Orion's Towle sets agenda Top priority: to expand in first-run syndication By ROBERT MARICH Towle's division has regularly created the show. An earlier pilot launched first-run syndication se- was produced with an eye for fall, hen J. Scott Towle joined ries but always in small numbers. 1988 start, but the venture was Orion Pictures, then "My mission [now] is to have two, postponed. W known as Filmways, the three or four first run projects on Towle explains what held back company didn't have office space the air over the next couple of Crimewatch Tonight a season ago immediately available for its new years," says Towle. "I love first-run was the USA Today: The Televi- syndication division in 1978. "At syndication. Most of the guys on sion Show and the revival of Fam- the time it didn't seem wonderful, our staff come from a first-run syn- ily Feud locking up crucial time pe- but [then syndication chief] Jamie dication base. My top priority right riods. "We will be selective, not just Kellner and I worked for six now is to make us a real force in throwing five projects against the months out of a little three-bed- first-run syndication. We are al- wall and seeing what sticks," as- room house in Westwood [a district ready a force in feature films. And serts Towle. "If the market is not of Los Angeles] on the corner of we'll have more in the way of off- right for a given project, we'll pull Veteran and Ohio streets," says network product to offer in the fu- back for a year, which we have al- Towle, now president of Orion ture." ready done" and then come back. Television Syndication. Already for the past year, Towle Towle adds, "All our research "I referred to it as the 'Filmways has been preparing first-run syndi- and testing told us this show will slum.' The sink was always clogged. cation Crimewatch Tonight, a real- work and work big. So here we are a The wallpaper was peeling. We put ity daily strip. Crimewatch To- year later. We did some fine-tun- three desks in the dining room. We night is set for start in September ing. Suddenly this form is being had ratings books all over the floor. 1989, with ex-CBS News corre- embraced. The single best thing I ran amok selling our product in spondent Ike Pappas as host. Its that happened to us is the success the west and southwest [territories] growing lineup of independent and of A Current Affair. while Jamie honchoed the whole affiliate stations includes WWOR- operation from that dining room. TV New York and Gaylord Broad- First-run product And, frankly, we had a ball. We had casting. Stations cleared so far cov- a lot of laughs in those days." er 32% of the U.S. What's on tap next in first-run Reese Schonfeld, the founding syndication? Towle is readying a president of Cable News Network, companion program for Crime- A lot's changed watch Tonight. He explains, "You Towle (pronounced as if spelled have to move quickly to build on "toll") says he is still having fun, success." For fall 1990, Orion pro- although a lot else has changed Tow les's job of duced a pilot for a revival of game since that hand-me-down era. The show Name That Tune in associa- parent company that in recent marketing TV tion with Sandy Frank, who con- years has emphasized theatrical trols the property. films is now targeting television, programs is a far Orion owns the underlying rights where it has been only moderately cry from his to Hollywood Squares, its game active, for major expansion. Lead- show that is in its third year of its ing the charge will be Gary Nar- planned foreign current run this season. Several dino, who was just named chair- service career. years ago, it served as distributor man and CEO of Orion Television for Colbert Television's Tic Tac Entertainment. Nardino was presi- Dough and Joker's Wild. dent of Paramount Pictures Tele- Scott Towle Towle's job of marketing televi- vision from 1977 to 1983, when the sion programs is a far cry from the studio churned out a slew of hit career in the U.S. foreign service he network series such as Happy Days once had planned. He grew up in a and Mork and Mindy. Towle re- suburb of Milwaukee, where both ports to Nardino. his parents were educators with ad- "This company is moving strong- vanced college degrees. He was ly in the network development area smitten by the adventure and in- with sitcoms," says Towle, "[Nar- trigue of overseas life when, as a dino] is very, very active right now boy of 13 in 1962, he stayed for a in gearing up to make Orion more year in Taiwan with an uncle who of a force in the business from a worked for the Central Intelligence network and syndication stand- Agency. Towle was captivated by point." | witnessing first-hand the history-