In Television, Buyers Rule (for Now)

A sound stage on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank was the setting for a series of 10 consecutive power lunches in recent weeks--each for a crowd of more than 150--as the studio’s international television sales force courted buyers from around the world with their latest network series.

The same scene was simultaneously played out at the major studios across town in recent weeks as part of an annual ritual known as the Los Angeles Screenings.

Now that the networks have announced their fall schedules and are busy selling the new series to advertisers, buyers from international television stations have spent the past three weeks viewing more than 50 new fall and midseason pilots for network and syndicated series to see which they want to buy.

Smaller and quieter than the large international television markets held twice a year in Cannes (Mip-TV and MIPCOM), this international program fair is one of the most important sales events of the year for the Hollywood studios. By the time it concludes Friday, more than 1,000 international buyers will have come to town.

These unofficial taste-testers are among the first in the world to see the new season’s shows, which makes for an intense atmosphere. Buyers not only have to choose the series they like best and beat out their local competitor to buy them, they also have to gamble on the longevity and quality of the new network series based on just a pilot.

As Jean-Luc Sterckx, head of program acquisitions for commercial broadcaster VT4 in Belgium, explains: “Pilots are always very well made and often bear no relation to the series. We have learned from disasters in the past that we have to be very careful choosing series, based on the pilot.”

“Buyers have to take a chance that the series can sustain the flavor they see in the pilot,” says Marion Edwards, an executive vice president at Twentieth Century Fox International Television. “It is sort of like getting married after one date.”

Though few deals are concluded during these three weeks, the early signs from international buyers were that the Warner Bros. comedy starring Kirstie Alley, “Veronica’s Closet” (for NBC), Fox’s “The Visitor” (for the Fox network) and Steven Bochco’s “Brooklyn South” (for CBS) were among the hottest shows being offered.

The Canadians signed a raft of deals last weekend that backed up these early trends. They are the first to sign because, come fall, they have to be ready to compete with the U.S. network debut of each series, owing to the fact that U.S. broadcast signals carry into Canada.

WIC, the Vancouver-based station group, bid aggressively for “Veronica’s Closet,” beating CanWest Global, which controls other Warner shows such as “Seinfeld” and “Friends.” WIC also picked up NBC Studios’ “Working,” “The Tony Danza Show” and “Union Square”; CanWest Global bought Bochco’s “Brooklyn South,” Fox’s “Dharma & Greg” and Columbia TriStar’s “Dawson Creek”; and Baton Broadcasting bought Fox’s “Ally McBeal,” Columbia TriStar’s “Over the Top,” Warner Bros.’ “Meego” and Disney’s “Hiller and Diller” and “Genie.”

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Most other international buyers in Los Angeles were understandably playing their cards close to the vest until final decisions are made.

“I find it very exciting to be one the first people in the world to see these new shows,” said Ria Van Essen, head of program acquisition at Dutch public-television station Vara TV. But after 16 years attending the screenings, she has a pretty good idea which shows will make it beyond the networks’ initial order of six or 13 episodes.

“Often the ones we really like do not survive and I think it is sometimes because they have too much quality,” she said.

The clear message from most international buyers was that the fall network schedules were solid but lacked breakout hits. Helmut Thoma, chief executive officer of RTL Television, Germany’s largest commercial broadcaster, was even less enthusiastic.

“It seems the general quality is going down,” Thoma said. “We have seen a lot of shows and I have the feeling nothing is really new; it seems like the same old stuff.” He laughed, adding, “But the weather is nice and the social life is interesting, so I use the time to talk to the studios about other shows for Germany.”

It seems that isolating buyers in Los Angeles for a stretch of time does nothing to harm the studio’s sales pitch.

“There is definitely a glamour factor in coming to Los Angeles--not that going to Cannes is unglamorous,” Warner Bros. Television International President Jeffrey Schlesinger explained. “The buyers like feeling they are where the action is and they like having access to the production people at the studios.”

Though Warners canceled its annual screenings party because executives said that, at 2,000-plus guests, it had grown too large, the studio entertained clients privately. Most other studios did hold events: Fox hosted a bash at Chasen’s, Billboard Live! was the spot for Columbia TriStar, CBS Enterprises held a party at the House of Blues, MTM gathered at the Gate nightclub, and MGM staged a bash at the Santa Monica Museum of Flying.

Universal had a pretty good sales pitch of its own: It screened “The Lost World” to a group of buyers on the day that the Steven Spielberg action film broke the $100-million mark.

The same night Disney screened a sneak preview of its June release “Hercules” to a select group of 250 buyers.

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Getting celebrities out to meet the buyers was more problematic. Shannon Doherty skulked in the corner of a cocktail party for Pearson Television, Jim Belushi worked the crowd for an hour at Fox’s bash and the cast of the new syndicated series “Fame L.A.” did a number at MGM’s party, but convincing stars to dance with an important Latin American buyer is no easy sell. Columbia TriStar settled for a digitally generated “Seinfeld” team that guests could have themselves photographed with, far cheaper than the appearance fees for the real cast.

“The more successful the actor is, the less of this stuff they will do,” one international executive said. “The actors inevitably ask, ‘What’s in it for me?,’ and the international market just does not seem that important.”

Some actors may not realize that the international television market is growing in importance to Hollywood’s bottom line each year. The average network series costs about $1.2 million per episode to produce and can generate up to $600,000 per episode--or almost half of the budget--from international sales.

Still, no amount of posturing can sell a bad show. “When you have got something that is hot, having a limited time period to sell it in can create a frenzy,” Warner Bros.’ Schelsinger noted. “But people still don’t lose their wits. They are reaching for a show for a specific slot and they know how far they can go.”