So Not Fun, It’s Not Funny

The entertainment folk who call, write and occasionally even share a meal with me have almost unanimously sung the same sad refrain lately, as if they were a trained chorus instead of a loose collection of mucky-mucks.

What they keep saying, in a nutshell, amounts to this appraisal of their business: “It’s not fun anymore.”

This comes as something of a revelation only because there was a day, believe it or not, when the TV industry was not the exclusive playground of multinational conglomerates, when mom-and-pop operations existed, entrepreneurs cashed in fabulously on pluck, luck and initiative and people actually had fun--recognizing that they worked in a candy store, not in a widget factory.

Nothing symbolized this more than the NATPE convention, a great bazaar of TV programming that often gaudily showcased the business’ hucksterism but also its playful, don’t-take-yourself-too-seriously side. The Times’ Howard Rosenberg labeled the experience “a gargantuan cocktail party abounding in food, booze, TV chatter and high-powered salesmanship.”

Perhaps it’s appropriate, then, given the industry’s present malaise, that this year even NATPE’s annual buffet will have a decidedly dour flavor. The convention, which once stood for National Assn. of Television Program Executives but these days goes by solely its acronym, will go on as scheduled next week in Las Vegas. The idea, as always, is for TV station executives to meet with program distributors, stocking up on shows to fill those hours that aren’t provided by a network.

Instead of the luxurious booths that once populated the convention floor, however, this year’s NATPE will be a scaled-down affair. Many major program suppliers will display their wares in hotel rooms as a cost-cutting move. TV station managers are staying away in droves, because of both the economy and corporate consolidation of television ownership, which has robbed stations of local authority to buy programming.

Scheduling choiceshave been centralized, with group owners making decisions for dozens of stations. As for weekend mornings or late night, where an entrepreneur with a dream might try to launch a new program, those hours are stocked with infomercials--again in deference to the bottom line.

You don’t have to be a dinosaur to remember when it wasn’t quite that way. Only a few years ago, you could find companies like Paramount, Viacom and King World on the floor lavishly schmoozing with potential buyers. Now, those three entities are all owned by Viacom, and studio sales pitches will be made in hotel hallways.

NATPE’s real stars, meanwhile, have always been the little guys, people hoping to make a few bucks with a fishing, cooking or sports memorabilia show. It was the blue-collar element of the TV industry, which inspired more creative come-ons, elaborate stunts and a good deal of exposed female flesh to reel in male station managers.

Thanks to such scrappy upstarts, NATPE assumed a carnival-like atmosphere. There were armadillo races, staged wrestling matches, even one company that paid to have a program’s logo printed on toilet paper rolls throughout the convention center.

The convention also provided a source of gossip that could yield dividends for months, given that the venue was usually Vegas or New Orleans or some other city that invited all kinds of inappropriate behavior. Everyone has a favorite story, but it’s hard to top the year in which undercover police busted several salesmen for Lorimar (now part of Warner Bros.) at a well-known Houston gentlemen’s club for allegedly touching the entertainers. Word spread quickly, largely because the club was packed with other conventioneers.

This year, it’s hard to imagine anyone will have much to gossip about, given how miserable everyone claims to be.

NATPE organizers have done their best to put a brave face on their predicament, citing the influx of international broadcasters attending the event; nevertheless, given the reshaping of the U.S. TV industry, it’s hard to imagine the convention enduring in anything approaching its recent form. One company informally polled U.S. TV stations and found that fewer than one in six would be sending representatives.

Admittedly, no one needs to hold any bake sales for the high-paid folks who work in entertainment. Moreover, though they obviously couldn’t control the lousy economy, studios currently pleading poverty have only themselves to blame for past excesses that helped make NATPE a financial albatross. No one forced Sony, for example, to hire chef Wolfgang Puck, as it did a few years ago, to cater its sprawling booth.

Still, the sense of joylessness industry veterans describe also translates into a lack of fun in television programming itself--a desire to avoid risks and stay on the beaten path, in what has amounted to a corporate takeover of every aspect of the process.

“There continues to be an overreliance on testing,” producer Tom Werner lamented, during a panel last week, regarding the networks’ emphasis on research in deciding what shows to pick. He added that in contrast to executives passionately championing projects, “group decisions lead to safe alternatives.”

Addressing the same group of TV reporters, network executives struck a somewhat more hopeful tone. NBC West Coast President Scott Sassa, for example, pointed to the industry’s yeoman work in the immediate aftermath of the events of Sept. 11 and suggested that those who labor in television “should realize how lucky we are to work in such an awesome and influential medium.”

Although that’s certainly a noble sentiment, it’s one you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone to echo at what promises to be a dreary, armadillo-free NATPE.

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Brian Lowry can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].