is no single channel or show cur- the company rently drawing subscribers the way for the past ten Home Box Office did before the VCR years has been invasion. So Malone has unleashed his a brash, 45 -year -old former management own scheme to win their hearts-and dol- consultant named John Malone. Gray- lars: a mix of entertainment, news and Celebrating haired and of medium height, John original programming, underwritten in Charles Custer Malone, who has laugh- part by cable operators, that would in the Disney ingly claimed to be a distant relation of essence be a "fourth" network. Channel George Armstrong Custer, has a reputa- launch: (from tion as an extremely talented strategic hat we need is a channel with shows that left) Malone, thinker-and as a fighter, although he's smart enough not to underestimate the get a 15 to 20 rating, Betsy Indians. Industry players use phrases not a .6 or .7," says Magness, ICI like "very bright, aggressive, and arro- Malone. Malone his idea last March at the founder Bob gant" to characterize Malone, who launched describes himself as an intellectual and National Cable Television Association Magness and keeps his four framed college diplomas on convention. Since then he and his astute executive vice his office wall (a Yale undergraduate sidekick, Sie, who serves as the firm's president J.C. degree in electrical engineering, two programming chief, have been flying master's degrees-in industrial manage- around the country meeting with cable Sparkman, in ment and electrical engineering-and a operators and Hollywood programmers. 1984. Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins in operations Malone even broke off a month -long no - research). As president of TCI, Malone is telephone Maine sailing vacation last said to have a wide -reaching curiosity and June to sneak in to Manhattan for a meet- a short attention span, an idea -a -minute ing with Ted Turner, who wants to origi- man who gladly delegates others to nate the new channel. implement his plans. Malone has an easy TCI's rationale for the network is two- grin and a relaxed, down-home style: His fold: In just four or five years, most of the speech is peppered with profanity, and at country will be wired for cable. At that work he's likely to be found in a casual point operators will need to concentrate

28 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com John Sie in Central Park: TCI's senior v.p. has traveled the country selling the company's programming scheme. on squeezing the last dollar out of each is a big question," says Jim Cownie, pres- taxes whenever possible. Like other system, both by signing up more house- ident of Heritage Communications Inc., cable companies, TCI has extensive holds and by raising rates, which is easier the tenth-largest cable operator. Another accelerated depreciation deductions and to justify if cable's shows are compelling. major operator expresses twofold wor- investment tax credits that reduce its By investing in exclusive, promotable ries: "If we create another channel, we'll taxes to a minimal level. (The new tax cable programming-such as National steal viewership from channels already reform bill will cut back TCI's tax sav- Football League games or syndicated out there. I'm also concerned that there ings, but accumulated tax credits assure episodes of The Cosby Show from are significant antitrust issues here if that TCI won't pay significant taxes until Viacom, cable operators will benefit from competitors combine their efforts to pro- 1989-90.) But beyond those standard increasing ad revenues and will be less duce programming." cable deductions, TCI goes several steps vulnerable to rate increases from the further to keep from handing money over existing programmers, according to Now that Malone has stirred to Uncle Sam. The company pays no divi- Malone. up the industry, he's hav- dends and is perfectly content to report That's TCI's grand plan in theory, but ing a grand time sitting low earnings. "We operate like a private it raises a daunting array of logistical back and watching it all company," says the folksy 62 -year -old issues, chief among them: Who would play out. "We'll see who Magness, who divides his time between control this powerful operation and what comes to us with good ideas. But nobody TCI and breeding Arabian horses. lucky channel would air these shows? is saying TCI is crazy," says Malone in his "We're geared to building equity rather Malone sees several possibilities: an spacious, wood -paneled office at TCI's than showing earnings." TCI's earnings entirely new channel started by Ted headquarters in the Denver suburb of were a mere $10.1 million, or 22 cents a Turner, who can bring to it his news oper- Englewood. "We want to be lightning share, on revenues of $577.2 million in ation, movies from the MGM library and rods, and it seems to be working. Ted 1985, down from $17.3 million in earnings sports; a revamped USA Network, which [Turner] is thinking about another chan- on $449.4 million in revenues the previous already has a broad -based audience; or a nel, another continent, about turning into year. Since TCI's executives worry little new channel, funded and run by an indus- the imperial wizard." about quarterly earnings, they can bid try co-op. Malone and his cadre of top managers more aggressively for cable acquisitions. The plan has the cable industry abuzz have tremendous freedom in running the TCI doesn't hesitate to acquire new prop- with rumors, theories, proposals and company; they maintain control over 68 erties and add extensive bank debt; counterproposals-but then, TCI's top percent of its stock. That means TCI can interest payments are deductible and the executives are used to keeping the indus- make decisions quickly, says Malone, who new assets add to the company's value. try guessing. Given TCI's clout, almost adds with a grin, "I have discretionary (Unlike other cable companies such as anything Malone and his colleagues do authority that exceeds that of anyone Philadelphia -based Comcast, TCI doesn't carries weight in the industry-and has a running a public company of our size." use limited partnerships to finance deals certain amount of controversy attached. That authority is backed by TCI's because that would require giving up tax Cable operators are intrigued by the idea unique financial structure, which gives benefits.) TCI's debt is now up to $1.7 bil- of improved programming but choke up the company an edge in the highly com- lion, including the company's share of at supporting it with their hard-earned petitive mergers -and -acquisitions game. bank loans taken out in June by a consor- cash. "Yes, we need better program- The company is structured on that time- tium to purchase Group W's cable sys- ming, but how we get from here to there honored all-American principle: Avoid tems.

CHANNELS 29

www.americanradiohistory.com MALONE'S DREAM: a fourth network that mixes entertainment, news and original programming, and is underwritten by The company asks to be judged on its they use bigger bats." Those discounts cable operators. stock price and cash flow-and gets rave guarantee TCI lower costs in relation to reviews on both counts. TCI reported smaller cable operators. Smedley Butler, cash flow of $235 million in 1985, and the chief financial officer of the 100,000 -sub- stock has soared in recent years. TCI's scriber Simmons Communications Inc., stock has split four times since the com- says wistfully, "We'd love to have their pany went public in 1970; a share pur- discounts." This financial phenomenon chased for $16 back then is worth roughly isn't surprising; old-fashioned economics $450 today. Even though TCI stock is dictates that the biggest player in an now trading near its high of 281/2-many industry is bound to have economies of analysts are recommending purchase. scale. TCI's Fisher says, "There are They believe the company's asset value is things that you can do because of size, and actually about $40 per share. "I think you'd be stupid if you didn't. But you we'll see cash flow gains of 10 to 12 per- don't go too far." cent a year," says Paine Webber's Wal- lach, who points out that cable deregula- ow far TCI does go is tion will enable TCI to raise rates next hotly debated. Critics year. "They've pioneered the concept of say Malone and other maximizing shareholder value versus TCI executives have no earnings per share, which is unique for a qualms about using public company," says Wallach. "Almost threats or lawsuits to get their way. They everyone has followed them." Drexel paint TCI's management as the bad boys Burnham Lambert analyst John Reidy is of the cable industry. equally enthusiastic, predicting strong Programmers are the most vociferous growth ahead for the company and complainers, claiming that Malone and describing Malone as "one of the most company pit them against one another astute businessmen I've ever met." when making deals and have the power to While Wall Street gives the company make or break new services. Many indus- high marks, others in the business are try players believe that TCI was to blame less sanguine about TCI-size being the for NBC's decision to drop its proposed key issue. With 40 million homes wired all-news cable channel, aimed to compete for cable, TCI has more than 13 percent of with Ted Turner's Cable News Network. the market, which competitors complain The story is somewhat murky, but the gives the firm monopoly power. Concerns thrust is that Malone is widely believed to about that power prompted one Montana have used the NBC proposal to gain lev- cable operator, Satcom Inc., to petition erage with Turner, a charge the TCI the Federal Communications Commis- president denies. NBC, which hopes to do sion for relief. Now the powerful Motion business with Malone in the future, pre- Picture Association fers to characterize the incident a hen I of America, worried as about TCI's ability to control what pro- failed negotiation. "We needed a per sub- look in the gramming makes it on cable, is lobbying scriber rate of 12 cents a home," says mirror,' says the FCC for other restraints on the Thomas Wolzien, NBC vice president for Malone, 'I see growth of the largest operators. MPAA editorial services. "TCI wanted a rate president Jack Valenti maintains that reduced radically by the volume of homes a nice guy, with TCI and second -ranked American which, given our economics, didn't make flexible, Television and Communications soon to good business sense." Malone explains it reasonable ... ' control a quarter of the nation's cable somewhat differently: He says he ini- subscribers, "the public interest is tially supported the idea but was angered clearly in jeopardy." The FCC is now con- when he learned that NBC had double- sidering a proposal to bar operators from crossed him and was negotiating, unsuc- owning or running systems that serve cessfully as it turns out, to buy a control- more than 50 percent of a state-a plan ling interest in CNN. "If we're going to specifically aimed at curbing TCI. But have a monopoly, let it be Turner," he TCI isn't worried. "I don't think they'll says, adding that he already had a long- find anything to alarm them," says Mag- term agreement with Turner. He dis- ness. misses charges of any behind -the -scenes To the envy of others, Tele -Communi- maneuvering, but observers note that cations is able to use its might to negoti- shortly after TCI worked out an agree- ate substantial discounts-up to 25 per- ment to sell CNN to satellite dish owners, cent, industry sources say-from it purchased 5 percent of Turner Broad- programmers and suppliers. "Everyone casting System, a move TCI executives plays hardball with us," says a Home Box simply describe as a "good investment." Office executive, "but given TCI's size, Whatever the back -room discussions,

30 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com NBC failed to sign on enough cable operators and dropped its plan in January for the time being. Wolzien says the TCI refusal wasn't the crowning blow, but it obviously hurt. "I don't think you can underestimate the clout TCI has with all its associated companies in the cable industry," he says. The warfare between the programmers and their largest customer, TCI, is probably inevitable. Malone charges that every time a basic channel begins to prosper, the programmers try to jack up prices. "If a guy comes to me with a free service and says, `I want you to carry my channel,' that's one thing. But if he turns around and says, `That's going to cost you 20 cents a subscriber,' that's millions. Where does it say that I'm supposed to write these guys big checks?" he asks. Malone sees himself as the man who \te're forced ESPN to be a good sport, and good at MTV to face the music. When ESPN acquisitions,' announced plans to raise rates several years ago, TCI threatened to cancel it. says TCI's "The rest of the industry cowered, but Stewart Blair. we said, `That's bullshit.' We'll find an 'We do them all alternative," says Malone. ESPN scaled back its demands and TCI negotiated a the time.' new contract. Similarly, when MTV tried to raise rates two years ago, TCI fired off use other means of distribution," accord- his classmates. "When I was a kid I a cancellation letter to the programmer ing to Barry B. Grossman, chief of Jus- always wanted to go into business, but it and expressed serious interest in Ted tice's communications and finance section was more a curiosity about how things Turner's plans to start a rival music chan- of the antitrust division. worked than a desire to be Scrooge nel. Not surprisingly, MTV changed its Malone says his industry tough -guy McDuck," says Malone. He hasn't done tune and signed a long-term, reduced - image is much overrated. "When I look in badly. According to a company 10-K rate agreement with TCI. the mirror, I see a nice guy, flexible, rea- report, Malone owns more than 1.3 mil- Programmers (who request anonymity sonable. I just play the cards as they're lion shares of TCI's Class B stock, worth for fear of angering TCI) say such stories dealt. We could have gone hostile [in more than $33 million. While he lives are common, that the company simply some cable acquisitions] but we want to well, with vacation homes in Santa Fe orders them around. Last fall, for exam- be the white knight. I'm the Henry Clay and Boothbay Harbor, Maine, associates ple, TCI warned them that if they didn't of the Twentieth Century media-the say he does not practice conspicuous con- start scrambling their signals-thus elim- peacemaker," he says, referring to the sumption. inating the free ride satellite dish owners Missouri congressman who crafted the Malone joined AT&T's Bell Labs after were getting-TCI would stop paying Compromise of 1850, an effort to head off graduating from Yale in 1963, and later their fees. "If they aren't going to charge the Civil War. "Of course, sometimes you racked up three more degrees. "If you're others, they aren't going to charge us," have to kick the shit out of people to be a at Bell Labs and you don't have a Ph.D., Malone argued then. Programmers sud- peacemaker. Sometimes people won't be you might as well be a gofer," he says, denly decided that scrambling might just realistic. And sometimes you have to bite downplaying the accomplishment. (He make sense. Malone also suggested to a down on your tongue hard-we've got to uses the title Dr., considered a pompous consortium of ESPN, Showtime and get along with others in this industry." mannerism, but says in his defense, "I Turner that it would not be in its best never used it till I came out here. It was interest to sell services directly to own- alone, who seems to almost forced upon me by the organiza- ers of backyard dishes, a service TCI thrive on the contro- tion. They thought it was different. It's wanted to provide. The group dropped versy swirling around been a source of humor-do you fix bro- the plan and TCI went ahead with its ser- him, has wanted to run a ken legs, that sort of thing.") Malone left vice. "What do you say to a gorilla?" says company since child- Bell Labs in 1968 to join McKinsey and one frustrated programmer. "You say, hood. He grew up in tiny Milford, Conn. Co., the New York -based management 'Yes, sir.' " The Justice Department is His father, an engineer, was a vice presi- consultants, and after two years there now investigating the cable industry's dent at General Electric and eventually was hired by a company he helped action on scrambling, including whether left to form his own business. In grammar restructure-General Instrument-as "certain cable systems acted unilaterally school, Malone bought surplus radios president of the firm's Jerrold cable or in concert to force programmers not to from GE, repaired them and sold them to equipment division. After three years

CHANNELS 31

www.americanradiohistory.com 'THE INDUSTRY thinks we go back to our rooms each night with an alchemist's stone, do voodoo incantations and make a pact right to wire the entire city, a case TCI "We've seen every type of estate prob- with the devil.' took to the Supreme Court and won. In lem, tax problem, limited partnership, spite of the city's expenditure of $250,000 deals in the tank, deals about to go in the in legal fees, relations have improved con- tank," says Malone, who sports a gold siderably since, says Richard Varnes, telephone in his office, an appropriate gift Boulder's cable director. "I'm not exactly from TCI's investment banking firm, sure what the cause was-maybe they Drexel Burnham. "We go in quickly, and found it as painful as we did," he says. we react quickly. We had a guy in here Now TCI is playing good citizen, he adds, today who wants to buy a cable system, citing the company's recent donation of but his financing dissolved and he's sup- $140,000 to the city for equipment for a posed to close by Friday. He went out of municipal channel. here with a document from us that will While the company has improved ser- enable him to get financing. We do those vice, TCI's executives still aren't rushing all the time." there, Malone was ready to make a move into state-of-the-art technology. Until Competitors envy TCI's ability to lock and lined up two job offers: the presi- now, the company has stayed on the side- up deals without extensive discussion or dent's job at TCI or the top job at Warner lines while other operators have been paperwork. David O'Hayre, senior vice Communications' cable operations. Mar- offering subscribers pay -per -view ser- president for investments for the second- ried by then (his wife, Leslie Anne, is an vices. Most operators offering the ser- largest cable company, Time Inc.'s Amer- interior decorator) with two children, vice, which allows customers to order ican Television and Communications, Malone was tired of the New York com- individual programs, are installing the says, "I have to go to the executive commuting life ("I had a beautiful home in technology free and charging subscribers mittee of Time Inc. for a decision. TCI can Weston [Conn.] and I never saw it in day- $5 or so per movie-giving the movie stu- move much quicker." light"), so he opted for TCI in Denver. dios 45 percent of that sum and keeping Sometimes cable operators actively Since taking the helm at TCI, Malone the rest. TCI, typically, is marching to its seek and welcome TCI's investment dol- has pursued a single-minded acquisition own drummer: Its plan to experiment lars; others have qualms when TCI comes strategy. Through the 1970s, the com- with pay per view this fall involves charg- calling, cash in hand. United Cable offi- pany snapped up existing cable systems ing subscribers a $5 monthly access fee- cials were concerned a year ago when in rural areas and built so-called "plain - defraying the cost of the additional hard- Malone stopped by to announce that TCI vanilla systems" in its new franchises, ware-and a $2 -per -movie fee, which will had purchased 5 percent of United's avoiding costly, state-of-the-art technol- go to the studios. "We've found that only stock and planned to buy 20 percent ogy. That strategy enabled TCI to profit 10 to 15 percent of all cable households more. "We said, 'We can't stop them, so from others' mistakes: Two years ago the buy the majority of pay -per -view let's have a standstill agreement,' " says company bought the Pittsburgh fran- releases-we want to find those house- Fred Vierra, United's president. "We chise from Warner -Amex Cable, which holds and charge them $5 per month to know them and like them, and you can see had already lost $31 million on the ven- qualify," says Sie. some benefit from being associated with a ture. TCI ripped out the bells and whis- company with that many subscribers. tles, removing Warner's much vaunted TCI has developed a very But it's like that line from The King and I QUBE system, which allowed viewers to broad reach in the industry when the king is thinking of signing a interact with TV programs, and shut over the years and shows no treaty with a neighboring country and down four of the five community studios. signs of slowing down. Execu- wonders, `Might he not protect me out of TCI's Fisher says the cost-cutting has tives say TCI is expanding by all I own?' " So far, the relationship paid off: The franchise there is now gen- doing almost a deal a week. "We're good between the two companies seems to be erating $12 million a year in cash flow, up at acquisitions, not because we know any- working well; United has reduced its from $3 million under Warner. The initial thing everybody else doesn't, but operating costs by taking advantage of reservations of Richard Emenecker, because we do them all the time," says TCI's discounts on programming, and the superintendent of Pittsburgh's Bureau of Stewart Blair, in charge of TCI's mer- two are jointly wiring Baltimore. Cable Communications, have evapo- gers and acquisitions. "Also we don't On the other side of the equation, TCI rated. "TCI operates most of the subur- tend to get bogged down with details. We helped former cable broker Jeffrey Mar- ban systems that touch our borders, and don't look for reasons why things won't cus go into business back in 1982, selling they have had a poor service reputation," work." Blair acknowledges that the do -it - him a system and financing the purchase. Emenecker says, adding that the subur- now psychology sometimes means the He says TCI's 50 percent partnership ban systems only have 20 channels, com- firm makes mistakes, but he maintains helped Marcus Communications grow pared to the city's 44. "We were con- that the recent soaring value of cable rapidly, from 8,500 subscribers to 150,000 cerned that we would be dragged down to properties has made even bad decisions subscribers. "When I'm dealing with the level of the suburbs. But to date, ser- look good. TCI, I'm dealing with my good buddies," vice hasn't been a problem." Malone relishes the wheeling and deal- says Marcus, a personal friend of Malone. During the past two years, TCI has put ing, although associates say he's not a "I see them as benevolent and patient millions of dollars into upgrading its sys- very tough negotiator because he "falls in towards their partners. But I've also tems, and seems to have improved local love with deals." TCI, with its big bank- seen how they react when things don't relations. The company battled with roll and voracious appetite for growth, work out with people-they come down Boulder, Colo., officials for years in a has become the lender -of-last -resort for like a 2,000 pound gorilla. It's an incen- complicated lawsuit involving TCI's many cable companies on the edge. tive not to take advantage of them."

32 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com Rli "Taking advantage"-that's a phrase TCI At a Glance some cable operators and programmers toss around as they look at TCI's role in the cable industry and contemplate John 504 cable systems Include systems in 42 states and some 3,779,000 subscribers Malone's latest brainstorm, the fourth

Cabletime magazine A channel guide for TCI subscribers network plan. "These people seem to have this sort of Utopian view of the cable world-that they have a mission from Company % Partners Subscribers Description God to make a brave new world, but on their part it's a selfish and greedy Communications Services Inc. 80* CSI Management 179,000 MSO notion," says one of TCI's critics. Given United Artists Communications 55 Public 750,000 MSO the resentment that other cable players TKR 50 Knight-Ridder 181,000 MSO express toward TCI, Malone may have a time TCI -Taft Cablevision 50 Taft Broadcasting 184,000 MSO tough bringing together operators to back his fourth network idea, regard- Marcus Communications 50' Jeffrey & Nancy Marcus 84,888 MSO less of its merits. At the moment, Sie- is Cablenet Associates 50 Agra Industries 60,000 System based in out pounding on doors, displaying his suburban Chicago charts and graphs, trying to get people Bresnan Communications 50 William J. Bresnan 45,000 MSO excited about producing what he calls

Memphis CATV 44'/2 ATC, local investors 116,000 MSO "punch -through programming." He estimates that if the entire cable industry Group W 32.6 ATC, Comcast, Century Southwest, 2.2 mil MSO in 50 Daniels & Associates kicked cents per subscriber per month initially-which adds up to a size- United Cable 24 Public 1.1 mil MSO able $19.2 million-that would pay for a Telecrafter Corp. 22.2 Public (A. Clinton Ober, auditing, marketing daily hour of prime-time programming. A top shareholder) services for show with a 10 rating-low by network cable, broadcasting standards-could bring in $85 million in Lenfest Group 20 H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest 130,000 MSO advertising revenues, with additional Televents Group 15 Carl Williams, individuals 125,000 MSO revenues to come from foreign distribu-

Turner Broadcasting Systems 6* Public (Ted Turner, Programming tion, he says. That's his best scenario, but Controlling Interest) Sie says if the entire industry doesn't sign on, "We can always scale back. Cencom Cable Associates minor Cencom Management, Centenial 150,000 MSO Fund, Charter House Group Intl. Instead of a show every night, we could go for five nights a week." District Cablevision 0 ICI is limited partner w/Bob Johnson, 2,000° Washington, DC other individuals Cable system The numbers certainly sound good, but there's one thing Sie can't guarantee- Program Services ratings. "You don't just go into the

X*PRESS Information Services 562/3 McGraw-Hill, Inc., Telecrafter Corp. 1,000 Electronic satellite garage like Mickey Rooney and Judy Gar- data broadcasting land and say, `Let's put on a show,' " says

American Movie Classics 33 Rainbow Program Ent. 500,000 Premium cable channel an HBO executive. "The networks can offering vintage movies barely do it, and they've been trying for from 30s to 70s quite awhile." The big three networks

Black Entertainment Television 16 Taft Broadcasting, HBO 13 mil News and programming spend millions each year on shows that Bob Johnson angled toward die a rapid death on the tube; who's to say America's black viewers that simply throwing money at cable

Cable Value Network 14 C.O.M.B., McCraw Communications, 11.5 mil Shop -at-home shows will produce anything worthwhile? United Cable, Warner, ATC, 17 others network With that in mind, it's very unclear

EvenTeleVision 10 ATC, Caesar's World, Warner Cable, viewer Sports, Movies whether TCI can convince the dozens of Telecable Group System numbers vary pay per view conservative, small and mid -sized cable Newhouse Broadcasting per event operators to start handing over their

The Discovery Channel 10 United Cable, Cox, 7.5 mil Science -oriented money. But Malone is, as ever, confident. Newhouse Broadcasting, Group W programming "I haven't talked to anyone who doesn't Satellite, NY Life agree that we ought to do this. I haven't heard anyone say, 'Holy shit, I can't afford 30 or 40 cents,' " he says. Then he Republic Pictures A film distribution company, formerly operated as a wholly owned subsidiary, distributed to TCI shareholders in January of 1985. adds in a more subdued tone, "I have scattered the seeds widely, and I'm wait- a was likewise Western Tele -Communications This microwave common carrier, also former wholly -owned subsidiary, ing to see what grows in the garden." distributed to TCI shareholders in March, 1984. Given Malone's past record of getting TCI owns 20% of Cgs common stock with options pio 80% in preferred stock. what he wants, many savvy cable observ- +Tel presently controls stock options up to 24% and has entered into an agreement to acquire more between present and 1994 with United Cable's consent. " XI began serving to its fast subscriber in September and is expecting a sub -base of this size by year's end. ers are betting he has the power to make TCI has options up to 50% or more. * TCI currently owns less than 1% of TBs but has warrants to purchase up to 5% more. something-whether it's roses or dande- lions-bloom.

CHANNELS 33 www.americanradiohistory.com RADIO

Miami 5 Radio Picante by Marc Fisher

raguan "freedom fighters"-called, of strators showed up; a few of them threw Cubans have brought course, "Contra -Band." eggs and rocks at their political adversar- It was the issue of contra aid that most ies. Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez, the a new kind of radio recently heated up Miami's picante city's first Cuban -born mayor, stood on broadcasters. In March, Cuban commen- the pro -contra side of the rally, con- to the U.S., full of tators urged fellow exiles to gather demned the "Marxist groups" across the across the street from the city's Torch of way and told the crowd that "unfortu- heated journalism Friendship monument, where a small nately, they have a right to be on the group of contra -aid opponents were gath- other side of the street." and partisan politics. ered. Two thousand pro -contra demon- Suarez later issued a warning: "As a

nside a new professional building in Miami's "Little Havana," amid the buzz and clatter of a radio newsroom, several middle- aged men lean over manual type- writers. They are not your standard radio newscasters: WRHC's staff includes a former Cuban senator, a major in Fidel Castro's revolutionary army, a onetime star of the Cuban stage and a once -prominent Havana radio announcer. And this is not your usual station. WRHC's call letters stand for Radio Havana Cuba. Its listeners recently sent 106,000 letters to President Reagan hail- ing his Nicaragua policy, and its reporters sometimes stuff their note- books in their pockets so they can better cup their hands to shout along with anti- Communist demonstrators. Miami's seven Spanish -language radio stations have drawn thousands of Cubans into the streets and raised millions of dollars for widows and guerrilla warriors. They have also turned South Florida into what the ACLU calls "the object of national ridicule." The most-listened -to AM station in America's most bilingual city is Spanish -language WQBA (known as La Cubanisima, or the most Cuban). The airwaves in Miami are electrified with the clash between American journalistic traditions and the no -holds - barred street politics of the Cuban community. In recent months, the edgy truce between Hispanics and the other 57 percent of greater Miami's population has degenerated into a battle loud enough to attract the attention of Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau. Trudeau spoofed the stations this summer, picturing them mounting a benefit concert for the Nica-

Marc Fisher is a reporter for The Miami Herald. Salvador Lew (foreground), owner of Miami's WRHC, flanked by Lazarro Asencio (left), who served in Fidel

34 OCTOBER '86 www.americanradiohistory.com ,;,,,r1r,.._

PRESS SYNDIC UNIVERSAL 1986, G.B. TRüDEAU, Miami's contra battle is so loud that COPYRIGHT even cartoonist Garry Trudeau has weighed in.

practical matter, I would suggest that philosophy." istrator and former radio talk show host. those who have extremist views- "Intolerance is our original sin-Cuban "Its goal is only to push this community whether from the right or left of the polit- Miami's vice," says Jorge Ulla, a former into an anti-Communist frenzy." ical spectrum-choose some other place Miami resident who has written and Police and the area's tension -cooling to publicly express those views. Miami is directed films about Cuban exiles. "It can Community Relations Board regularly a complex city, made up of people who be amusing, like Archie Bunker in Span- monitor the Spanish news -talk stations. have suffered greatly under extreme ish, but it can also be dangerous." Politicians, artists, writers-all manner forms of oppression A small minority of "I don't hear contrasting voices on of people who criticize the stations-often those are not able to control their desire Cuban radio," says Francena Thomas, a find themselves being called Communists to harm those who espouse a different Florida International University admin- or Castro agents on the air. Each flare-up starts with words uttered into a micro- phone in a studio in Little Havana and broadcast to Miami's politically super- charged Cuban community. Dolores Prida, a New York playwright whose latest work was to be produced at a Hispanic theater festival in Miami, found her show canceled last May after a political activist went on WQBA to accuse Prida of supporting Fidel Castro. (Prida denied the charge.) Two years ago, Jane Fonda was sched- uled to appear at a Burdines department store to push her exercise wear. Two Latin stations urged listeners to flood the store with calls complaining about the "reddish leftist." The listeners responded, telling Burdines they would tear up their charge cards if Fonda appeared. The appearance was dropped. Spanish -language stations routinely blacklist Latin musicians whose politics they abhor. Among the censored: popular Panamanian singer and filmmaker Ruben Blades (who once sang a song condemn- ing American intervention in other nations) and, for a time, even Spanish superstar Julio Iglesias, who offhandedly said at a Miami concert that he got a lot of

Intolerance is our original sin, Cuban Miami's vice. It can be amusing- and dangerous.' Castro"s army, and Armando Garcia-Sifredo (right), a former Cuban senator, and Alfredo Alvarez -Torres.

CHANNELS 35 www.americanradiohistory.com mail from Cuba and would consider visit- ing the island. That remark got Iglesias banned for several years from all but one of the city's Latin music stations. (The don't station that kept playing his music received bomb threats as thanks.) hear Lots of people in South Florida com- contrasting plain about the Cuban stations, but few have done anything about them. In 15 voices on years, only four libel or defamation suits have been filed against the stations. The Cuban Radio. Federal Communications Commission is gets scores of complaints but hasn't taken Its goal action-or even investigated them. (Curi- only to push ously, none of the complaints have found their way to the FCC office that enforces this community the Fairness Doctrine, according to commission staffer Rod Royce.) into an Miami's Cuban broadcasters wield anti- extraordinary power, says Florida Inter- national University sociology professor Communist Anthony P. Maingot, because they have cast themselves as victims of oppression frenzy.' and are therefore "virtually invulnera- ble" to criticism. "Through their continued intolerance for freedom of speech, however, they have been major contributors to the civil rights trap Miami is in." Whose free speech is the one that counts? "The older Cubans in Miami have engaged in terrorism against free speech," says Michelle Ivy, executive director of the Florida American Civil Liberties Union, "and the radio stations have fanned the flames of intolerance." Yet Salvador Lew, owner of one of those stations, WRHC, says he won a victory for freedom of speech when his listeners stopped Fonda's department store Pro-contra Cubans during a recent confrontation in Miami. appearance. "It was just like Jews would protest if someone invited the Nazis to not leveling with the public. "What peo- The community's cohesion helps sup- march in Miami Beach. This reputation of ple in the United States consider to be port its Latin -owned business boom, being against free speech is Fidel Castro fair and accurate reporting," says Gutièr- which includes 60 car dealerships and 29 manipulating the public opinion in Miami rez, "many people in Latin America con- banks with deposits of about $4 billion. to embarrass the exiles." sider to be unobjective." The community also boasts of two TV sta- Lew and other Little Havana broad- Gutièrrez notes that Little Havana's tions, two newspapers and seven radio casters insist their stations don't encour- stations are unique among Hispanic sta- stations, all Spanish -language, which age anti-Communist violence. But they tions in appealing to one particular Latin together take in more than $50 million in select alleged leftists for special attention nationality. The reason is that the com- ad revenues. and make certain the Cuban community munity is also unique-in its exile popula- The radio stations routinely flex their knows precisely when and where they tion (nearly one million) and its politics. muscles. They hold radiothons to raise might be appearing. And they present Aggressively conservative and increas- money for Nicaraguan contras, but they talk show hosts whose political views run ingly active, Cuban -Americans have also go all out for Colombian volcano vic- the gamut from Reagan to Falwell. That, tended to remain in South Florida and tims and other nonpolitical causes, col- they say, is simply the Cuban way. retain many of their traditions. lecting tens of thousands of $5 and $10 Lew, who started the first exile radio contributions in a matter of hours. At the ndeed, Latin America has differ- show in 1961 and became the first Cuban WRHC studios, Salvador Lew keeps ent journalistic traditions from station owner in 1973, doesn't expect the stacks of cards representing 80,000 mem- this country. There are stylistic Cuban community to dissolve into the bers of his station's listeners' club, differences-for example, using American mainstream any time soon. another Cuban radio tradition. "This is two anchors to read the news in The jovial 57 -year -old, who speaks fluent, just like what Cadena Azul [Cuba's old alternating sentences. And there are heavily accented English, says, "My Blue Network] had," Lew says proudly. philosophical differences-in Cuba, radio daughter is more American than Cuban, "Our programming is just like the old stations and newspapers were openly yes, and her generation will be less mili- Cuban radio stations, except that those aligned with political parties or move- tant for Cuba, but they still would like to stations did not have to represent exiles ments. "The press in Latin America is a see Castro thrown out. This is a commu- whose relatives are in prison and whose political press," says Felix Gutièrrez, a nity that speaks Spanish and will keep brothers were shot by Castro." People journalism professor at the University of speaking Spanish. The Jews fought per- don't quickly forget those kinds of experi- Southern California. Journalists south of secution for 2,000 years and still they ences-leaving Miami to wrestle with its the border are expected to report what fight for Israel. Why would Cubans stop cultural clash on the airwaves for quite a they believe in their hearts, or they're fighting for democracy?" while to come.

36 OCTOBER '86 www.americanradiohistory.com The casebook reopens

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Seven who set the highest standards in the me 'a The Class of '86

The Donor Role

e brought no Late Night with 1986." What they all have in checklist to the David Letterman common is freedom and a task, no maverick spirit. preconceived David Letterman's writers and ideas about the journalists of CBS Sunday what constitutes excellence in the CBS Sunday Morning Morning are free to be as good as electronic media. From past they wish because they operate experience we've learned that outside ratings competition. Jay when you search for the Jay Sandrich Sandrich is free to choose the extraordinary it readily reveals shows he will direct, and Cagney itself. And when you find & Lacey has earned its freedom to excellence, it lifts your spirits and defy conventionality by being, Cagney & Lacey tells a mighty good story. against the odds, popular. Bill Channels editors met Kling, public radio's maverick periodically over a span of months from Minnesota, is a true to consider which people or Continental Cablevision. free -enterpriser in a nonprofit enterprises we would salute this field. Continental Cablevision has fall as the class of the field. the freedom of a privately held W Working from readers' 66'illiam. H. Kling company, and Group maintains nominations and our staff's its tradition of community service suggestions, we scanned the because Westinghouse's electronic environment for those management permits it that who have achieved business Group W Television liberty. success while maintaining a We present here, with commitment to excellence. admiration, The Class of 1986, Seven emerged as "The Class of seven stories of true excellence.

CHANNELS 39

www.americanradiohistory.com DANIEL RICHIE, ROBERT`W'SHAD') AMOS WILLIAM THOMAS GOODGAME NORTHSHIELD, HOSTETTE R KLING Group W Television CHARLES KURALT Continental Minnesota CBS Sunray Morning Cablevision Public Radio

40 OCTOBER "86 ILLUSTRATION BY RONALD SHERR

www.americanradiohistory.com DAVID LETTERMAN, JAY SANDRICH SHARON GLESS, BARRY SAND, situation comedy TYNE DALEY, STEVE O'DONNELL director BARNEY ROSENZWEIG Late Night with Cagney & Lacey David Letterman

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www.americanradiohistory.com EXCl:L1.FNCE

directly to the gap-toothed guy with the scallop of hair draped over his forehead, the friendly neighborhood The Letterman Gang: comic who looks like Gary Hart without the presidential makeup. It makes you feel good about TV's Sane Asylum television that a complicated, self-conscious character with an original wit can make a show after his David Letterman's writers have won him a own nature and succeed. Late Night seems to have gained a following loyal following after midnight, putting life in a precisely because of the dead time period by James Traub uncompromising standards and the lack of condescension of its host and his crew of writers. Big -Time Television is ready to lock Late Night in its boozy o! No!! NO!! What a jerk! persuasive boss can induce mentally embrace. It's amazing; it's frightening. WHAT A JERK! No! sound individuals to sink. Late Night Fame could lobotomize Late Night by N000!!!" with David Letterman is television's degrees. It's happened before: Think of Yes. David Letterman, wish -fulfillment dream come to life, its Saturday Night Live. Late Night could the irrepressible, irresistible alter ego, its boorish, goofball subtly merge with the thing it anarcho-prankster of late -night houseguest-the antidote to its travesties, and Letterman and his television, has just persuaded a waiter unbearable decorum. The show should squad of laughsmiths know it. Already to immerse first his shiny black shoes be included in the surgeon general's they seem nostalgic for the good old and then everything else up to the neck minimum daily recommended days of mass neglect. "Somehow," says in a restaurant fountain. By telephone. allowance of television. Steve O'Donnell, Late Night's head From a window eight floors above the It's also a hit, sort of, an icon of youth writer, "the show seemed funnier fountain. In front of three nice ladies culture in mid -bloom. Last year the when there were just a certain number from Long Island and three and a half show won two Emmys and this year its of people who knew where to find it million viewers, including a group of host, who has recently appeared on the and turned it on, kind of like when you his own writers who still cannot covers of both People and Newsweek, know there's a card game going on in believe, even after 700 evenings, the will be further introduced to prime the firehouse and you drop by." depths to which their guileless, eerily time America when he co -emcees the The average Late Night episode feels awards. Late Night has swoony less like a card game than, say, a demographics: At last count 68 percent slumber party that threatens to get out Contributing editor James Traub's of its viewers fell in the supremely of hand because Mom and Dad aren't last article for Channels was about desirable 18 -to -49 age group. The home; it's a wave of id surging through television in India. Carsonian line of succession leads the walls of the TV superego. Here's

42 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com THF CLASS OF '86

Dave dropping a bowling ball off the announces Dave, as Zippy clambers up roof. Feels good, doesn't it? What a rope, hangs upside down and shows would you like to see mashed under a us, as the monitors switch, the wildly road roller? A styrofoam cooler filled swinging view from the Monkey -Cam. with beer? You got it. What do you say one of As Zippy bounds from rope to stage to we just walk off the set? The studio chair, Dave labors halfheartedly to go walls separate TV, neat and natty, Late Night's writers on with the show. It won't work. Dave from the unruly and unpredictable is trying to talk with Dr. Ruth world. Late Night breaches those walls comes out of television, Westheimer about her favorite subject, almost daily, but it still produces a helps intercourse, which is hard for him to do delicious, naughty shock each time. and that with a straight face under the best of There goes Dave off the set, taking account for its success. circumstances. Dr. Ruth is maybe a bit along the general manager of the NBC too Television. Anyway, the Viennese affiliate in Fargo, N.D., who happened go-go clinician is getting increasingly to be in the audience. As they sail out, steamed as Dave interviews Zippy Dave hands over the show to instead of her. "It was a pointed and bandleader Paul Shaffer. Several focused piece about vanity," says minutes later we catch up with our Randy Cohen, the writer who guide threading through the offices of concocted the conceit. "And when Dr. NBC Radio. Dave reaches the window Ruth said, `Don't look at the monkey, overlooking the American Festival David, look at me!' I thought `Ta-da!' It Cafe and gets a phone call through to was so thrilling." the table of nice ladies. He chats Of many such little triumphs is a amiably, aimlessly, and the minutes successful Late Night episode made. tick by, as if Dave were killing time in a The show depends to an extraordinary telethon. And then suddenly, at degree on the imagination of the Letterman's behest, the waiter goes writers, in part because the guests for a dip in the Rockefeller Center themselves are largely props. The fountain. Bingo! writers function as an extension of the Is there a moral here, a "point" host. "It's eleven guys and one woman about television or even Life Today? who share Dave's sensibility to some Not exactly. Didacticism is too heavy degree," as O'Donnell puts it. for the light 'n' lively 1980s. Letterman Letterman, 39, comes from the great and the laughsmiths just want to have TV -talk -show -host spawning grounds fun. When Letterman interviews of the Midwest. Like his idol, Johnny guests, which he seems to do Carson, he seems to have been formed reluctantly, he doesn't go for issues, or by Providence for TV hosting-a even insights. He just plays it for strange and wonderful instance of laughs. When they appear as guests on predestination. the show, Tom Selleck and even Ted Most of Late Night's writers are even Koppel do comedy-or nothing at all. younger than Letterman, and none of "If you learn anything on the show," them comes out of television, which says producer Barry Sand, "we've helps account for the skew lines along made a terrible mistake." which the show moves. O'Donnell Late Night isn't satire. Let's call it wrote funny greeting cards, acted in instead Television of the commercials and ran the public Absurd-Pirandellian television. relations office of the Museum of Letterman likes to inflate Broadcasting. Randy Cohen wrote something-a volleyball, say-until it magazine articles. Joe Toplyn, who blows up. You can watch him do the cooked up the window -over -the - same thing to the loopy conventions restaurant stunt, prepped for the and tapped -out clichés of the medium. Humor Biz at Harvard Business "Folks," says Dave, as solemn as John School, General Foods and Columbia Cameron Swayze, "it's broadcast Pictures. history"-and out comes The Late Toplyn, O'Donnell and three other Night Monkey -Cam, a tiny camera members of the crew wrote for The strapped to the head of Zippy the Harvard Lampoon, the absolute last monkey. "NBC will be using the Submersible: Letterman preparing for word in irony, high camp, dubious taste Monkey -Cam for the 1988 Olympics," a dive into 1,000 quarts of onion dip. and premature world -weariness.

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Unchecked, the Lampoon mentality a "normal" show. A dozen pizzas were can, and sometimes does, lead down delivered, and Letterman interviewed the low and pitiless road of mocking the delivery men and introduced them semi -literate immigrants and other to his guests. At one point a confused uncool folk. But Letterman's own ame Mrs. Lewis asked, "Am I an audience modesty and down-to-earth values or a real person?" It was a fair normally preclude mean -spirited could lobotomize question, since the guests had become humor. Where the Letterman and part of the audience. TV of the Absurd Lampoon sensibilities coincide is on a Late Night by couldn't be taken much further than flair for ironic deflation and the this: A show about not doing a show. It degrees, and was a piece of pure invention-the air Letterman knows it. conditioning was just fine, of Says writer course-which exposed the entire Randy apparatus of television, the smoke and Cohen: "If mirrors. it's too And it ended with a celebrity `pretend,' we submitting to Letterman's warped don't do it." blandishments. From the outset of the Letterman's gift for skating along the show, Letterman tried to badger Garr edge of chaos. The writers don't into taking a shower in the bathroom actually write scripts; they develop attached to his office-a moment of inconceivable TV wish -fulfillment. premises. Letterman's waiter-in - the -fountain inspiration, for example, First she refused, then she wavered, began when a writer at a then, finally, at the very end of the semi -desperate meeting mentioned the show, she caved in. Somehow, they deadpan send-up, and an acute, Waspy Rockefeller Center window always cave in. Possibly Letterman's embarrassment at humor on a shtick. overlooking the restaurant. After victims can't really believe they're on "There's no more derogatory term scoping out the window, Toplyn the air, as if Late Night were around here," says Cohen, than " 'it's suggested that Letterman try to order television's first home movie. And so, too pretend.' If it strikes Dave as 'too dinner by phone. Letterman approved with a minute left on the show, Teri a pretend,' you don't do it." the idea, and Toplyn developed a set of Garr found herself standing behind "Too pretend" means that possible premises. Letterman then Letterman won't ever ask the audience took the original idea and improvised Writer to suspend its disbelief. But he loves from there, inventing the baptism on Joe Toplyn the absurd premise and especially the the spot. It was a triumph of free prepped for absurd prop, so long as they're overtly association, persistence and instinct. Late Night absurd. The ridiculous, jerry-built prop "David," says producer Barry Sand, at the enjoys pride of place at Late Night, "has perfect instincts." Harvard especially if it makes a mess; this is Business TV -as -id in its purest form. One recent "You can feel the magic," Letterman School and show included a "whirling bowl of likes to say, tightening his broad mouth General chili," a pyramid of champagne glasses in a send-up of unseemly enthusiasm. Foods. and a "Tahitian village"-a painted But sometimes, when the show is firing papier-mâché construction on which on all cylinders, you can feel the magic. Letterman demonstrated, with a fire One warm day last November extinguisher, the devastating effects of Letterman announced that since the "a tropical disturbance." The show has RCA building's air conditioning had frosted glass door, wrapped in a towel. its own design staff to construct some stopped functioning, it was too hot to The credits were rolling, and Garr, of the props; others just have to be do a show. Instead he and the staff coming to her senses, was wailing. located. O'Donnell claims that he spends would just hang around their "Oh, no. No! I can't! I don't have my much of his time "trying to track down a fourteenth -floor offices and do the underpants on!" five-gallon barrel of red ants." show from there. His guests, Teri Garr "Just turn on the shower!" yells the But the real hard work of writing for and Richard Lewis, along with Lewis' anarcho-prankster. She turns on the Letterman is dreaming up the mother, sat on a couch in a corridor. shower. "YEAH!!" subversive conceits: Dave interviews And the show proceeded, Letterman From inside the shower comes a Jane Pauley in dental chairs, Dave loping along the halls in sweatpants plaintive moan. "I hate you. Why am I tries to present flowers to NBC's new and jersey, barging in on staff doing this?" bosses at GE and so on. The trick here members, reading and rejecting jokes Because, Teri Garr, you're making is to give plenty of scope to that he would have read had there been broadcast history.

44 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com find more comprehensive listings, The Complete Guide not only of the government and To The Washington its myriad agencies, but of all the influential corporate, professional Power Structure. and media organizations as well. Now, your one comprehensive THE CAPITAL SOURCE's quick - source for the names, addresses, reference, tabbed sections cover all and phone numbers of the people three branches of the Federal gov- in power is bigger and better than ernment; foreign embassies and ever: the 2nd edition of THE local government; corporations, CAPITAL SOURCE, unions and interest groups; The Who's Who, trade associations, law firms, What and ad agencies and PR firms; Where in national, foreign and local Washington. news media; in short, every- THE body who's anybody in CAPITAL Washington. SOURCE has If you been hailed by Washington in- siders as an in- work in Washing- dispensable guide ton, or deal with the ...The Washington Washington power Post calls it "The wSG structure, you can't Ultimate Rolodex." Wee, afford to be with- And as the sphere of out this one -of-a -kind influence and power N E directory. Call or send keeps expanding for your copy today. ... so does THE RCALL TOLL FREE CAPITAL SOURCE. 1-800-424-2921 In the newly re- TO ORDER. In wised and expanded Washington call g nd edition, you'll (202) 857-1400. 81111110 i Please send copies of The Capital Source @ $15 each. (For 10 or more copies, call for special bulk rates.) FOR FASTER SERVICE, CALL TOLL -FREE 1-800-424-2921 CS9

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praise by the company management. Parental indifference and a talent drain CBS Sunday Morning: have dogged Sunday Morning from the time it went on the air in January 1979. Such neglect has been a way of life for a program that is clearly the Free to Be Smart stepchild of CBS News, left to fend for itself in the Siberia of the network schedule-that time period when Journalistic outcasts turned the show into a viewers are most apt to be asleep or in church. winner, bringing honor to a network whose Oddly, this has always worked in the by John Carman program's favor. In management's gratitude wasn't boundless absorption with bigger shows, the misfits, nonconformists and old-timers who were banished by CBS to Sunday When CBS News was A few weeks later, CBS vice Morning were left free to do their best forced last July to drop president Howard Stringer disputed work. And by every measure- 70 more staffers in the the characterization that CBS News including the commercial one-they've company's new wave was "a shambles" after it had thrown done it with notable success. of cutbacks, the Evening News and 60 in the towel on the daily two-hour CBS Sunday Morning is the very model of Minutes were spared. But the ax fell Morning News. He told The an excellent news -based program: hard at Sunday Morning, whose Washington Post: "We still have the calm, literate and journalistically editorial staff of 38 was reduced by Evening News, which is better than thorough, with a cohesive style and a five. Gone were George Herman, a ever, and 60 Minutes, which is as kind of friendliness. It is, moreover, distinguished correspondent whose brilliant as ever, and West 57th Street, one of the few remaining links to the career dates back to the Murrow era, which has just been picked up. Does old CBS and NBC news traditions, and Heywood Hale Broun, a stylist that sound like a shambles?" which held the story more important who had stirred literary flavorings into But, typically, Stringer made no than the ratings and counted culture, his coverage of sports and culture. mention of Sunday Morning. ideas and natural science as part of Among those lost behind the screen Around the Sunday Morning offices, journalism's charter. was executive producer E.S. (Bud) 11 floors above a Lincoln-Mercury The public face of Sunday Morning is Lamoreaux III, a CBS veteran of 28 showroom on Manhattan's West 57th the balding, pudgy, universally likable years. Street, the staff made doleful Charles Kuralt, a newsman of the first comments about the injustice of it all. rank who for 29 years legged stories And yet there was something oddly for CBS News and became a certified John Carman is the television critic for appropriate about the program's being television star, reporting from around the San Francisco Chronicle. remembered for cuts and forgotten for the country in his "On the Road" series

46 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com = THP. CL_1ti5 OF '86

for the evening newscast. He has the other." Northshield asked which proved to be perfect casting in a correspondent for which show. Kuralt program tailored for the particular for Sunday and Schieffer for the daily rhythms of Sunday morning, one that show, Leonard said. has a penchant for telling the big, unday "I had to have lunch with Kuralt and domestic story-poverty, farm talk him into it," Northshield says, problems, the drug menace-through Morning is one "because with 'On the Road' he had stories about the people directly this existence of absolute involved. of the few independence, doing whatever he But if Kuralt is the heart of the wanted to do. We drank some program, its soul is Robert (Shad) remaining links to Calvados, a couple of them after lunch, Northshield, the gray -bearded senior the old CBS and in his painless state Kuralt said, `I executive producer who founded guess I better do it, eh?' " Sunday Morning and infused it with news tradition. A few days later, as Northshield tells his sensibility. At 64, he has just signed it, Richard Threlkeld, who had just a contract for four more years-one gotten bumped from the Morning positive sign that CBS management is News, asked him to have dinner. He not wholly oblivious to a show that has feared Threlkeld would pitch for the a staunch, upscale following and job he'd just given Kuralt, but instead throws off a few million a year in the correspondent handed him an profits besides. envelope proposing an idea for the new Northshield is the key decision - Sunday show-a weekly cover story. maker on Sunday Morning. The "It was such a great idea," Northshield adornments on his office walls-mostly says. "Threlkeld invented the Sunday color photos of birds and other Morning cover story and perfected it. wildlife-bespeak his influence on the He did about 49 of the first 52. I don't program's end pieces, evocative small know how he did it." documentaries on the fauna of the would have emphasis on things other Sunday Morning premiered January American landscape. But it is he who shows didn't have time for. It was all 28, 1979. The first show, according to shapes the entire program. his idea, and it sounded pretty good. Northshield, was almost identical in Northshield was on a losing streak He demanded just two things. He said, format to the current program. The when he joined CBS in 1977. He had 'One is that it be noted for the distinctive writing was there. Kuralt, a been executive producer of the excellence of its writing, and the onetime newspaperman in his native Huntley -Brinkley Report for five years second is that it have a television critic North Carolina, knows his way around and produced a raft of documentaries who really criticizes television, a typewriter keyboard. But the choice for NBC, including And Who Shall including our own network.' " was right for another reason as well. Feed This World? and Suffer the Little The new show was intended to solve Kuralt's unthreatening appearance and Children, when the network cut him a serious problem at CBS. The network relaxed delivery are Sunday morning. adrift after 18 years. He credits Robert had been devoting its Sunday morning His manner suggests honey and Wussler, then president of the CBS time period to three long -running, biscuits and stray sections of the paper network, with saving his career. nonprofit programs-the culturally scattered on the couch. Wussler hired him and sheltered him attuned Camera Three and two The Kuralt style of writing and from a news division shake-up. Then, religious shows, Look Up and Live and delivery is especially well suited for the while he was stitching together a Lamp Unto My Feet. But affiliate end pieces, which connect the documentary in Washington, D.C., support for these unsponsored program's nearly 6 million viewers to Northshield was called to a sudden programs was waning as local stations the timeless symmetry of the natural meeting in New York at the home of had found a new source of income in world. A typical one, brilliant in its the president -designate of CBS News, selling that airtime to the growing simplicity, begins: "This has happened Bill Leonard. number of television evangelists. every year from the dawn of time. "We sat in his kitchen on a Saturday Sunday Morning was created in hopes Between the full moon of May and full morning," Northshield recalls. "I had of reclaiming this 90 -minute time slot moon of June, millions of horseshoe checked beforehand and asked some for CBS. crabs follow a prehistoric instinct and people what the hell he wanted to see Later, Northshield's mandate was mass on the beaches of Delaware Bay me about. So I knew he was going to expanded to include a revision of CBS' to spawn. Then they leave. And talk about a Sunday morning news long -troubled morning news show on following their instinct, millions of show. I thought that was the silliest weekdays. Leonard phoned from a shorebirds arrive to feast on the crab idea I ever heard of. meeting in Honolulu to say, "This is eggs. The wonder is that the horseshoe "He said he wanted a show like the what we have in mind-Charles Kuralt crab survives. Nature works it out. Sunday edition of a newspaper; it for one of them and Bob Schieffer for The shorebirds get most of the eggs,

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but not all of them." On the Road: For the first broadcast in 1979, Charles Northshield found a TV critic in Jeff Kuralt's Greenfield. The end piece was added to relaxed, folksy the program a month later, and style and Sunday Morning was in stride. The unthreatening weekday show wasn't so fortunate. It appearance not premiered on January 29 with only make the Schieffer. Still limited to a single hour show work, they of news, it wasn't ready to compete on are Sunday even terms with Good Morning, Morning. America and Today, and it flopped under Northshield. Sunday Morning faced less fearsome competition, which is another reason that it was free to be as good as it wanted to be. Besides, its mandate was singular. Northshield took the Sunday newspaper analogy to include news coverage of the best of American culture-an embarrassing void in network news. Sunday Morning consistently reports on the best in human artistic achievement with characteristic grace and style. Northshield describes his original Sunday Morning producing staff as being like the "dirty dozen." "We'd all had terrible failures. We were about to be fired or were on our butts. Here were people who didn't have anything to lose, who were being encouraged to be experimental, working with this was replaced by Ron Powers, who had superstar of a guy, Kuralt, who may for won a Pulitzer Prize for television all I know be a genius. We all wanted it criticism at the Chicago Sun -Times. to work. We were all feeling lucky to be Northshield is confident that the alive." hese program will not suffer greatly from Northshield quickly exploited an the latest rash of personnel cuts. "The asset within CBS News. He opened are people who philosophy of the program won't Sunday Morning to older change, and Kuralt is still the guy correspondents who'd been warming still care about culture you'll see on the air," he says. the celebrated bench, Robert Pierpoint For many viewers the program has and George Herman among them. On and writing- become a Sunday morning ritual, and other CBS News shows, Northshield nearly a lost art in the devoted want no deviation from the says-without mentioning the Rather routine. When Pope John Paul II newscast directly-"there's an television. returned to Poland for the first time as emphasis on young, good-looking pontiff, Northshield decided to correspondents. So the older guys dispense with the usual end piece that were available to us. These are people says Northshield. All were hired away week and close with a live shot of the who still think about writing and about for higher profile jobs at ABC. But Pope presiding over mass for two getting it right. That's nearly a lost art interestingly, CBS News, which might million of his countrymen. in television." have fought with its checkbook to keep "It was an absolutely fabulous shot, Drawing from its pool of talent, key people on the Evening News from very moving," Northshield Sunday Morning has been able to getting away, made almost no effort to remembers. "But we got letters replenish its losses. Threlkeld, stem the brain drain at Sunday saying, `Don't ever do that again.' One Greenfield and Ray Gandolf were Morning. woman said, `I am an ardent Catholic "major talents who got showcased on Since Threlkeld, CBS' David and I love our Holy Father, but I want Sunday Morning, and that was all that Culhane has become a principal con- my birds. That's my piece. Those was needed to put them in demand," tributor of the cover stories. Greenfield are my birds.' "

48 OCTOBER '86 www.americanradiohistory.com JANUARY 21 22 22 2 ni 25 Annual Program Conference

January 21-25, 1987

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decade's highest -quality sitcom. During the 1970s, he directed the bulk Jay Sandrich: of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He directed the pilots for The Bob Newhart Show, Soap and WKRP in Cincinnati. He worked on the 1969 Ace of Pilots Bill Cosby Show and The Odd Couple, set the tone for noble failures like The Tony Randall Show, He & She and It He's a rare one: a thinking man's director with Takes Two, and is currently represented by The Golden Girls, for real clout. For Bill Cosby's producers, he was which he did the pilot, and Night Court, whose first two episodes bear the only choice by Andy Meisler his mark. His services are so valued in the making of pilots that, according to one authoritative source, he commands Sandrich is firmly ensconced TV directors-were getting no priority about $100,000-four times the norm at the top of his profession. Just at all. for a director. how firmly, you ask? Suffice it "At this point in my career, I can do In half-hour comedy, an art form Jayto say that, when intercepted anything I want," says Sandrich, just dominated by writers and producers in mid -June of 1986, he hadn't worked stating the facts. There's a bull market and filled with mindless nonsense, he is in quite some time. And, as Maxwell these days for Sandrich's specialty: that rarest of people: a thinking man's Smart-a character Sandrich knows humanistic comedies with laughs and director with real clout. "Jay Sandrich intimately-might say, he's loving it. insight enough to attract literate adults was our first and only choice," says "We've been off since April," said as well as their children. "He is the Tom Werner, The Cosby Show's the trim, relaxed, 54 -year-old Sandrich, best," says Ed Weinberger, producer co -executive producer. "Although smiling into the summer sun in an of Taxi and the new NBC sitcom we're really all here to service Bill open-air Marina del Rey restaurant. Amen. "He's the first guy I call-when Cosby's vision, the show is stronger For the preeminent director of I can afford him." because Jay challenges Bill and pushes situation comedies, working on his tan Many producers do call, but few if him when appropriate. My most vivid and reading had high priority. Reading any are getting through. For the past recollection is of everybody sitting scripts and hustling for assignments- two years, Sandrich has locked himself around the table, going over a script, constant preoccupations for most into NBC's megahit The Cosby Show; and Bill asking: 'So, in Jay's he shot the pilot and every episode words-what's this episode about?' since and will ease back only slightly What he meant was that certainly the Andy Meisler last wrote for Channels this season, to two episodes out of show was funny, but that Jay-like about Hollywood's runaway three. It's almost inevitable that Bill-is dogged in his determination to production scare. Sandrich is at the controls of this give the show real meaning."

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Sandrich was brought up in Beverly different takes don't match perfectly to contribute. He was the first director Hills, son of Mark Sandrich, director of and bad cuts result. "I'm not always I saw who would talk back to the the Astaire -Rogers classic Top Hat and proud of the technical end, but I'm writers. He would try things, he would other musicals, and he loves the life in always proud of the finished product, be adventurous." the coastal community of Venice ( just and that's what matters," Sandrich Several colleagues say Sandrich south of Santa Monica). But for Cosby's says. moved Soap into new territory by nine -month production period, he Colleagues say the product reflects refusing to shoot a script as written. moves to an apartment in Manhattan Sandrich's brilliant technique, Twice in the first season, Katherine (which he politely loathes) and is combined with a feisty independence, a Helmond's character learned her chauffeured to the studio in Brooklyn refusal to rely on formulaic comedy and husband was cheating on her. The first daily. Every Monday, the cast and an unmatched ability to get the most time she swallowed his alibis. Then, creative staff dissect the week's script. out of-and stand up for-the talents of two episodes later, the script had her "Anybody can say what he or she comic actors. buying them again. Sandrich argued thinks about the script," says "I think it was Jay who first made an that Helmond's character had grown Sandrich. "Number one, Bill has to art form of three -camera film," says too much to react that way. Producer be pleased. Number two, I have to be Allan Burns, speaking of an earlier Susan Harris agreed, and the pleased. I've always felt that my variant (still used) of sitcom rewritten scene, more serious than thoughts are given full weight. Bill will production. Burns, executive producer comic, had the character walking out not always agree with them, he won't on her husband. always use them, but he'll always Allan Burns remembers how listen." Sandrich's contributions saved a key Tuesday morning, the writers come ingredient of The Mary Tyler Moore back with a rewritten script. For two Show. "I think it was really Jay who days, Sandrich blocks out both the made Ed Asner as a comic actor," says actors and his cameras, incorporating is Burns. Before production began CBS script changes as they come in. "On résumé, almost schlock - executives were saying Asner was Thursday, Show Day, we start about plodding and wanted him dropped. 10:30 and rehearse until 1 P.M.," says free, includes pilots "But Jay said, `Don't worry about it. the director. "We tape the dress He's got it, and it's up to me to get it rehearsal around 4:30, and it's usually a for Soap, The Odd from him.' Ed's scene, which we used technical disaster-but it's the first in the first show, was the one where time Bill's done the material in front of Couple, Golden Girls Mary comes to him for a job and he an audience, and sometimes we get says, `You've got spunk. I hate spunk.' absolute gems." Sandrich calls the and the bulk of Mary I'm still proud of that scene." shots from his booth. "After the first Tyler Moore. Asner himself remembers Sandrich taping I give acting and technical notes from their first meeting as "a cocky son to the cast and crew. Bill doesn't get of a bitch-abrasive." But, of course, the same kind of notes; he gets .. . of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the cockiness and abrasiveness-which thoughts. At 8:30 we tape the show, Rhoda, first worked with Sandrich in Sandrich used to turn Asner into the and I'll do pickup shots as I go along. the mid -'60s. "Before he came along, comically snarling Lou Grant-was for I'm usually finished by 10. three -camera directors were basically Asner's own good. "One show with Jay "The next day, Friday, I'll sit down journeymen who would come in and just seemed to lead into another," says with the editors and go through every move the actors around while the Asner, "and before I knew it we were shot. I'll tell them, 'This shot from cameras were static. It was pretty firm, fast friends." Their meeting was, dress, this shot from air, this shot from terrible. Jay wanted closer close-ups as they say in sitcomland, a true pickup in dress,' etc. We go over the and better masters and more "Awwww" moment. show, cut by cut, trying to use the best interesting compositions. Now At one point, years before, Sandrich lines that work. Big laughs aren't everyone else uses his technique, but had been offered a chance to take always what we're looking for. he was the first." another career path-following the There've been some big, big laughs "I remember it was very difficult to customary film -industry progression from the audience that I didn't use learn the technical stuff from Jay," from assistant director to producer. because they didn't fit the scene-or says James Burrows, a Sandrich "Leonard Stern made me associate they were slightly out of character." protégé who directs and produces producer on the Get Smart pilot," says Sandrich says his star has never NBC's Cheers. "Lesser directors Sandrich, "and when it sold, he made criticized or changed his editing would work out the cameras, one at a me a producer. But I really didn't like decisions, has never even looked at an time, and write them down on scripts. producing. I liked being on the stage. I episode before air date. And Cosby Jay would read a couple of pages and found that, as a producer, I'd stay up often places his trust in Sandrich's then he'd have it all figured out in his until four in the morning worrying editing judgment by improvising on head-like playing chess several moves about everything. As a director, I slept the set. Sometimes segments from ahead. What Jay really taught me was at night."

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F'XÇET I -2TCE

interest. The narrative rarely depends on mystery or suspense, and Cagney & Lacey: Rosenzweig insists that the audience never learns anything the central characters don't know. The show is No Copping Out devised to deal with cancer or drug abuse or abortion or the sexual needs of the handicapped just as much as In TV's human -interest cop show, the with street crime and gore. But there is more than a hint that traditionally cops-not the criminals-provide the feminine values of attentiveness and interest by William A. Henry Ill caring have a place in any crisis. Every great police show-indeed, arguably every great TV series of whatever kind-has in some way Critics normally have about as prompted by film critic Molly Haskell's stretched the boundaries of the form, much influence on TV observation, in her book From whether it was Dragnet relying on a programming as do the Reverence to Rape, that there had pseudo -casebook approach or The phases of the moon. But never been one. When the Untouchables recounting actual cases, Cagney & Lacey, arguably the most much -transformed proposal eventually Kojak mocking the very masculinity it innovative cop show in the history of became a television series almost a celebrated or Police Woman taking the television, owes much of both its decade later, it won raves and a loyal classic female -in -peril device and genesis and its resurrection to critics. following but drew insufficient ratings making that lady the protagonist, not When the show started life in 1974, as a and was dropped. The tub -thumping of some passive pawn. Two of the most proposal for a theatrical film, it was critics-which spurred the letter - creative redefinitions of the cop half -jokingly called Newman & writing of lovelorn viewers- show are playing now, the Redford. The title, a sly reference to helped bring it back. quasi -documentary, deliberately the stars of The Sting and Butch During its dozen -year odyssey, the disorderly narratives of Hill Street Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, one steady presence has been Blues and the slickly perfect, conveyed the notion of a female executive producer Barney high -style fantasies of Miami Vice. "buddy" picture. The idea had been Rosenzweig, who says, "It began as a What makes Cagney & Lacey different one joke idea. I never thought it would from all of these is that it forgoes a go on to have this importance." He has great deal of violence and car -chasing Pulitizer Prize-winning critic William persisted in doing the show exactly his to emphasize interaction between the A. Henry III, a contributing editor of way. Cagney & Lacey is a human lead characters. And, because women Channels, reviews drama for Time interest cop show-and one in which are seen by our society as more bonded magazine. the cops, not the criminals, provide the to home and family, only Cagney &

52 OCTOBER '86

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Lacey often structures itself around network programming executives. numerous people she thanked in last concerns apart from work. No other "From the beginning," he says, "the year's acceptance speech. Rosenzweig cop show, for instance, would build a people at CBS were prepared to be says, "They are very professional. whole show around a lead cop's their usual obstructive selves. But I They both come to us every day to talk yearning for children or her partner's decided that if the ship were going to about character stuff but they never yen for a home in the suburbs. sink, it would sink with my flag on it. complain that 'that bitch has more There is an almost schematic Besides, the people at CBS didn't lines' or that the other character is contrast in the title parts: Cagney necessarily want me to succeed. The getting all the jokes. It is very (Sharon Gless) single, Lacey (Tyne complicated talking to them because Daley) married and a mother; Cagney they are all wound up in their roles and reared upstate and in love with the you don't always know, when they tell bright lights of New York City, Lacey you something, whether they are a lifelong apartment dweller in an speaking about themselves or the outer borough who has wearied of character." Asked to compare the two, noise and dirt and who yearns for a iewers Rosenzweig says, "Daly has enormous suburban house; Cagney a cop's technique, enormous experience. daughter, outwardly brash but were outraged after Sharon Gless has studied acting but inwardly fragile, Lacey seemingly her tremendous talent is raw, more liberal but in fact hard-boiled. the network killed undefined. It takes so much more The stories play off this diametric work for her." opposition, mostly to effect. But when the new series for Even by the arduous standards of they occasionally misfire, the show hour -length prime time series, the can have something of the formal disappointing work week is brutal: Five straight contrivance of a debate. ratings. Reluctantly, 13 -hour days, with at least one of the When the year-in -the -deal-making leads in virtually every scene, and the TV -movie version aired in October CBS was forced shooting taking place in an old Los 1981 and was the fourth -highest -rated Angeles factory without air program of the week, Rosenzweig to cancel its conditioning. That may help account recalls, "within 48 hours [CBS for the relatively lean cost of programming executive] Harvey cancellation. $1.06 million per episode and what Shepard had called me into his office, Rosenzweig claims is a cumulative cash canceled his previous objections to a shortfall of less than $4 million between series, gave me a six -show order and people in development, who buy the actual costs and what CBS has paid in said I had to be ready for a March air TV movies, are not the same people fees. "The management at Orion [the date. I didn't have a concept, I didn't you make a series for. They not only studio that produces the show] is have a cast, the writers of the original don't talk to each other, they are not script were not available, so it was just even in the same part of the city." After the series debuted and drew Producer me in the kitchen." Barney Rosenzweig and a new consistently disappointing ratings, At first Rosenzweig writing staff tried to cobble together a CBS canceled it, provoking outrage. Says Rosenzweig: "I don't know persisted in script from the leftovers of the doing the numbers, but I was told we beat the theatrical and TV screenplays. While one reviewing previous viewer -complaint champion, show an incident involving way-his own. neighborhood violence, replete with Lou Grant, by something like ten to references to Ellis Island and the one." The TV Academy gave CBS the failure of the American Dream, he had ultimate left-handed compliment, an epiphany. "I said, `There's awarding Daly's work in a canceled something wrong here,. This show is show with what turned out to be the supposed to be about these two women first of three consecutive Emmys for and they're just standing there best actress in a drama series. listening. Let's go out into the hall and Reluctantly, or so it seemed, CBS tight," he says. "After five years on give the scene to Cagney and Lacey.' I canceled its cancellation. Notes the job I had my office cleaned up. It decided to violate a key rule of drama: Rosenzweig: "Money was tight, it was cost $3,000 and they can't stop always show, never tell. We always cheaper to renew us than to develop complaining about it." Still, after a TV tell. The format is that Cagney and new shows." career in which his biggest previous Lacey are virtually never off screen, Rumors persist of friction between credit was a worthy but less than epic and we find out the story by hearing the two actresses, prompted in part by adaptation of East of Eden, he says, "I them talk to each other." Daly's hat trick of Emmys while Gless love my work. I don't want to slip from Like most independent producers, has won none, and by Daly's glaring being the best show on TV. I haven't Rosenzweig speaks disdainfully of omission of her costar among the been a genius for that long yet."

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its owner/managers. The largest of the multiple system operators (MSOs) in private hands, the Continental Cable: company this fall will ascend to fifth in size in the industry. It operates in 13 states, serving over 1.2 million Top of the Line subscribers in 250 communities. It ranks high in the most telling of industry standards: The ratio of its Amos Hostetter created a model cable company - basic subscribers to the number of homes able to receive its cable service well managed, profitable and a marketing is 56 percent, fourth in that category among the top MSOs. The ratio of pay and programming leader by Jeri Baker subscribers to basic is consistently over 100 percent, a tribute to masterful marketing of multiple pay channels, The things people say about company lawyer who is vice president and puts Continental comfortably in Continental Cablevision and and general manager of Continental's the lead among the top ten. its chairman and founder, Michigan region: "It's a thrill to work Continental's home office is surely Amos Hostetter, could make for this company. Virtually every day, one of the most picturesque in your teeth ache. Warren H. Phillips, I pinch myself to make sure I'm not America. A beautifully restored pilot chairman of Dow Jones & Company, a dreaming I'm this happy." house on Boston's gentrified Continental investor: "It's the greatest These are speakers not known for waterfront is headquarters to a lean of the cable companies, run by a really saccharine testimonials. So the 40 -member corporate staff, ministering superior individual." Steve Rattner, flourishing of Continental in an to nine regional offices overseeing principal and head of the industry no more renowned than any about 3,000 people. The serene communications group at Morgan for decency or integrity gives credence quarters are carpeted in the blue of Stanley, Continental's investment to the notion of cosmic justice. Boston Harbor just outside. On the banker: "Making it look deceptively Continental doesn't "rent citizens" to exposed brick walls, framed nautical simple all the way, Continental became charm local politicos, and the charts abound. They seem an a large and successful company, utterly company's record of matching emblematic cue: Continental set its squeaky clean, and never missed a promises it made for franchise awards course and stuck to it, come hell or high step." Mike Ritter, a former telephone appears solid. To close watchers of the water, during the 23 years since Amos cable business, Continental is in many Hostetter and a Harvard Business ways a model for the industry: It School classmate created the company. Jeri Baker is a veteran New York -based serves customers efficiently, it With total capital of $3,000, Hostetter, feature writer with a special interest in manages effectively and it delivers then 26 years old, and H.I. Grousbeck, the cable -TV industry. steady profits to private investors and 28, decided on a narrowly focused plan

54 OCTOBER '86

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to franchise and build cable systems in Another seller was Dow Jones, which areas underserved by television. The reduced to 16.5 percent the 24.5 approach produced a company now percent of the company it had worth about $2 billion on the open purchased for nearly $80 million in market. It grew steadily on an 1981. Although Phillips says Dow accumulation of competitively won Jones was attracted to Continental franchises, clustered in management initially because of its financial and regions whose local autonomy defines Staffers who win organizational strength, "we found as Continental's structure and style. we visited their systems that, Continental was a model of franchise battles stay uniformly, their people were the most decentralization before decentralization behind to run impressive we've ever encountered." was trendy. The two founders moved (This from a man whose own company from Massachusetts to Ohio to take on the systems ranks near the top of Fortune's annual management of their first franchises list of most-admired corporations.) there. Staffers who win franchise they designed. Under Continental's management battles stay behind to run the systems approach, those most wedded to its they designed. "The people doing the future gain by designing and promising are the ones who have to live in some of the high-technology areas implementing that future. The with the results," Mike Ritter says. that have attracted-and defeated- company provides a retirement plan Hostetter deflects personal praise by other MSOs, Continental went more with pension and matched savings, insisting he takes great pride in, but than 20 years before diversifying into incentive compensation based on stock little credit for, the work of that cellular telephone partnerships, value and, for senior management, independent field staff. Such modesty currently serving two cities. Like stock purchases. Forty-five percent of gains credibility in light of some cable, "it's a technology business, a Continental now belongs to some 50 corporate anomalies: Continental has long-term operating business and a employees. "The people who manage it no standard work -order forms, no licensed business," says Timothy P. own it and the people who own it standard letterhead, no memos seeking Neher, Continental's president and manage it," says Hostetter. "We've authorization for purchases. "Because chief operating officer. never been in better financial shape." they're not standardized," says The decision to diversify came as Nevertheless, the company has to find Hostetter, "I think our responses to Neher was preparing to move from new ways to raise market penetration problems are more imaginative, vital executive vice president to president. and increase per -subscriber revenue. and tailored to local conditions." Though the change in command from Though he is deliberately distanced Hostetter (who remains chief executive Timothy from Continental's day-to-day business officer and chairman) to Neher was Neher: decisions, Hostetter involved himself smooth, one hallmark of the new order Continental's early on with industry concerns. At 28, is the company's post -franchising move president led he was a director of the National Cable into acquisitions, including the recent the Television Association (NCTA) and at purchase of 87,000 subscribers from post franchising 35 its chairman. He was an active McClatchy Newspapers. move into lobbyist when regulatory restraints To prepare for what is clearly a new acquisitions. threatened cable growth. And he has phase in the company's maturation, not hesitated to buck the industry's Continental recapitalized early this partisan assertions of First Amend- year, raising $325 million on the sale of ment protections that seem to him at notes and debentures in order to buy odds with franchise obligations. back nearly half its stock. Among those Service innovations in the field have who sold back shares were venture helped the company quietly pile up capitalists whose customary Hostetter's low-key exhortation to more marketing awards from the Cable three -to -five-year investment term had the troops on that score came during a Television Administration and stretched to 15 to 20 years. Samuel W. companywide celebration of the Marketing Society than any other Bodman, president of Fidelity signing of its one -millionth subscriber. MSO. Continental also leads in the Management and Research and His speech was delivered live to all the number of ACE awards for local chairman of its venture group, said the regional offices. He concluded it with a programming from the NCTA. "Maybe uncharacteristic constancy was due to line from Isaac Newton: "If I have seen we could be faulted for too little PR," Continental's "superb management farther, it is because I have stood on muses Hostetter. "Basically, our key and relatively predictable operating the shoulders of giants." He paused. people are publicity -shy. But it may be results." (Through the most harrowing "All of you out there are Continental's good for employee morale to get more years of franchising and construction, giants." recognition. It helps people feel good Continental managed a 40 percent Dry eyes were scarce, participants about the company they work for." operating margin and expects that rate say. Because he meant it, and they Adamantly opposed to "false starts" to rise to 45 percent by 1988.) knew it. That's the kind of firm it is.

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most creative-built without the state aid other statewide networks depend on. An aggressive builder with eclectic APR's Bill Kling: taste, William Hugh Kling, at 44, is public radio's foremost entrepreneur-its first magnate. Radio Innovator As public radio undergoes the most fundamental financial overhaul since its inception, the future has never The network builder behind 'A Prairie looked brighter for Kling's offspring. For the first time, starting this month, Home Companion' is public radio's foremost public radio stations will have the by J. J. Yore money to create a competitive entrepreneur programming marketplace. Under the former setup, $9.9 million in federal funds from the Corporation for Public ill Kling sinks into a chair, radio stations to hear programs Broadcasting would have been granted exhausted. It's 6 o'clock of a syndicated by American Public entirely to NPR, the Washington - bright summer evening in St. Radio-Garrison Keillor's A Prairie based producer/distributor of All Paul and, for him, yesterday Home Companion on Saturday Things Considered and other isn't over yet. He worked until 1 A.M. evenings; the nightly Kids America; programs. Now the stations will hold this morning in Los Angeles. His plane Monitoradio, produced by the the money and shop for programs from home arrived late. And now, as the Christian Science Monitor; the new NPR, Kling's APR or other sources. postmodern headquarters of Minnesota Business Update newscasts produced Even Kling's detractors acknowledge Public Radio go quiet, the tall, thin for public radio by CBS News; news that no one is better prepared to serve broadcaster is looking at another five programs from the Canadian and exploit this market than he. hours before he can head home. Broadcasting Corp. and the BBC and The Klingdom grew out of K SJR at Tonight's efforts are just prologue. For many concerts and musical programs. St. John's University in Collegeville, the next two days he will play host to In four years, Kling and colleagues Minn., started by Kling in 1967 when the directors of American Public have built APR into the only major he returned to his alma mater after Radio, the national syndicate he rival to National Public Radio-and finishing graduate school. Two years founded in 1982. without the federal funding that has later, after he added the flagship Few recognize Kling's name, but sustained NPR. At the same time, station, KSJN in St. Paul, the millions tune in to their local public Kling's home base, Minnesota Public university budget could no longer Radio, a private, nonprofit, 12-station carry the load and the stations and all network, has become the their equipment were donated to the J.J. Yore is editor of the public most -listened -to state public radio new Minnesota Public Radio network. broadcasting newspaper Current. network in the country and one of the Operating from a St. Paul warehouse,

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Kling learned his first lessons about of other major public radio stations a price. To many of his public radio cash flow and survival. He launched a (WNYC, New York; KUSC, Los colleagues, accustomed to slow but string of supplemental money -making Angeles; WGBH, Boston; and WGUC, democratic decision making, Kling ventures that have since become his Cincinnati) that had become seems a brash overachiever. Some hallmark. In 1969, the network disillusioned with NPR over its simply don't trust the man with the pioneered a service now reluctance to distribute nationally too -quick smile-and that affects how commonplace-using the subcarrier of programs they produce, including they feel about the national network he the FM signal to carry additional started. "Outside the APR board, it is programming for a fee. (The subcarrier almost impossible to find any measure is used to air reading services for the of genuine affection, loyalty or long- blind-not a big money-maker.) Since term commitment to APR as an then the state net has supplemented its institution," wrote public radio listener and underwriter donations in consultant Tom Thomas in a paper for many ways-by selling newscasts to 45 ears of his clients, which include Kling. commercial stations across the state, a network collapse the The problems began in APR's early for example, and even by getting days, which coincided with a financial involved with cable TV. day Garrison Keillor crisis that threatened National Public Three years ago Kling joined forces Radio's survival. At the same time that with Excellence nominee Continental leaves have been NPR's $6.4 million deficit was forcing Cablevision in a successful bid to install it to cut its arts and performance and operate St. Paul's cable system. offset by American budget significantly, APR was Under the agreement, MPR gets 3 announcing new arts programs. It percent of the system's pretax profits Public Radio's diverse, appeared to some that Kling was (with a floor of $150,000) without any 90 -hour -a -week capitalizing on NPR's plight. At the major outlay of its own. When the state peak of NPR's fiscal crisis, during network renovated the World Theater, schedule. public radio's 1983 annual conference, a turn -of-the -century vaudeville house, then president Frank Mankiewicz as the permanent home of Prairie referred to Kling as "Darth Vader." Home Companion, it turned the Minnesota's Prairie Home. Kling and Public radio managers also attacked reopening event into a public TV others have long accused NPR of Kling for attaching a price to Prairie special and sold a version to cable's favoring the shows it produces in- Home (he had originally offered it free Disney Channel, complete with the house. Thus was born American Public to stations), for requiring stations to first underwriting credits ever to Radio. pay additional APR dues if they appear on a pay cable channel. The new network grew quickly, wanted to carry Keillor's popular The side ventures have contributed enlisting 230 affiliates by the end of its program and for giving exclusive one - almost a quarter of the network's $12 first year. It now has 308. APR's per -market rights to shows-though million budget, but its audience is the strongest selling point was, and is, these are accepted practices in best test of its success. The network Prairie Home. But despite others' commercial radio. Negative feeling has 60,000 dues -paying members- suspicions that the network will toward Kling may have peaked last twice as many as five years ago and collapse the day Garrison Keillor spring when APR announced more than any other public radio leaves, APR has built a diverse, 90 - substantial hikes in affiliation fees. outlet-and 350,000 listeners a week. hour -a -week schedule, 80 percent of it Kling's response was characteristic. If Now Kling is turning his attention back music programming and 20 percent it wasn't worth the price, he said, to Minnesota, having stepped down as public affairs. stations could always opt to quit the part-time president of the national APR could never have flourished network. Four did. syndicate in August in order to make without public radio's national satellite Wallace Smith, a co-founder of way for a full-time leader, veteran system, established in 1979 by NPR. American Public Radio who runs the public broadcaster Al Hulsen. Kling Kling, then an NPR board member and big public radio station in Los Angeles, still has plans for the state network, he chairman of its distribution committee, KUSC, has his own view of Kling: says: "Minnesota Public Radio is not was the satellite system's godfather. "When you're dealing with a person nearly done." Though recently he has been cast in the who has as much personal drive to More than any accomplishments at role of NPR's adversary, Kling was a succeed as Bill, you're occasionally the state network, Kling's association founding member of NPR's board in going to find yourself getting in his with Prairie Home Companion and his 1968 and served on it for nine years. way and getting pushed. Sometimes he role as founding chairman of American Minnesota Public Radio is still a appears insensitive or intolerant. But if Public Radio have given him member of NPR and still airs its that kid had not been expanding his prominence in radio circles. In January programs daily. empire, public radio would be much, 1982, he joined forces with four heads Kling's runaway success has come at much less than it is today."

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investigative unit; and the first-and only-station in the racially troubled city to hire black anchors for its Group W Television: weeknight news show. The station's hold on local viewers today is so strong that over the past five years, even Local Heroes while the CBS Evening News and ABC's Good Morning, America were leading the national ratings, NBC's Boston's WBZ-TV exemplifies the Group W Today and the Nightly News finished first in Boston. And beginning in 1981, tradition: leadership in public service and WBZ gained national notice for its dominance in its market. by Terry Ann Knopf "You Gotta Have Arts" campaign, an imaginative effort to increase public awareness of the arts that ran for five years. The Boston television market began to decline after it was sold to Efforts such as these are not peculiar has long been known for Metromedia and then resold to Hearst to Group W's flagship Boston station. excellence in last year. This contributed to WBZ's The company's other programming-so much so emergence as the dominant station in stations-WJZ-TV in Baltimore, that many broadcasters consider the Boston, probable heir to the title of KYW-TV in Philadelphia, KDKA-TV area's two dominant stations to be America's best local station. in Pittsburgh and KPIX in San perhaps the finest in the country. Both WBZ's recent success in Boston Francisco-have all had their own WCVB-TV, Boston's ABC affiliate stems not only from the vagaries of public-service projects, ranging from now owned by Hearst Broadcasting, competition but also from the strong the nation's first organ -donor and WBZ-TV, the NBC affiliate long tradition of public service and quality education campaign to an informational owned by Westinghouse's Group W, news programming at Group W. After series on the AIDS epidemic. In fact, have always been considered model the network -owned stations, Group W what WBZ represents in Boston is a stations with national reputations, but has always been the most influential reflection of a long-standing corporate for most of the past 15 years WCVB's broadcast chain in the country, culture at Westinghouse Broadcasting, efforts in local programming and news operated by a unique group of which has always proceeded from the had made it the undisputed market executives steeped in the company's notion that good community service leader. In 1982, however, WCVB-TV value system. WBZ, the oldest TV inevitably translates into good station in the market, has traditionally business. been an innovator in Boston: It was the Group W became an important Terry Ann Knopf is the television first to expand its news show from a industry force for social responsibility editor for The Patriot Ledger in quarter to a half hour (and later to an under the leadership of the late Donald Quincy, Mass. hour); the first to create an H. McGannon, who headed the

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company from 1955 to 1981. A Tom Goodgame, the Pittsburgh high-ranking executive of the old GROUP general manager, to take over the DuMont Television Network, he flagship. Goodgame proved a popular became head of the Westinghouse leader and a strong stabilizing force for group when DuMont, the original the station. fourth network, folded. In some He determined that WBZ had to respects, McGannon ran Group W as if build on its image as the class act in it were the fourth network. His "Public affairs town. Rival WCVB, faced with stations made a practice of producing declining ratings and management their own prime time documentaries, programming does problems, was experimenting with soft which meant preempting the network. features and sensationalism in its He demanded that his stations run the not have to be boring newscasts, but Goodgame held to the best news operations in their markets. high road at WBZ. "WBZ has always McGannon vigorously fought the or elitist-that is set the tone for Group W-it's the networks on the issue of gratuitous sex spiritual leader for Westinghouse," he and violence, banned cigarette the paradox." says. He embarked on an ambitious advertising from his stations before it series of documentaries and was officially outlawed and successfully public-service projects. lobbied for the Prime Time Access In 1984, for example, WBZ aired a Rule, under which the networks were nighttime special on sexual abuse required to return a half hour of prime aimed at children called This Secret time to local stations. who came up through the system and is Should Be Told. The program was a Group W also became a force in now president of Group W Television, breakthrough in children's television, syndication like no other station group. hired Lawrence Fraiberg, one of the and the station followed up with The company produced and distributed most distinguished broadcasters in editorials and a news series on sexual the popular Mike Douglas and Mery America, to head Group W Television. abuse. In April 1984, WBZ preempted Griffin talk shows, and later created (Fraiberg retired from Group W this two hours of prime time for a PM Magazine, a slickly produced strip year and joined MCA as president of documentary called Whispering Hope: that combines national feature stories its new broadcast division.) Unmasking the Mystery of Alzheimer's with local segments by subscribing Everyone in Group W's top Disease and then followed with an stations. The show was developed tier-Ritchie, Baker and unprecedented teleconference linking all locally by Group W's San Francisco Fraiberg-continued in the McGannon the other Group W stations. (McGannon station as Evening Magazine and went tradition. Fraiberg believed in public was suffering from Alzheimer's at the into syndication in 1978. Last year, service on a grand scale-concentrating time and died later in 1984.) when KDKA, Pittsburgh, mounted its on a single social issue over a period of In March 1985, WBZ initiated a new ambitious organ -donor education months in documentaries, spot public-service effort called For Kids' campaign, called Second Chance, announcements and talk shows. Sake, which dealt frankly with issues Group W lined up 113 stations around "Public affairs does not have to be such as race relations, drug abuse and the country to air it. boring, esoteric or elitist," he says. divorce. The documentaries and special Under McGannon, Group W became Fraiberg, who won a Peabody award programs were exceptionally well known as "the Harvard Business this year for exemplary broadcasting, produced; one of the shows was a School of Television." Prominent gives a lot of the credit to Ritchie. 30 -minute drama about divorce written alumni include Joel Chaseman, "Dan was highly supportive and by a 12 -year -old boy who had president of Post -Newsweek Stations; believed in the troika of good experienced divorce in his own home. Wally Schwartz, president of Blair programming, strong promotion and Last January, Group W began Television; and John Sias, president of good sales. He would often say to me, syndicating the campaign, and some 40 the network division of Capital 'Hey, you're not spending enough.' " stations are carrying the series. Cities/ABC. Upon his retirement, This statement may surprise many Last spring, when Fraiberg reached McGannon was succeeded by Daniel Group W staffers, who feel that the mandatory retirement, Goodgame Ritchie, a former MCA and company suffers from a tendency to succeeded him as president of Group W Westinghouse executive with a overwork and underpay its staff. Stations, winning the promotion after background in finance, corporate Others complain that strict budgetary his notable performance at WBZ. He planning and acquisitions. With his controls have prevented WBZ and has good reason to look back with limited experience in broadcasting, other Group W stations from pride. WBZ has eclipsed WCVB as Ritchie was expected to turn Group W competitive promotion campaigns. Boston's strongest station, and didn't into another bottom -line -oriented In 1983, WBZ in Boston was compromise its values in the process. group with a diminished interest in temporarily shell-shocked when WBZ remains the jewel in public service. But Ritchie turned out general manager Sy Yanoff jumped Westinghouse's crown, and Boston is to be every bit as community minded ship to head the market's third -place still the home of what maybe the finest as McGannon. He and William Baker, station, WNEV-TV. Group W sent in local TV station in America.

CHANNELS 59 www.americanradiohistory.com INTERNATIONAL TV The Emperor's New Woes Silvio Berlusconi built his European TV empire with shrewdness, tenacity and political connections. But can he keep it together?

by Harry Jaffe

In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi is a living legend. teeth, along with rights to channels on the planned French Italians heap superlatives on the man: their direct -broadcast satellite; the Belgians have spurned his answer to Ted Turner, to Rupert Murdoch. They call him inge- advances on their new private commercial TV network and even nious, unorthodox, innovative, insatiable and a pioneer of the the Italians are considering a law that would require him to new capitalism. But Berlusconi favors a more basic image: "I divest one of his three networks there. would prefer to be compared to a bulldog," he says. "When a Political alliances are as important as business acumen in cap- bulldog attacks the throat of a bull, it doesn't let go until the bull turing Europe's newly privatized channels, and while Berlus- falls to the ground, bleeding to death." coni has carefully fashioned a political foundation for his empire, Never has the 50 -year -old entrepreneur's tenacity been put to he is still vulnerable to the whims of the voters. When the Social- a stronger test than in recent months. After distinguishing him- ists lost power last March in France, their television contracts self as the first European broadcaster to interrupt TV programs with Berlusconi and others were quickly undone. "His dream of with commercials; after making a fortune selling those ads as European television was dealt one hell of a setback-unless he owner of all three commercial networks in Italy; after hooking can find another satellite," says Paul House, the Roman repre- his countrymen on Dallas and Knight Rider and then leaping sentative for British media lord Robert Maxwell. Still, no one the Alps to establish the first commercial television network in thinks the bulldog of Milan has given up. France, Berlusconi'svision of a pan-European television system Earlier this year, a few weeks after his new French channel has suffered a series of political setbacks in recent months that had gone on the air and the Socialists were still in power in Paris, have slowed, although by no means stopped, the pugnacious Berlusconi called a press conference in Rome to announce his broadcaster. The French network has been snatched from his plans for a European Satellite Television Corp. with partners in Britain, France and West Germany. It was vintage Berlusconi. Washington writer Harry Jaffe recently returned from a year Small, taut, tanned and vibrating with energy, he was dressed in in Rome, where he wrote and lectured on the Italian media. standard high -gloss uniform: handmade gray double-breasted

60 OCTOBER '86 PHOTOGRAPHS BY FERDINANDO SCIANNA/MAGNUM www.americanradiohistory.com suit, blue shirt with a high collar stiffened by the tight knot of a BERLUSCONI in his office: Three years ago he went after his third Italian paisley tie. For once he dropped the bulldog routine and substi- network. Losers in the takeover battles objected to his tactics, tuted a new, if equally persevering, characterization of himself: but he shrugs off criticism: "I travel by spaceship; others go by car." "I see myself as a missionary, or a kind of pilgrim going from country to country to excite people about the potential of commercial television. I have contact with all the countries of scrapers and the home of Italy's stock exchange. His father Europe, and I have gained their trust." worked for a banker and often paraded young Silvio before the padrone. Like many Italian five -year-olds, Berlusconi played But when the man who has filled his three Italian with puppets. But when the future media magnate put on shows networks with the likes of Mod Squad, Addams for his family, he charged admission. "When I was 14, I stopped Family, Falcon Crest, The A -Team and The Love taking a weekly salary from my father," he says. "I decided at Boat was asked if he was going to produce any of that moment I would make it myself." the programs on the new satellite channel, Berlus- After earning a law degree, Berlusconi dabbled in various coni switched from missionary to high priest of culture. "What I businesses and, at the age of 23, settled on real estate. He didn't hope to do is to give the people of Europe a panorama of televi- want to build mere houses, but whole cities. In 1968, he used his sion: perhaps a news channel, a sports channel, one for children, father's connections to help finance the purchase of a large tract another for culture. Television is a great means for the consump- outside of Milan. A decade later, he had completed the planned tion of culture. It's our intention to produce programs that community, Milano 2. Today its 10,000 inhabitants walk or bicy- express European roots, reality and taste. This is the line I am cle around town while cars travel below ground level. following. To be a champion in developing a European presence The development gave Berlusconi not only architectural in global television." prizes but also the financial standing he needed to raise capital. Berlusconi grew up in Milan, a tough, efficient city of sky - He began his media empire with Milano 2's tiny cable system,

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www.americanradiohistory.com When Mitterrand flew to Milan for talks two years ago, Italian prime minister Craxi found time to introduce Berlusconi as 'my companion from my youth.'

Telemilano. At the age of 39, Berlusconi was poised to become courier. His stations still broadcast "locally" from videotapes. his country's first television magnate. A major change in Italian Now he glimpsed another opportunity. He asked advertisers broadcast law would give him the opportunity. to estimate their TV advertising and their expected sales and In 1976, television in Italy as well as in most other European offered to give them double the airtime for the price if they countries consisted primarily of state -run channels. But an Ital- would pay him a small royalty for sales above the target level. ian court that year legalized local broadcasting by privately "Others were incapable of turning their audiences into money," owned stations. At the same time it tried to preserve a contin- Berlusconi says. "I went straight to the chairmen of companies ued monopoly in nationwide networking for the state broad- and said, `Look-advertise and you'll make money.' " caster, RAI, by prohibiting simultaneous national broadcasts by The scheme paid off in staggering advertising revenue others. But there were enough loopholes in the ruling to open increases. Ad sales rose from $12 million in 1980 to roughly $750 the way for unrestricted expansion of commercial TV. The gov- million in 1985-topping the ad revenues of all Italian newspa- ernment never refined the ruling with specific regulations. The pers combined. He put the money into new studios and equip- result was anarchy. ment, into The Waltons, Maude, Guiding Light and other Amer- European neighbors watched as Italy, the first to permit ican programming, and into buying out his competitors. unregulated private TV stations, sprouted hundreds of trans- In 1983 he bought Italia 1 for $26 million, and with two net- mitters on the peninsula. The broadcasters ranged from ama- works he was able to squeeze the third and remaining major teur mama -e -papa operations to chains owned by major pub- channel, Rete 4, then owned by Italy's largest publisher, Mon- lishers. By the early 198Os, three national systems had begun to dadori. By August 1984, he had amassed half of Rete 4's stock-a take shape: Italia 1 and Rete 4, both owned by publishers, and controlling interest-at a price of about $77 million. The losers in Canale 5, Berlusconi's network, based at Telemilano. the takeover battles say Berlusconi's tactics and his resulting And by then, he began to realize that a fortune could be made monopoly are "scandalous." He shrugs off the criticism: "I selling national airtime. "Public television had been throwing travel by spaceship; others go by car." money away, oil wells spouting oil and not using it," he says. The next thing he did was to go after RAI's audience. In 1983, "They had big audiences without selling them anything." While his channels matched RAI's ratings; now they easily outdraw RAI carried only limited commercials, Berlusconi catered to the them (though the top RAI channel runs even with Canale 5). In ad world. Agencies wanted simultaneous nationwide spots and the process, Berlusconi gave a lift to prices for American pro- he provided them. Since the law barred him from interconnect- gram exports. ("The more competition in any market, the better ing his stations electronically, he went primitive-shuttling his things are for us," says the manager of sales promotion for CBS videotapes to regional transmitters by plane and motorcycle Broadcast International, Kelly Dennehy. "And if Berlusconi is

Iflüc,coni'S Dom Berlusconi says Fininvest. his conglomeration of some 150 companies, grossed approximately $2 billion last year. Though the group grew out of real estate, its largest and healthiest operations are in Italian television. Fininvest's purchase of the Milano soccer team made Berlusconi a minor deity in the soccer -crazed country.

ESTUDIOS ROMA LA CINQ Spain's largest production MEDUSA National commercial facility, near Madrid 49 percent interest in major TV channel in France, a Italian film studio joint venture with N léröme Seydoux and 4% other partners REAL ESTATE

Milano 2, Milano 3: planned 4 communities in Milan suburbs Idra Real Estate: realty II Teatro Manzoni: a Italware Società: holding company TELEVISION AND ELECTRONICS major legitimate computer software Edilnord Projects: developer- Canale 5: TV theater in Milan flagship Italian network pq and other investments in Italia 1: Italian TV network industrial parks, Italian TV network Rete 4: \agriculture and INVESTMENTS AND INSURANCE Publitalia: advertising time sales realty finance Reteitalia: program acquisition Fininvest Italia: holding company and sales Fininvest Gestioni: investments s. Video Time: original TV production Programma Italia: sells interest in Fininvest z Elettronica Industriale electronic to small investors Mediolanum Assicuranzioni: insurance- equipment Milano: soccer team and other financial services Videointianti: video equipment and other sales-and related companies rz, miscellaneous compan es J Ai

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www.americanradiohistory.com his bank of monitors at home: Berlusconi bought up rights to air American series in Spain and France as well as Italy. Their prominence on La Cinq led critics to decry his "Coca-Cola culture."

the one who's providing it-great!") company and the largest not quoted on the stock exchange. Some were less than thrilled with the influx of off-network Fininvest includes the television division, with the three Italian American programming. "He wants to transform all Italians networks, the largest production studio in Spain, the European into idiots and quiz show players," objected Silvio Saviani, TV satellite partnership and an advertising branch; an editorial critic for the weekly Italian newsmagazine L'Espresso. French division owning 37.5 percent of the conservative Milan daily, Il cultural minister Jack Lang accused him of serving up "Coca- Giornale, and several pop magazines; a financial division that Cola culture," to which Berlusconi replied, "It's better to call it sells insurance, among other services, and a new electronics Beaujolais television, and champagne on Sunday." branch that recently expanded into computer software. Because RAI was not without fault in its decline. As a monopoly it the group is privately held, Fininvest's profits and losses have could ignore both advertisers and viewers-and it did, letting its been a matter of guesswork. Berlusconi placed its revenues in programming go flat. Most damaging, it was hamstrung by the $2 billion range last year, and the company claims still larger political manipulation and a bloated, sluggish bureaucracy. RAI figures for '86. was running three channels with 14,000 employees last year; Pressured by journalists as he was preparing for his expan- Berlusconi's three channels had 2,500-and his team moved sion into France late last year, Berlusconi released the results of faster. In a recent skirmish, both Canale 5 and RAI claimed they an Arthur Andersen & Co. audit. While the disclosure was lim- had acquired rights to broadcast the American miniseries Sins. ited, it did picture a generally healthy group deriving more than But Berlusconi didn't wait to settle the dispute. He rushed the half its revenues from a booming TV division. The real estate racy programs to air, sold the ads, got the viewers and left RAI division was weaker. The audit put Fininvest's 1984 net profit at to seek recourse in the slow -moving courts. $52.6 million -8.2 percent of the $641 million in revenues. Such decisiveness is typical of the all -business Berlusconi. His While the exact source of Fininvest's financing is still an day begins with a business breakfast or with memo -laden aides enigma, one unorthodox method of raising money is well-known who greet him on the steps of his villa. Colleagues say he handles and-before it was halted-controversial. Tiny pieces of Finin- 60 phone calls a day, fuels himself on a diet of steak and salad and vest joint partnerships in large enterprises, or atipici, were often is the last to leave the office at night. He rarely vacations, once sold door-to-door by smooth -talking Berlusconi salesmen. insisting that he takes great pleasure in walking in his gardens while talking with his aides about television. Yet he does not Berlusconi controls his diverse enterprises through labor without luxury. an echelon of carefully groomed executives- The man who boasts that he is the richest in Italy travels many of them old college buddies, real estate col- between European capitals aboard his seven -seater Cessna jet, leagues or family members. His younger brother stocked with bottles of Silvio Berlusconi Reisling Reserve. He runs real estate, a former college chum heads the owns a villa by the posh seaside resort of Portofino and apart- advertising branch Publitalia and an associate from the Milano 2 ments in fashionable sections of Rome and Paris. Villa Arcore, era controls Reteitalia, the programming acquisition arm. At his home near Milan, is a restored 10th century monastery hung the top of the pyramid, Berlusconi sets the pace. "Pledge your- with paintings by Rembrandt, Titian and Tintoretto. He can sit selves with imagination and courage," he told employees at the by his indoor pool and sauna and flick through images on a bank annual company party. "One day you could become like me." of nine TV screens. Berlusconi's business acumen notwithstanding, his political All of Berlusconi's various holdings are run under an umbrella connections have been key to his success. Socialist party chief group called Fininvest, an expanding group of some 150 compa- Bettino Craxi, Berlusconi's closest ally, was Italian prime minis- nies that is believed to be Italy's seventh largest private -sector ter for three years, until early July. Both from Milan, they have

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www.americanradiohistory.com Even his greatest patrons, the ad agencies, have attacked Berlusconi-they objected when he inserted 38 minutes of commercials into a movie. been friends and visitors in one another's homes for years. taking competitive applications. The strength of their alliance was tested in October 1984, Berlusconi tried to negotiate a new pact, bringing in three when three magistrates, accusing Berlusconi of skirting the law, French partners, but talks collapsed. In August, the new prime shut down his stations in their regions. The next day, Berlusconi minister, Chirac, decreed that new operators would be sought support from viewers-and from Prime Minister Craxi. appointed for both La Cinq and TV -6. Parliament followed The government and magistrates were so inundated with pro- through, creating a new commission to select the operators, lim- tests from viewers demanding Dallas that the judges were iting foreign ownership in commercial broadcast properties to forced to change their phone numbers. Four days after the sta- 20 percent and stripping the consortium of its channels on the tions went dark, Craxi's government decreed that it would be direct -broadcast satellite. Berlusconi will probably continue to legal to run a nationwide network by shuttling videotapes. "I operate La Cinq until the beginning of next year. He will have don't believe there will be a new blackout," says Berlusconi. until three months after the commission is appointed, which will "We have the law and public opinion on our side." And he has happen no sooner than this month. In the meantime, he and his Bettino Craxi, who still has political clout even while out of partners have threatened to sue for compensation. office. The Craxi connection also opened the door to France. In June of 1984, French President François Mitterrand flew to Berlusconi's downfall in France was no great sur- Milan to talk with Craxi and other national leaders about the prise, given the gaping political and cultural survival of the fragile European economic community. Craxi chasm between France and Italy. French govern- found time to introduce Mitterrand to Berlusconi, presenting ments have kept the reins of television while Ital- the industrialist as "my companion from my youth." One ian regimes have a hard time staying in power French paper said the elegant Milanese seduced the French long enough to control even the trash collection. Culturally, president: "Between Mitterrand, lover of Machiavelli, and France has guarded itself against foreign contamination; Italy, a Berlusconi, commander of the waves, the frequency was very cultural sponge by comparison, has sopped up American music good." and movies for decades. An extraordinary 70 percent of Italian Once the political door was ajar, Berlusconi found powerful TV is imported, compared with 17 percent in France. financial backing in France, which had decided to allow private There are threats to Berlusconi's empire even in Italy. A pro- competition with the three state -run channels. In his bid for the posal in the Italian parliament would allow a corporation to own new channel, La Cinq, Berlusconi teamed up with Jérôme only two networks. (The same bill, however, would also benefit Seydoux, chairman of one of France's largest holding compa- Berlusconi by formally legalizing simultaneous nationwide nies, Chargeurs. Both Seydoux and a minority French partner, transmissions, permitting Berlusconi to air news nationally for Christophe Riboud, an heir to the Schlumberger oil fortune, the first time.) His Italian networks have also been under attack have close ties to Mitterrand. When he awarded the new chan- by advertising agencies, which forced the networks to cut back nel to Berlusconi's group, he assured his critics that 60 percent the clutter of numerous commercials to a maximum of 16 min- French ownership of the new network would ensure its French utes per hour in prime time, 18 minutes at other times. (Ameri- flavor. Berlusconi's Fininvest held the other 40 percent. can networks carry six minutes per hour in prime time.) The Mitterrand also gave Berlusconi and his partners three chan- agencies filed a formal protest after Canale 5 crammed the nels on TDF-1, the direct -broadcast satellite France plans to Rambo movie First Blood with 38 minutes of advertising. launch next year. One would retransmit La Cinq and two would Early this year, when his missionary zeal was boundless, be operated by a consortium including Robert Maxwell, pub- Berlusconi talked of beaming Italian programs into the Ameri- lisher of the Mirror Group newspapers in Great Britain; Berlus- cas-initially through cable channels in Toronto and New York. coni; Seydoux; and German TV production tycoon Leo Kirch. But Canada refused to let his associates transmit by satellite. "We intend to produce shows that will entertain people not Canada was supposed to open the way to New York. only in one country, but all over Europe," Berlusconi said as he The Berlusconi phenomenon may turn out to be confined began signing coproduction deals with producers in France and entirely to Italy. He was able to dominate private TV in his elsewhere. "We will try to create seriously and deeply a unified, native land because it lacked broadcast regulation and he had nonhybrid European culture. He promised "to turn Paris into useful political ties. France is another story. He blazed the trail an epicenter of European TV production." for European commercial TV, but now he's losing his head start. The French, however, didn't want Berlusconi's help. Proud Yet it's possible Berlusconi will be able to keep a foothold in and protective of their culture, intellectuals joined politicians in France, if only by getting minority interests in media proper- heaping insults on the invader's Italian and American program- ties. Chirac's government plans to sell off the biggest of the ming. They were particularly incensed that La Cinq's programs three state TV networks, TF -1, and take bids for operation of La originated from Milan (Berlusconi claimed he couldn't find stu- Cinq and TV -6, and Berlusconi could still be a desirable partner. dio space in Paris). It was as if Mitterrand had given McDonald's He has bought up broadcast rights for a storehouse of American a franchise in the Louvre. Right-wing politicians promised to and other imported programs, not only for Italy but also for annul the contract if they came to power in the March elections. France and Spain. "Yes, there's been a problem in France," "This spaghetti television tycoon will never be allowed to trans- says Luciana Palnz7i Solomon, Berlusconi's U.S. representative mit from the Eiffel Tower," warned Jacques Chirac, then mayor (and spouse of Michael Jay Solomon of Lorimar-Telepictures). of Paris and now prime minister of France. Chirac tried to block "But that doesn't mean he's been kicked out of France. If it's not La Cinq from putting its antenna on the tower; it took a police La Cinq, it will be another network." escort to clear the way. Not the least of those who believe in Berlusconi is the man Berlusconi's French connections began to fray last March, the himself. Last February, in the midst of his fight to get La Cinq, day his Socialist allies were voted out of power. Though Mitter- Berlusconi called a press conference and declared: "We have the rand remained president, he had lost his parliamentary major- will and the plan to go beyond our borders. And behind every ity. Right-wing leaders complained the Socialists had handed great plan there is a small man who made it happen with his out La Cinq (and also TV -6, the music -video channel) without blood, sweat and tears. In this case, it was me."

64 OCTOBER '86

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www.americanradiohistory.com CRITICISM Love Boat Goes to College

TELEVISION USED to get no respect in the halls of academe. But scholars today have Zap. I Love Lucy: A ritualized order. Zap. Hill Street Blues: The men's conflict between the desire of room as a zone of temporary equality taken to `reading women to leave the home and among officers. Captain Furillo's office as the desire of men to keep the space in which hierarchy is re-estab- TV' and loving it. them there. Each episode lished. Zap ... returns Lucy to the private realm. Zap. This is called "reading television," and The Mary Tyler Moore Show: Mary has it's not just a pastime-it's something of a succeeded where Lucy failed; she joins career. At places like the University of the public world. Note how the newsroom Iowa, Northwestern and Michigan State, family embodies the ideal union of work television reading is a serious intellectual and love spoken of by Freud. Zap. Drag- pursuit. Quarterly journals discuss it in net: The reference point for all cop shows. depth. There are yearly conferences of See Joe Friday as a McCarthy -era hero; television readers, where the papers the sleazy criminals are his Communists. have titles like "Subtexts of Resistance Zap. Mod Squad: Hippies become cops, in Ideological Commodities: The Case of enacting peace and love through law and Magnum, P.I." or "Star Discourse Anal- ysis: Coming to Terms with Mr. T." And there are scholars, internationally known Jay Rosen, a contributing editor of in the field, like founding fathers John by Jay Rosen Channels, teaches journalism at New Fiske and John Hartley, Britons now York University. teaching in Australia, and Horace New -

ILLUSTRATIONS BY PETER DE SÈVE CHANNELS 67 www.americanradiohistory.com comb of the University of Texas. Schol- dle around a TV set watching clips from by it. This new breed of scholars has arly books have been published about I Dallas. They are learning that the same found in television a subject matter ripe Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, Dal- shot-J.R. looking ominously from a bal- for analysis-an opportunity to break las and Hill Street Blues. (Indeed, so cony at South Fork-has recurred over things down into their parts and put them much has been written about Hill Street and over in the series. "In episode 54 it back together in the shape of an idea. that some authors are now departing turns up again," says the speaker, nod- "Reading television" can be fun, one from what they see as the "standard ding to a technician who rolls the tape. discovers. There are indeed "communica- interpretation" of the show.) Professors Sure enough-there's Sue Ellen arguing tion spaces" in Hill Street Blues, as sug- who assign Faulkner and Melville are with her young lover, there's the balcony, gested in the title of one paper. The squad adding Love Boat to the curriculum. there's J.R. with a drink in his hand, over- room is one kind of space, where the offi- A visitor to the new field of "television hearing it all. The music swells up, the cers are addressed as a team before they studies," invited to the Fifth Interna- credits flash, the tape is stopped and this go out to do battle with the bad guys. The tional Conference on Television Drama at weird academic séance takes up the ques- police car is another space, where Bates Michigan State, finds much that is intimi- tion: What does it mean? and Coffey play out the drama of partner- dating. Is it wise to brave "The Dialogue A bespectacled professor who has just ship. The streets are a dangerous space of Genres in Contemporary Television delivered a paper on Remington Steele that belongs neither to cops nor crimi- Narrative," or would "Miami Vice and tells her audience that "it's important to nals, and so on. Listening to this "read- Medieval Sin" be more understandable? write NBC and tell them to renew the ing" of Hill Street one starts to get the And those "pseudo-Brechtian antimi- show." Heads nod throughout the room; hang of it. Divide a show into parts, name metic techniques" said to be at work in all agree that Steele is a brave experi- each, connect them back to a central Moonlighting: Is that when the detec- ment worth keeping. (NBC also agreed theme. That's how Hill Street Blues is analyzed. But that's not all there is to it. Con- vinced that TV is too important to be CONVINCED THAT TV is too important to ignored, academics have come to the box in search of a secret passageway into the be ignored, academics have come to the American mind. Television offers them the same thing it offers the advertiser: box in search of a fantastic numbers, numbers so large they seem at times to equal the nation. If secret passagewy they can understand TV then they'll be closer to what's really going on in the the American filin country. Academics who study television have thus rescued themselves from a marginal existence. In a strange way, they have come home. Their students, for example, are less literate, more conservative and more money -minded than most members of the faculty can often tolerate. They do not make a lively audience for a lecture on symbolism and poetry. In order to have a hope of reaching students-in order to keep from despising them, one suspects- the English professor turns to television. "To get students interested in fictional forms such as have to deal with the forms they already know," says Jackie Blain, who teaches media studies at the Univer- tives, Maddie and David, admit they're two months later, renewing Steele after sity of Texas. "You have to teach Shake- just actors on TV? announcing its cancellation.) A tall Texan speare and television." Within the last decade TV has been get- lectures briskly for an hour on the history In the 1970s feminist thinkers tended to ting the same appreciative scrutiny lav- of the Desilu empire-mostly on details of dismiss popular forms such as the soap ished for decades on movies that were contracts and negotiations of 25 and 30 opera as hopelessly sexist trash that cranked out no less mindlessly during the years ago. "There's a helluva lot there," brainwashed women into subservience. Hollywood studios' heyday. Perhaps, as says one scholar to another as the crowd But now there's a more open attitude Brandeis professor David Marc has sug- files out. "Who would have known!" his toward television. Feminist critics are gested, the appreciation comes when peo- companion replies, and they go off to chat more willing to defend the soaps as a ple sense an era has passed-at the end of about the implications over coffee. David legitimate "women's pleasure," and they the studio era, and now at what some see Marc, a featured speaker, admits that he study soap operas in part to understand as the end of TV's three -network era. tries to see new shows and do his schol- what's so enjoyable about them. Yet it's curious to see scholars taking arly duty, but then a Sergeant Bilko seriously the TV series that so many peo- rerun comes on and he's rendered help- Other academics, apostles of ple still regard as trash. A learned -look- less. "I have to watch it," he says, and his high culture, have long con- ing woman stands up and says, "I've been audience understands. They all have sidered TV the embodiment doing a lot of work on Falcon Crest," and their obsessions. of an evil anticulture and tries out a few ideas on the group. Every- The new academic critics are clearly done their best to avoid it. one joins in enthusiastically, and refer- fans of television, and yet they are also Social scientists, on the other hand, have ences to Dynasty and The Colbys fly intellectuals. Led by film and pop -culture been extremely interested in TV, but not around the room like so many John scholars, they've reversed the traditional as viewers or fans. They have sought to Milton or T.S. Eliots. attitude toward TV held by the ultrali- determine the "effects" of the medium In another room, a dozen scholars hud- terate, who have typically been disgusted through large-scale statistical studies, a

68 OCTOBER '86 www.americanradiohistory.com sette recorder. As University of Arizona professor Caren Deming puts it, the VCR "makes it possible to possess the text." Students of television are starting to assemble libraries of programs they want to study, and can now sprinkle their papers with references to series episodes by number and title, as if they were chap- ters in a book. The combined forces of syndication, cable and satellites also have made available more and more programs from television's past. The result is that all periods of TV history seem to be occur- ring at once. The reader of television can spot connections and note changes in gen- `Discoursing' the New Thlej ive res just by tooling around the dial. Of course, it may be asked: Want to amaze friends and have fun at parties? Then learn the new language of TV What does it really matter if criticism. Here are some terms to throw around next time the talk turns to television. a few hundred professors Never, ever refer to a "show" or a "program." The term is text. Needless to say, and their graduate students texts are not watched or viewed ; they are read. And they should always be read as want to sit around watching something, as in "I read Letterman as metatelevision, don't you?" When one show reruns? Is "reading television" a cultur- rips off another, that's called intertextuality, which is highly prized. Anyone who says ally important act or just another weary to the audience, "Hey, don't forget this is a television show" is being self-reflexive, academic exercise? An ingenious reading and that's all to the good. Don't call anything sexist; nowadays it's gendered. Don't of The A -Team may demonstrate nothing refer to types of shows when there are genres to talk about. Of course, talk is not talk; more than the critic's own cleverness. it's discourse. And if the discourse gets confusing, refer to the multiplicity of mean- More interesting is what happens in the ings it offers. minds of the millions who actually watch When you like something, you argue for it, as in "I would argue for Mr. T as a kind of Mr. T. Critics' insights might shed light excessively gendered negation of state authority." When someone else likes some- on the text, but what do they say about thing, you can accuse them of privileging it. 1b wit: "I think you're privileging the the huge audience that is reacting? Dynasty discourse as somehow more expressive than the texts that activate it." The strength of the large-scale, quanti- When in doubt you can call anything ironic and get away with it. In extreme situa- tative research into television's "effects" tions, toss out the term metatextual and look snooty. There is nobody who knows has always been its claim that it investi- what that means. J.R. gates the typical case. The social scientist says, "Here is what happens to large numbers of people when they watch tele- gargantuan effort that has produced little the picture. The ideas applied to reading vision." But the results have been disap- in the way of clear-cut results. television are brought in from literary pointing. We still don't know what the The new academic critics reject both of theory, psychology, film studies, theater, effects of television are. The expert these stances. They see the highbrow's feminism or television past, and then reader of TV begins with a much more disdain for TV as ignorant and increas- "read into" the TV text. Thus, Moon- modest claim: "Here is what happens to ingly irrelevant, especially since the lighting's David Addison can be read as a me when I watch television." There are newer ways of interpreting literature- narcissistic character type, if one knows now signs that the two approaches can be "structuralism," "semiotics" and, most the traits of that type as first described combined. A recent book by Dutch critic recently, "deconstruction"-work equal- by Sigmund Freud. Ien Ang, Watching Dallas, relies on two ly well for television. Nor are they inter- Reading television means rejecting the different texts-the episodes of Dallas ested in the "effects" of TV, for the the- program descriptions as they appear in itself and 40 letters from women who ory behind "reading television" is that TV Guide. To these scholars, programs agreed to tell what they enjoy about the the medium itself has no effects. A pro- are "about" power or sexuality or con- show. What emerges is a sketch of the gram's effects depend on the way view- sumption. They see television revealing, show's appeal, focused not on the critic's ers read it. in a half-conscious, distorted way, larger mind but on the sometimes contradictory To understand what this means one cultural shifts such as the realignment of reasons viewers give for watching. must grasp the idea of the "text," the sin- the American family. Television may try For example, many letter writers said gle most frequently used word at the to encourage certain readings; when it they watch Dallas to escape. But many Michigan conference. To treat television does, it is said to be acting ideologically. others said they watch because "it's real- as a "text" is to treat it as an encoded But no matter which readings it may pre- istic." The apparent conflict can be object, one that can be interpreted in differ, TV cannot entirely control what resolved by a closer reading of the Dallas ferent ways, read and re -read to see what viewers make of the text. In this sense text. On one hand the setting is pure fan- it really contains. the "nature" of television can never be tasy, bearing no resemblance to how Reading a television text means read- fixed. TV has no nature; it simply viewers live. On the other hand the char- ing it as something: I Love Lucy as a presents texts. Thus the professors can acters seem "real" and viewers can iden- drama of frustrated female desire, for shift the final responsibility for TV's tify with the characters. example. The reader of television brings effects from the medium to the viewer -as - Should academics ever coordinate both an organizing idea, a hunch or strategy reader, and save TV "from becoming the lines of inquiry-reading the text and for viewing a program, completely homogenizing, monolithic, authoritarian measuring viewers' reactions-they may bypassing the way it asks to be viewed. tool that the doomsday critics claim it is," have a start on cracking TV's enduring (One would never read a program as as David Marc has written. mystery: What exactly happens to all "mere entertainment," for example.) Technological developments have those hours sucked up by the tube? This is where reading of a more tradi- made it easier to study the television Where do they go, and in what strange tional kind-books and articles-enters text-most prominently, the videocas- form do they make their return?

CHANNELS 69

www.americanradiohistory.com PROGRAMMING Morning Becomes Eccentric CBS is betting on Pee -wee Herman to bring a new audience to Saturday kidvid

by Diana Loevy

paul Reubens takes a long fall. ABC has even begun to consider house that's producing the show for Pee- drag on a cigarette, waiting turning over some of Saturday morning wee Productions and CBS. The show for yet another run- to adult programs. aims to amuse viewers with both the through on his ultra -artistic With Pee-wee's Playhouse, CBS is bid- action itself and with self-conscious refer- set in a lower -Manhattan ding for a "breakout" hit attracting ences to the artifice of TV production. studio. In uncharacteristic repose, the adults as well as kids, though executives "We want it both ways," says Oakes. comedian with the slicked -back hair and insist the target audience is 11 and Price and West Coast children's pro- carefully applied makeup looks like a younger. But if teens and young adults, gramming director Michael Walker- sophisticate out of a Noel Coward play. now captivated by Godzilla movies on Pee-wee's earliest supporter at the net- But seconds later, he'll be back in charac- independent stations, switched over in work-had been watching Pee -wee with ter as the mischievous, falsely earnest large enough numbers, CBS could have a special interest since his 1982 HBO spe- and profoundly immature Pee -wee Her- cult hit along the lines of Late Night with cial, which was virtually a pilot for the man, now starring in a new Saturday David Letterman. "Pee-wee provides the series. But Pee -wee really began looking morning children's show. opportunity for us to cross both age and mighty good to CBS after last summer's Saturday morning has never seen any- sex lines," says Judy Price, the network's Warner Bros. release, Pee-wee's Big thing quite like Pee-wee's Playhouse. vice president of children's program- Adventure, grossed more than $40 mil- CBS has given its 11 A.M. slot to a come- ming. She thinks he'll draw both the little lion. To develop segments of the show- dian who has, until now, acted the eccen- boys, who now gravitate toward action - on spec-CBS brought in Broadcast Arts, tric child for grown-ups. He and his writ- adventure cartoons, and the little girls, known for such classics as the Wendy's ers fill the scripts with double entendres; who tend to prefer cuddly animal car- spot with eggs singing doo-wop style. the animators and designers have been toons. The key is Pee-wee's endearingly Pee -wee signed to appear in 13 half hours. plucked from New York's downtown art obsessive personality. Says Price: "We He was joining Saturday morning's scene. So when Pee-wee's show turns up haven't had someone come along like number -two network. Last fall and win- in a daypart overrun with cute bears, lit- Pee -wee for several decades." ter, CBS drew shares of 17 and 18, com- tle blue people and teenage chipmunks, it Or his stock company of friends, either: pared with NBC's 22 and 23, and ABC's seems that something funny is up. the local snoop, Mrs. Steve; Pee-wee's 15. This year, CBS is doing well in ad It's a time for the networks to regroup glamorous, unattainable heartthrob, sales for Saturday morning. Between from their steady loss of advertising to Miss Yvonne; and the salty Captain Carl. them, CBS and NBC have locked up the independent stations airing animated They perform on a frightfully colorful set lion's share of the $200 million adver- shows throughout the week. The compe- equipped with a dog -shaped chair for tisers are expected to spend on network tition is such first -run syndicated car- guests, Mr. Window, and the fridge, children's commercials this season, toons as Transformers, Thundercats and which is opened periodically to reveal according to Paul Zagaeski of Butterfield She -Ra Princess of Power, each now car- such sights as an animated tomato danc- Communications Group, a broadcast con- ried on stations accessible to 80 percent of ing soft-shoe with a french fry on a stair- sulting firm based in Cambridge, Mass. viewers. All three networks had unsold case of butter sticks. He thinks ABC will be lucky to get a fifth Saturday morning advertising time at Any relation between Pee-wee's show of the total. the end of last season, and all three have and Captain Kangaroo is purely satirical: This is causing ABC to wonder, as one lowered their rates for the daypart this The Captain never had a segment called or another network does every year, "Mutant Toys." "When Pee -wee is whether Saturday kidvid is a business chroma -keyed into stock footage it's obvi- worth being in. ABC Entertainment Diana Loevy, editor of TV Update, pre- ously cheezy," says Stephen Oakes, co- president Brandon Stoddard has said viewed the fall season for Channels in the founder (with Peter Rosenthal) of Broad- that the network will be making decisions September issue. cast Arts Inc., the New York animation about Saturday morning early next year.

70 OCTOBER '86 www.americanradiohistory.com 1986

Can Pee-Wee's antics and colorful set topple The network is conside ring a half-hour time meeting with failure. Pryor's Place, the ever news program or women's programs for Benji and the "Monsters" segment of Jim adorable late morning, says children's program- Henson's Saturday show were all Smurfs? ming vice president Squire Rushnell. (Its rejected by young viewers in recent sea- research indicates mazy women with sons. The kids have had something VCRs are using the period to play back smaller and cuddlier in mind. shows they taped the week before.) "We What they've wanted, and gotten, are are at a real break-even point in 1986," teddy bears of various kinds. There are °1985 NATIONAL says Rushnell. But that's not good Berenstain Bears on CBS at 8, Disney's BROADCASTING CO., INC. enough. "The fact is that we are in a hit Gummi Bears on NBC at 8:30, the Care CBS thinks this is the year it could beat business," he says. ABC didn't have a Bears on ABC at the same time, and NBC's entire Saturday morning sched- single hit on its Saturday morning sched- George Lucas' Ewoks on ABC at 11:30. ule. Pee-wee's Playhouse is its cutting ule last season. The dominant miniatures of Saturday edge. To make sure viewers know some- ABC and NBC programmers greet the morning, however, are The Smurfs, a thing different is happening, CBS wild goings-on chez Pee -wee with a great force so potent that NBC gives them a changed the look of its whole morning- deal of skepticism. They can enumerate full 90 minutes of its Saturday schedule, hiring Broadcast Arts to make a new set good reasons to continue relying on from 9 to 10:30. But the program may not of "stay tuned" bumpers with the noisy, all -animated Saturday morning sched- remain a bastion of strength. colorful, geometric look of MTV graphics ules. Animation is cheaper (averaging and a mechano-pop track that repeats $250,000 per half hour) than Pee-wee's ast season's final 30 -minute "Saturday morning" in a voice reminis- mix of live action and animation (averag- segment of The Smurfs was cent of performance artist Laurie Ander- ing $325,000 or more). And Pee-wee lacks watched in 18.8 percent of son's. Last season, the Saturday morning the familiarity many kids have with car- TV homes with children, graphics on CBS were nothing special. toon characters that are already starring down from 23.5 percent the And its 11 KM. slot did without an ant in local toy stores. ABC's Rushnell thinks year before. "NBC is vulnerable because farm with ants that surf, and without the CBS will have to give mucho promo to the The Smurfs is going into syndication," dinosaurs that have hula parties and, Playhouse and other new shows. "If it says CBS' Judy Price. "It's going into its mostly, without Pee -wee Herman him- were my schedule," he says with playful sixth season and it's still 90 minutes long, self, supervising every bizarre detail. scorn, "I'd be worried about those 'revo- which gives kids options"-options to "An animated show is a safer bet," says lutionary' programs." switch to the cute little competitors on CBS' top Saturday -morning babysitter, But the best reason to stick with car- the other networks, including two car- Judy Price. "But `safe' means mediocre a toons is that the juvenile audience hasn't toon series derived from earlier hits, lot of times. There's no reason to do bor- embraced a live -action Saturday morning Muppet Babies on CBS and Flintstone ing, cutesy stuff. I'd rather fail doing show in years. Only CBS has tried it, each Kids on ABC. something good than a lot of crap."

CHANNELS 71 www.americanradiohistory.com EYE WHY 'GOLDEN GIRLS' Demographics three: Because of changing social PRIVATE and economic conditions, an increasing number of GLITTERS Americans have experienced life as a roommate of someone other than a relative, whether in college or Perhaps the biggest and surely the unlikeliest hit of while launching a career or perhaps as a money-saving the past television season was The Golden Girls, device during some midlife crisis. In center cities and NBC's comedy about four women of, shall we say, pricey suburbs, splitting the rent is fast becoming the mature years sharing a household in Florida. The norm. So the communal domesticity of The Golden scripts-despite a plethora of toilet references which, Girls, with its attendant squabbles and affection, par- my mother assures me, are apt for those who have allels the lives even of viewers who share neither their reached the untrustworthy -bladder stage of life- age nor sex. restored to the intellectual desert of Saturday night a Stars are everything: Plots resemble each other, sit- sprightliness and sophistication not seen there since uations seem much alike, a joke is a joke and nothing is by William A. the mid -1970s, when CBS anchored a knockout lineup new under the sun. What attracts viewers to some Henry III of comedies around The Mary Tyler Moore Show. shows rather than others is the personal appeal of one Industry analysts have avidly dissected The Golden or more of the leading players, whose company can be Girls' success-the best "market research" assays borne even in the privacy of one's home week after what is already pleasing week without respite. audiences-and propound- Three of the four Golden ed a number of theories. Girls-Bea Arthur, Rue They may all, of course, be McClanahan and Betty The show wrong. As ABC's chief pro- White-have had television grammer Brandon Stod- series before and have built achieves the dard remarked a few years personal followings. Estelle blend of ago, "Most copycat shows Getty was new to most fail because the copiers audiences, but her blunt, sniping and don't understand what aggressive quality echoed sympathy made the original work." the persona of stars of The diversity of opinion advertising such as Clara that about what makes The ("Where's the beef ?") Golden Girls glitter re- Peller. audiences flects the split between Gang comedy: According recognize those who believe show to prevailing network wis- business ventures succeed dom, all sitcoms must por- from their on their content and those tray a family, either a true own family who think success lies kinship unit or its home or in demographic coalition - workplace equivalent. The life. building. There is some Girls Arthur and White: Did demographics spell success? Mary Tyler Moore Show meeting ground between even said it aloud in the them. TV is a mass medium, so a good TV shoa is by finale episode: Her co-workers were, Mary told them, nature inclusive. Here are some leading hypotheses: her "family." The Golden Girls manages to achieve Demographics one: Older people provide a dispro- the blend of sniping and sympathy, nurturing and portionately large percentage of the audience on Sat- noise, that audiences are likely to recognize from their urday night, a time when many younger adults are own family life. otherwise engaged. By providing an affirmative show My own hunch is that the key to The Golden Girls is centered on the 60 -plus population, who are otherwise the relationship between Getty as mother and Arthur underrepresented in the prime time schedule, The as daughter. As the population ages, more and more of Golden Girls pulls in a big share of the sets in use. My us find ourselves aging while having to tend to even friend Kay Gardella, TV critic of the New York Daily more aged parents. Along the way, economic and News, adds that The Golden Girls appeals because it political norms often become inverted: the child, not tells older women-especially those who, like the cen- the parent, has the money and owns the house and tral characters, are no longer linked to a man-that makes the rules. Yet most offspring still want to defer they can be attractive, well dressed, well groomed, to their parents. They long to maintain the maternal articulate, lively and ready for romance. or paternal wall of authority, which gives a sense of Demographics two: Now that Cagney & Lacey has remembered order to their world. broken the ground, an appetite has been unleashed for When Bea Arthur unfailingly displays respect for shows about women relating to each other. Women her mother's dignity, no matter how shocking or con- control the dial in many, perhaps most, households tentious the old lady occasionally becomes and no mat- and they want to see more of themselves apart from ter how much Arthur must labor to shut her up, the the context of men. The Golden Girls shows women dialogue probably speaks to a great many of us. I'll who are alone learning to cope together and discover- admit, although my own maternal forebear is of ing, despite vast differences, that they have much in course a saint (are you listening, Mother?), that it cer- common and much to share. tainly speaks to me.

72 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com You've Got To Go Through CHANNELS To Get The Big Picture.

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www.americanradiohistory.com WASHINGTON THE HIGH COURT'S The second development affecting the video business is the Supreme Court decision earlier this year in City EROGENOUS ZONING of Renton vs. Playtime Theaters. Traditionally, the Court has granted bookstores and video shops equal The full -page ad for the new movie shows a young protection under the First Amendment, upholding zon- actress. Her blouse is open; she wears no skirt; one ing restrictions on "adult" businesses only when they hip is thrust out provocatively. The copy promises adversely affect property values. But in Renton, the she will "fulfill your wildest fantasy." nation's highest court ruled that a local government The ad appears not in Playboy or Hustler but in a can impose zoning that has the practical effect of elimi- recent issue of a respectable industry magazine, VSDA nating all "adult motion picture theaters" in a commu- Reports, the monthly publication of the Video Software nity-defined as buildings used for the presentation of Dealers Association, which represents at least half the "motion picture films, videocassettes, cable television nation's 25,000 video rental outlets. These are the or any other visual media" that emphasize sex. The by Joel Swerdlow stores where you rent Sophie's Choice and Dumbo; majority opinion was written by William Rehnquist. In they are also, according to an industry spokesman, "the his dissent, Justice William Brennan said the zoning nation's biggest purveyors of adult video material." ordinance "greatly restrict[s] access to lawful speech." Although statistics aren't available, it's thought that Renton strongly suggests that a Reagan -dominated as much as one -quarter of a Supreme Court might allow typical video store's profits the suppression of what it now comes from adult vid- perceives as pornography eos. And it's just this reli- through a liberal interpreta- ance on sex that makes the tion of the phrase "adverse Is visual multibillion -dollar business effect on property values." obscenity uniquely vulnerable to two It also raises the possibility recent developments. that the Court might deter- more The first is the little - mine, as the Meese Commis- noticed subtext of the Final sion has, that visual obscen- harmful than Report of the Attorney Gen- ity is more harmful than written eral's Commission on Por- written obscenity, and thus nography, which divides the more unworthy of First obscenity, written word from the vis- Amendment protections. and thus less ual image. While praising How well equipped are written words as occupying video dealers for such bat- worthy of "a special place in this and tles? In addition to censor- any other civilization," the ship, the VSDA has a long First Report then attacks video as list of public policy issues- Amendment the chief "way people now including copyright, piracy receive erotic material." X-rated videos: The cash cow becomes an albatross. and IRS depreciation sched- protection? Commission staff members ules for rented videotapes- insist they are not "book burners." They say nothing, that are vital to its members. Yet it has no political however, about being tape burners. action committee, no lobbyists and virtually no visibil- The attorney general's report has reinvigorated ity in Washington. Associations representing most many religious leaders, local officials and self-appointed other communications industries have headquarters in zealots who were already on the move against "video the capital; VSDA has its in Cherry Hill, N.J. pornography." Their efforts, while not attracting much But the VSDA does have active members in every attention, have often been successful. Some localities state and a huge constituency-millions of people who ban distribution of anything too hardcore to receive a regularly rent videos. It has also retained one of Wash- rating, and many require government permission ington's most respected attorneys, Charles B. Rutten- before stores can rent videos showing naked buttocks berg, who was first chief counsel for the National or female breasts. This latter restriction has curtailed Endowment for the Humanities and Arts under Lyn- the rental even of some mainstream hits, such as don Johnson, and who promises that "the VSDA will Splash. fight" censorship anywhere in the country. The battle is clearly just beginning, and video dealers If zoning laws or other means were used to keep may soon face more than local religious groups and anti - bookstores from selling James Joyce or Henry Miller- porn crusaders. They may, in fact, soon find themselves who were once suppressed by antipornography activ- fighting the same battles about sex and violence that ists-an outcry would result. But if videostore owners have engaged the broadcast and cable industries for so are pressured to remove certain titles from their long. National Cable television Association president shelves or face rezoning, that may not attract much James Mooney, for example, recently told a Senate attention. Video dealers deserve support, even from hearing that "if what the [Judiciary] Committee really those who don't recognize the importance of video in is trying to get at here is excessive violence in enter- our society. Inside every video burner lurks a frus- tainment media [Congress must also examine] movie trated book burner. That seminaked actress may not be theaters and videocassettes.... " attractive to everyone, but she is worth fighting for.

74 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com THE ADVERTISING COUNCIL Where there's a need, there s a way. The United Way.

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corns for bargains-ad rates as much as 20 percent CUT-RATE below network sitcoms. And networks are watching COMEDY CHIC nervously because syndicated -sitcom ad revenues come straight out of their pockets. We've all seen them, sandwiched between the local news and prime time, looking a little like the soph- omore -class play: corny jokes, phony special Clearly, first -run sitcoms are a serious business. effects, grown men wrestling with plastic lobsters. But are they good television? Some are. But many Hey, this isn't the public access channel, is it? have been produced on a shoestring, as syndicators No. It's the wave of the future, or so everyone in try to trim production costs. They're made for a frac- Hollywood is saying: the first -run, syndicated sitcom. tion of a network production-some for as little as In a trendy entertainment town, this is the latest $100,000 per half-hour episode, compared with trend-a curious new breed of programming devised $350,000 to $500,000 per episode for a network show. by Patricia E. not by the creative community but by the M.B.A.s. And while money may not guarantee quality, lack of it Bauer Not long ago, viewers of early evening television can be obvious. had their choice of the tenth rerun of Three's Com- Some of these cheap shows look it, with lighting pany or the twentieth rerun of M*A*S*H. But when reminiscent of auto headlamps, and sets that look like, the supply of these off -net- well, sets. Down to Earth, work sitcoms started to about an angel -turned - shrink and their cost went housekeeper, is supposed through the roof, local sta- to take place in heaven; it First -run tions started looking for looks more like a basement other sources of program- rec room covered with syndicated ming. The boomlet in first - white spray paint. run sitcoms really got seri- "Some of the production sitcoms are ous last year when the New values are just dreadful," the latest Program Group, a consor- says Rosemary Berry of tium of independent station D.L. Taffner, presumably trend in a owners, began producing referring to competitors. trendy town: shows of its own. Working (The plastic lobster, by the together, the stations theo- way, appears in the open- programming rized, they could bypass the ing credits for one of Taff- networks, keep costs down ner's shows, Check It Out.) devised not and assure themselves a And, oh, the scripts. A by the steady stream of program- recent episode of The Ted ming. The result was Small Knight Show had the family creative Wonder, a weekly half-hour trying to get a lion out of community show about a little robot, Tiffany Brissette plays a little robot on Small Wonder. the kitchen. And then there which has been among the were the two blind men but by the ten top -rated, first -run syndicated programs over the who accidentally switched guide dogs on Check It past year. At the same time, other syndicators started Out. Backers say the shows are "simple" because this M.B.A.s. picking up canceled network shows such as It's a Liv- is "family television" and advertisers like the family ing and Too Close for Comfort and creating new epi- audience, especially women 18 to 49, who are big sodes for them. spenders. Now a mob of producers and syndicators is trying to Considered in that light, corny television may be elbow the networks away from the financial trough, very good business indeed. Small Wonder is carried and has created more than a dozen first -run syndi- on stations covering 90 percent of U.S. TV house- cated sitcoms that are competing for airtime this fall, holds, and has big-time advertising from Procter & including Taft and Worldvision's Throb, with Diana Gamble, Kellogg, Bristol-Myers and Kraft. Canova, and Lorimar-Telepictures' One Big Family, But the real question is how long American audi- with Danny Thomas. ences will put up with low quality. So far, Small Won- The local stations are definitely interested. They der has been placed in fairly protected time slots and figure that if they cut the networks out of the financial still hasn't done that well. The show has national rat- equation, they will pay less for sitcom programming ings between 5 and 7.7-not bad for syndication, but up front and get more profits when they have enough not good by network standards. Industry watchers episodes to "strip" (show every weekday at the same are expecting a shakeout by winter. time). This is particularly vital to independents, First -run syndicated sitcoms have cleared the first whose financial and marketing strategies rely heavily hurdle: They're on the air. Now they'll have to com- on sitcoms, but it's also important to the large affili- pete for an audience. Viewers may come out the win- ates, which are prohibited by the Federal Communi- ners, though, as a changing economic picture makes cations Commission from running network -produced for more programming options. For now, the most shows in the hour before 8 P.M. that can be hoped for is that the syndie producers go National advertisers are looking to syndicated sit - easy on the plastic lobsters.

76 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com by Michael Rips In France, Hunting for Les Bons Mots Wheel of Fortune it ain't, but a French up to announce a word longer still, invari- tions, says d'Erceville, is taken from the game show is ably eliciting dismissive titters from oeuvre of Prosper Mérimée, the 19th -cen- those on stage and applause from the stu- tury author of Colomba. The French still regarded with much dio audience. enjoy bandying about the names of well- After two rounds of this, the game educated historical figures, such as Napo- the same fervor. turns to les chiffres. A stylish woman leon III, who did rather poorly on the named Benedicte triggers a machine that Mérimée dictation. And these days it produces a cut-out of a three -digit num- would not be at all unusual for the host of To an American bred on hyperactive, ber. Then she quickly and casually selects a dinner party to trot out this or some dim-witted game shows, Des Chiffres et six additional numbers, the object of the other difficult passage as a sadistic form Des Lettres (Of Numbers and Letters) game being to combine any or all of these of after-dinner amusement. and its mass appeal are unfathomable. Of six numbers-through subtraction, addi- Some who seek to explain the show's the French quiz show's 20 minutes, a long tion, multiplication or division-so as to popularity are not as kind as d'Erceville. 15 are spent in dead silence, while the arrive at the three -digit number. The They contend that the show is simply an contestants ruminate on arcane words selection of the numbers is followed by a embarrassing indulgence in what the and mystifying numeric formulas. De- sink of quiet; again the probing camera French consider their most prized talent: spite this, it has been broadcast for two records the anguished expressions of the the ability to think and speak as quickly decades and in the past few years has French in deepest concentration. and as glibly as possible. Indeed, many gained great popularity with everyone contestants on the show spend years from Parisian intellectuals to Alsatian The show's popularity has made ce- memorizing obscure words from the dic- farmers. Some have formed Des Chiffres lebrities of its four staff members: tionary, never bothering to learn what et Des Lettres clubs whose members the immensely self-satisfied host, the words mean. This trait may be traced watch together and play along. Nearly Patrice Lafont; Benedicte, a game show to the 19th century, when French parents half the adult population of France Princess Di, whose increasingly exotic believed that verbal fluency would help watches the show's finals-a larger audi- attire has become the talk of France; Jo, their children rise through the social hier- ence than the one for the finals of soccer's who looks up words in Larousse; and archy. The skill proved of little use owing most recent World Cup in 1982 (the Eu- Bernard, who looks them up in Le Robert. to the rigidity of French society, but the ropean equivalent of the Super Bowl). (The show once used only Larousse, but myth of its importance survives. The game begins with the random the publishers of Le Robert complained, "The French are an intensely competi- drawing of cards bearing nine letters. so their dictionary was given a role.) Hav- tive people," observes Suzanne Sabatier, Then follows the meat: The two contest- ing large amounts of time with nothing to an etymologist and collector of dictio- ants, studio audience and staff silently do, the cast members quibble over the naries. The program is so popular, she struggle to construct a word using the trivial and display the kind of eccentric says, because it lets viewers compete on given letters. During the silence, the mannerisms one expects to see in a home their terrain de prédilection (favorite camera scrutinizes the contestants as for the aged. field), the French language. A member of they stare at the letters, as well as the What explains the phenomenal suc- a Des Chiffres et Des Lettres club not only staff, which appears to be thinking, and cess? Beatrice d'Erceville, a journalist, competes against the contestants and the the studio audience, which displays a cat- commentator on French society and dev- studio audience but can humiliate a neigh- alogue of expressions associated with otee of the show, describes it as "the lat- bor in his own living room. The will to deep concentration: squinting, pencil est in a long tradition of tests in which the compete also explains why would-be con- chewing, tongue biting, head scratching. French demonstrate, as well as collec- testants spend years preparing for the After what seems an eternity, the con- tively reaffirm, their affection for their show, even though only the year's cham- testants give their answers and get language." One of the tests to which she pion receives any award. points for the length of their words. Not refers, the dictation, is familiar to French For readers interested in Des Chiffres infrequently, the winning contestant's schoolchildren from a very young age. et Des Lettres (and it is by no means rec- effort is topped by someone in the studio Teachers read to students from literary ommended by this writer), it airs audience, often a schoolchild, who jumps works and grade what they copy down, throughout France on Channel 2 at 6:50 thereby probing their knowledge of the nightly. If you are in Paris and find your- idiosyncrasies of French grammar, spell- self worrying that Western civilization Michael Rips, a writer and attorney in ing and conjugation. Dictations also have may finally have devolved into a homoge- New York City, lived briefly in Paris long provided a pastime for French nized mass, tune in and dispel your last year. adults. One of the most notorious dicta- fears.

CHANNELS 77 www.americanradiohistory.com The Eye of the Storm

`I've had 17 exhilarating years with the network,' says CBS News president Van Gordon Sauter, 'and one truly harrowing year-this one.'

The end came suddenly, but few were sur- News has frequently finished behind but even Phyllis George was unable to prised. On September 11, the day after the NBC in the ratings, the network experi- change the conventional perception of the CBS board purged chairman Thomas H. enced difficulties launching its new mag- CBS Morning News. Wyman and brought William S. Paley azine show, West 57th, and in August it We tried yet again to retool it and hired out of retirement to replace him, News abruptly canceled the CBS Morning the best person, Susan Winston, for the President Van Gordon Sauter himself News after a last-ditch effort to revamp task. But after considering all the abruptly resigned. Like Wyman, Sauter the show. Three weeks before his depar- options, I reached the conclusion that we had been associated with the setbacks the ture fom CBS, Sauter sat down with had nothing that was going to improve network has suffered over the past 18 Channels editors to discuss the changes our position. Then we decided to create a months, and his leadership symbolized to sweeping through the television news new unit to look at the 6 A.M.-to-9 A.M. many all that had gone wrong at CBS business. period not as a broadcast, but as a time during a period of transition. During period. We envision there a role for the his first term as news president, from THE FLAP OVER THE news division that will be more consistent 1981 to 1983, Sauter was criticized for MORNING NEWS with what it does well. So, we attempted moving the division away from hard For 30 years, the Morning News existed to save the Morning News and were news in favor of softer regional stories, as the second- or third -place broadcast unsuccessful, but I would have rather but the CBS Evening News remained because the overall economy and the made the effort and paid the price than number one in the ratings for four years. nature of the industry allowed it to con- dumped it without exploring alterna- Since returning as news president tinue regardless of its ratings. But about tives. last December, four years ago, as the environment began Sauter has once to change in the industry, every time - "HIGH ANXIETY" AT CBS more been sur- period became significant, and that sig- The problems that concern me most are rounded by nificance has accelerated at an incredible the difficulties within the institution that controversy. rate. The basic dilemma of the Morning have arisen from the Morning News epi- CBS Evening News was that the affiliates became sode and two sets of very serious layoffs, totally disenchanted. They need to pack- compounded by strenuous and unyielding age their local sales as their competitors budget controls. Put those together and do very effectively with Today and Good you have a circumstance where morale Morning, America. has plummeted. That is compounded in At the same time, the broadcast was turn with very serious questions about losing a substantial amount of money. We the ownership of the institution. This sit- performed very well with the people who uation has not, to date, diminished the watch for 12 minutes and then leave. quality of the journalism or the public Unfortunately, the ratings are deter- attitude toward the broadcasts. Yet, mined by those who join the television set within the organization there is consider- and stay there, and with them we were able distraction. If there is not some reso- absolutely noncompetitive. That audi- lution to these problems, the situation ence is primarily women who spend a could ultimately affect the journalism and good portion of the day at home. They are the broadcasting. What is said in Time or not news -oriented. They found our broad- by [New York Daily News columnist] cast, no matter what we put in it or who Kay Gardella is not going to have any we had present it, to be very newsy. impact on what we do. What does have Their primary interest was informational consequence is what our people think of entertainment. Over the last four years themselves and the institution for which we took the broadcast as far as we could, they work. We're dealing with a company

78 OCTOBER '86

www.americanradiohistory.com 'I don't know if the outside world appreciates the anxiety that the ownership issue has created within CBS News.'

that has a very high anxiety level. Some people at CBS saw me as the Great Post. We are a mass -circulation news Satan. But now the other two networks organization and we have to appeal to the CBS OWNERSHIP have emulated our broadcast. The differ- totality of our society. I've hacked around I've had 17 exhilarating years with CBS entiation between the three news broad- local news for years and have met some and one truly harrowing year, this one. I casts is not that great now, and that's a very good journalists and some pretty don't know if the outside world fully problem. And the success of NBC in mediocre journalists, exactly the circum- appreciates the anxiety that the owner- prime time and the morning has created a stances at newspapers. Somebody should ship issue has created within the organi- broad halo effect which has been very pay attention instead to local newspa- zation. There is very little any manager beneficial to the NBC Nightly News. pers, many of which exist as monopolies. can do to alleviate it. People came to CBS When you have that huge a disparity in News with expectations of a certain set of the overall ratings, I say the Evening WHY CBS MAKES NEWS values. While we were out covering the News is doing quite well. As CBS's prime We're a very public group and we have a turmoil of the world, we could come back time performance improves this fall, lot of people who walk around with mega- to this marvelous haven that protected us we're going to pull ahead, but not by the phones. We can live with that. The other from the uncertainties of the outside. margin we enjoyed two years ago. two networks also are deserving of atten- When suddenly you don't know who is tion, but they don't get it. For better or going to own and run your company, that A NEW DIRECTION AT worse-and I hope this doesn't sound like becomes a source of considerable con- THE EVENING NEWS self-adulation-I think that our history cern. A manager just can't answer every We decided five years ago to move our and people are infinitely more interesting rumor in the media-such as so-and-so focus away from Boston -New York - than theirs, and we have infinitely more had dinner with Larry Tisch last night Washington. We're telling stories from compelling squabbles. Unless you elimi- and told somebody else, who told the the perspective of the people who are nate everyone from decisions, you're maid. being affected by the news. We still have going to have leaks. a massive bureau in Washington, and THE JOB CUTS thosepeople get on the air with great reg- THE SAUTER LEGACY We eliminated 124 jobs last year and 90 ularity. But to be effective we have to tell I'm not concerned about a legacy. I feel jobs this time. The basic standard we stories in a way that our audience can very confident about the ability of the applied was: What can we best do with- grasp. The greatest threat to our credibil- people I have put in place to ensure our out? These were the jobs or the people ity is not Westmoreland suits; it is telling standards and values. What's important that we felt would least damage the insti- people stories they don't understand. We is how we adapt to the new world of com- tution if they were no longer there, which cannot simply be a wire -service listing of petition, fragmented audiences, declining is a terribly harsh thing to say and very the top 20 stories of the day. The volume revenues and soaring costs and instabil- hurtful to the people involved. It will be of local news has increased dramatically, ity about ownership. That's where I think very difficult from this point on to extract and we can't assume that viewers are my personal success or failure will be more jobs. coming to the network evening news with measured. For years, after the Evening no knowledge of what's going on outside News broadcast, I would go down to the "THE GREAT SATAN" their hometown. fishbowl and haggle and yell and scream I had told the people here that our ratings and congratulate and admire each broad- were going to deteriorate during the LOCAL TV NEWS cast. I don't have time to do that anymore summer and that during some weeks we Local news is the most democratic form and I find that dreadfully distressing. For would end up in second place, even third. of communication in this country today. much of the last year, the issues at CBS It's not that we have a flawed broadcast. The elements in local news that all the News have not been editorial. They are When we made the substantial changes in pointy -headed people complain about are outside the editorial sphere and their res- the Evening News four and a half years actually populist attributes. We are not olutions will profoundly impact the con ago, the other two networks derided us. The New York Times or The Washington tinuation of our editorial quality.

CHANNELS 79

www.americanradiohistory.com How recall was How Burke has measured for generally mea- the newspaper sured recall for industry's study TV advertisers and how viewers Correctly recall and how view- responded: brand or company ers responded: name of the last commercial viewed, 23% when phoned with n minutes after viewing Correctly 7% recalls an element of Recalls wrong commercial How well commercial (noi the when asked do viewers 13% last one), or recall about its brand, only the typeof aod- a day after remember uct and not the brcnd viewing TV ads?

How many viewers remem- 28% Whichever study seems the ber a commercial after it's Recognizes the fairer test, it hides much of over? It depends on how commercial the truth in statistical aver- you ask them. The News- when it's de- ages. While the more opti- paper Advertising Bureau, scribed, but mistic Burke research says for instance, recently an- can't recall an average 23 percent recall nounced results of a study 80% the brand commercials, the actual it designed and commis- Can't recall, range is immense. There sioned, asserting that very says "don't know" were some dull commercials few viewers recall TV ads. no one recalled, while 73 But the same major re- 49% percent remembered Ral- search firm that performed ston Purina's Meow -Mix cat that study, Burke Mar- Can't recall food ad with when the singing keting Research, provides given felines. (Sources: six-city very different findings brand or description of 4 1986 study for Newspaper to television advertisers commercial Advertising Bureau; 1976- checking their ads' effec- 85 average from Related tiveness. The discrepancy Recall Norms, Burke Mar- grows out of methodology keting Services.) that makes quite different 1 demands on viewers' memories.

Au hence shares, Audience shares, befiare new station a year after new L in -rarket signs on station signs on When indies lose the most audience simply because they have the sign on, who Independent ¡oils most to lose when a new three -station viewing gets hurt? market alternative hits town. Of course, the new The network affiliate sta- indies take pretty small tions that were already in nibbles out of the older sta- town, that's who. On aver- 79% combined 73% combined 6% tions' audiences. Many mar- age, when a new indepen- kets are getting crowded: dent signs on, the combined 39 new indies since 1980 share of the three pre-exist- joined markets where two ing network stations drops or more already existed; 27 -while the shares of pre- signed on where there was existing indies, if the mar- Second indie joins market already one other indie. In ket already has any, stays the '80s, more than 150 new the same. For instance, stations have signed on so when a second indie signs far-all but a score of them on, the market's first indie 7% combined 8% 71 % combined 8% 3% indies. (Source: Katz Tele- has kept, on the average, its vision Group. Shares are 8 percent audience share. Indie percentages of viewing Why? George Feldman of joins households in the market.) Katz Television, the big ad market Network affiliates rep firm that compiled these with two figures, thinks the affiliates or more Independent stations indies 67%-1 L-16%--8 combined combined 2%

CHARTS BY ROGER COALMAN

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