Thursday, January 13, 2000
Fox swearing off sleaze
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
PASADENA, Calif. — Turns out NBC folks were right. Cheap sleazy reality specials like When Animals Attack, which deliver addictive high ratings, are like crack cocaine for a network. Fox Broadcasting is headed into rehab. No more When Good Pets Go Bad specials. No more Busted on the Job video.
No more trying “to improve our ratings overnight by saturating our schedule with blood-and-guts reality specials and series,” says Sandy Grushow, Fox Television Entertainment Group chairman.
America will never see When Celebrities Attack, the one-hour special pulled last November, about paparazzi “provoking celebrities into needless scuffles,” says Doug Herzog, Fox Broadcasting entertainment president, at the Television Critics Association winter meetings here.
Guinness World Records: Primetime, which has taped a second season without Cris Collinsworth, also may never air.
“I got tired of snakes and spiders. I just can't watch this stuff,” Mr. Grushow says.
“(And) I can assure you the American public will never see a 747 crash-land in the Mojave Desert on the Fox network,” Mr. Grushow pledges, in response to news reports last fall.
What were they thinking? Admits Mr. Herzog: “Just pure ratings.”
NBC Entertainment President Garth Ancier on Sunday compared the quick, cheap fix of Fox's reality specials and ABC's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire to cocaine. He said dependence on such programs could wreck the networks' core, drama and comedy series.
Mr. Grushow also says “garbage” reality shows — he also called them “this crap” — has hurt the network's image.
“We've got to get away from this stuff, because, as powerful as it's been in the last couple of years in terms of driving our ratings, we believe it really is hurting (us),” Mr. Grushow says.
“Not only has our overall (ratings) performance declined, but we've even begun to see the dilution of our valuable brand identity,” he says.
Mr. Grushow, who programmed Fox for two years (1992-94), was named Mr. Herzog's boss in November after a disastrous fall, when five of seven new shows had been canceled. He continues to run the Twentieth Century Fox Television studio which produces The Practice, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Simpsons, The X-Files, Judging Amy and Chicago Hope.
Fox hopes to change its image with new series from James Cameron (Titanic), Michael Crichton (ER, Jurassic Park), actor Tom Hanks; David E. Kelley (The Practice, Ally McBeal); Bonnie and Terry Turner (That '70s Show); Haxan Films (The Blair Witch Project); Darren Star (Beverly Hills 90210); Tom Fontana (Homicide); and Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick (thirtysomething, Once and Again).
Fox also plans a live-action comedy based on The Tick cartoon, and new sitcoms from The Simpsons and King of the Hill writers.
“I'd personally rather fail with quality than succeed with garbage,” Mr. Grushow says.
But the transition will take time. In other words, some reality shows already in the can may air later. Fox isn't going cold turkey.
“Right now we're sort of on the methadone program,” Mr. Grushow says. “We've got a lot of (programs) sitting on the shelf that we need to amortize, because in the final analysis we're trying to to run a business here. So you're going to see some of it. I would never say never.”
Spoken like a true addict.
ORIGINAL IDEA: Don't stop me if you've heard this before, because Fox wants you to hear it again. They really mean it this time, they say, in pledging to air first-run shows this summer instead of reruns.
Family Guy, The PJs and possibly summer-themed Beverly Hills 90210 originals will air in June or July, Mr. Herzog says.
There's a pragmatic reason for the summer news: Fall TV lineups will be interrupted with the Summer Olympics in September (NBC), the World Series in October (Fox) and the presidential campaign.
HOTEL GUESTS: It seems like everyone comes to the Pasadena Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel when the Television Critics Association comes to town: Sidney Poitier, Lyle Lovett, Gerald Ford, Vivica A. Fox, Maury Povich, James Garner, Jacqueline Bisset, Little Richard, Camryn Manheim ... and Sheila Gray from WXIX-TV and former Channel 19 reporter Bret Martin, working for Atlanta's Fox affiliate.
Ms. Gray, the 19 in the Morning co-anchor, is interviewing Fox stars to air during February sweeps on the Fox affiliate.
Ms. Gray joined Channel 19 last summer after 10 years anchoring in Charleston, W.Va. She lives in Northern Kentucky with her daughter, 6, and husband, Ric Robinson, a retired West Virginia State Trooper. He hosts weekend talk shows on WLW-AM (700) and is a substitute teacher at Beechwood schools.
The Sidney, Ohio, native says folks in her hometown can pick up Channel 19's signal with an outdoor antenna. “After 10 years, I just wanted to get close to home,” she says.
AROUND THE DIAL: The Remarkable 20th Century looks at 1910-1919 with stories on Albert Einstein, Marconi's wireless invention and women's suffrage in the second of a 10-part PBS series (10 p.m. today, Channel 48). Last week's premiere repeats at 9 p.m. today on Oxford's Channel 14.
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