Syndication Is a Buyer’s Market Again

HOUSTON —  Steve Friedman, executive producer of “USA Today: The Television Show,” bristled when he spoke of recent insinuations that style, not substance, could be the order of the day for the company’s glossy new $40-million syndicated daily information program, the latest offering of Grant Tinker/Gannett (GTG) East.

“A lot of critics have said we’re arrogant, that we’re selling smoke and mirrors,” said Friedman, glowing with smug enthusiasm as he held court in the “USA Today” trailer booth at the annual convention of the National Assn. of Television Program Executives (known to virtually everyone in the television business as “NATPE International”), continuing here through Tuesday.

The convention is an annual five-day orgy of buying and selling during which America’s television stations--as well as a steadily increasing number of shoppers from cable television networks and foreign broadcasting companies--decide which syndicated television shows to buy and which ones to reject for the fall TV season.

The “USA Today” offering is merely one of the hottest-selling shows among the first-run syndicated shows, off-network programs, specials, movies and a host of other available syndicated programming fare.

Friedman ticked off the most impressive of the list of 105 television stations which have purchased the new program to air in September. “Now, would all of these people be buying smoke and mirrors?” he asked in a tone which implied that anyone who didn’t give the right answer wasn’t worth talking to anyway.

Maybe it’s all smoke and mirrors. Maybe not. But whether the product is “USA Today,” a documentary medical show, a remake of an old sitcom or a new talk program designed to out-talk Oprah Winfrey and Phil Donahue (All American Television is offering a weekly “talk/confrontation” hosted by G. Gordon Liddy), at NATPE International’s spectacular annual convention, it’s hard to tell the smoke and mirrors from reality.

That is particularly true in 1988, the 25th anniversary year for the programmers’ organization. This year, except for the highest-rated syndicated shows such as “Wheel of Fortune,” “Jeopardy!” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” most of those attending the convention agreed that the current syndication business is a buyer’s market.

And all the smoke and mirrors in the world can’t hide the fact that persuading the more than 5,000 television station representatives gathered here to buy new programming for the fall season, 1988, is a harder sell than ever.

“There’s a lot less buying going on (than in past years),” observed Harry McClintock, operations manager of WYOU-TV, of Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, Pa. “That’s mainly because of the success of the current syndicated shows. There’s not much room left on the schedule.”

There is, however, plenty of room here for the station executives to roam the George R. Brown Convention Center’s 240,000 square feet of exhibition space featuring 220 television program syndicators.

Although cost is always a big factor in their buying decisions, station representatives say they are buying fewer shows not because they can’t afford them, but because they have nowhere to put them.

“I’m buying less product than last year largely because I have fewer holes to fill,” said Louis E. Farraze, senior vice president of marketing for Gilmore Broadcasting of Kalamazoo, Mich.

Dean Hinson, president of the Morris Network Group which manages several Southeastern stations, is here to observe, not to buy.

“A lot of things aren’t broken, so people aren’t fixing them,” he said. “Last year, it was the same way. Too much product, and not enough need.”

Producers and syndicators have responded to the dwindling demand by offering fewer shows into syndication. Last year, according to a representative of several companies hawking their wares here, there were more than 200 first-run syndicated programs up for sale at the convention. The list this year has dwindled to a bit more than 70.

A much-debated topic in the Hollywood production community these days is the difficulty of selling hourlong drama shows into syndication, because they are expensive, less easy to schedule than half-hours and do not repeat as ‘I’m buying less than last year because I have fewer holes to fill.’

well as comedies. The idea of establishing sliding residual scale for TV drama writers to make buying hour dramas a less risky business for the stations is the crux of ongoing Writers Guild negotiations. A similar policy was adopted by the Directors Guild last summer.

But Shelly Schwab, president of MCA TV Enterprises (the TV syndication arm of Los Angeles-based MCA Inc.), believes that the syndication market is soft, period--not just for the hour drama.

“I think shows in general are hard to sell into syndication,” he said, adding that many stations now make a practice of pulling out inventory programming which has been gathering dust on their shelves rather than investing in new shows.

The 1988 NATPE International convention is less crowded, less hectic and, somehow, less important than in past years, according to veteran conventioneers. Production companies have cut back on the extravagance that has become a convention trademark.

More than one convention-goer complained that even the food wasn’t as good this year.

Still, even a toned-down, streamlined programmers’ convention is a blinding exercise in how to flaunt the limits of good taste.

The cost of an exhibit booth frequently can exceed $500,000, and Walt Disney’s Buena Vista Television appeared to top the charts with a rumored $2.5-million Magic Castle exhibit and business booth so tall that it almost scraped the hall’s ceiling.

Much of the buying and selling actually happens weeks before the convention. “They say a lot of money changes hands here, but I don’t believe it,’sniffed Art Savage of WBNJ-TV in Columbus, Ohio. Many use the convention principally as an opportunity to socialize, fraternize and keep an eye on the enemy.

Gail Brekke, general manager of KITN-TV, a Minnesota independent station, noted that although station representatives are doing less shopping than usual, other types of programmers have invaded the scene.

“This year we see people from cable companies coming to buy, people from overseas coming to buy,” she said. “It’s not just broadcasters coming to buy from syndicators. It’s a completely new playing field.”

Two of the most popular offerings in this year’s entries into the “reality programming” genre play to American hypochondria and fascination with doctors: MGM/UA’s “Group One Medical” features real doctors examining real patients; Lorimar’s “Family Medical Center” mixes a bit of drama with its reality by including actors alongside the real doctors.

Buyers seemed less sure about but still intrigued by a number of slithery new horror shows, including 30 new episodes of “The Twilight Zone” from MGM/UA, Turner Program Services’ “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not”-style journey into the macabre called “The Secret World” and Paramount’s “War of the Worlds.”

And KITN’s Brekke noted that even if fewer deals are being struck, there’s some quality behind the convention’s smoke and mirrors this year--that there may be less syndicated programming available than in previous years, but what is there is better and stations are being more selective.

Said Brekke: “People aren’t running like piranhas to feed at the trough; people are buying smarter, negotiating smarter.”