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Meanwhile, network programmers are failing to produce any new blockbuster series. A mini-series like The Winds of War may earn ratings and prestige, but it has a fatal flaw as a piece of merchandise: it cannot be duplicated ad infinitum. The megabit series remains the most efficient kind of money machine, generating huge profits for the network in its initial run and even larger sums for the show's producer when it is later syndicated to local stations: All in the Family stands to bring in about $100 million in syndication fees. This season, Dynasty (Dallas in Denver) has hit its form, and Bob Newhart's new comedy series broke into the top ten, but the networks have not come up with a superhit since Dallas and Mork and Mindy, both of which premiered in 1978. Says former TV Producer Norman Lear (All in the Family, Mary Hartman): "A show becomes a big hit because it is dynamically different. But the networks are afraid of different. They want carbon-copy television." To the programming chiefs, says Washington Post TV Critic Tom Shales, "a new idea looks like a foreign object—it's something to run away from. So they clone whatever was successful elsewhere. Just watch: next year's surefire hit will be called Magnum E.T. They'll have a hairy guy with a mustache come in from outer space. Me, I'd rather watch a rerun of The Honeymooners."
So would millions of other viewers, and their choice has serious repercussions. Sitcom hits that have gone to syndication heaven have come back to haunt the networks. MASH, whose first ten seasons are spinning out on local stations, consistently wins higher ratings in New York City than the networks' nightly news shows. One recent Thursday in the Los Angeles market, a rerun of Three's Company on a local independent station was the top-rated show of the night, higher than Hill Street Blues, Simon & Simon or Magnum, P.I. Says Frederick S. Pierce, president and chief operating officer of ABC, Inc.: "The impact on our ratings is less from the pay movie channels than from the independent stations."
So anxious are the networks to exorcise these ghosts from seasons past that last week they petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to restore to them the syndication rights that the FCC had awarded to the series' producers in 1970. The networks argue that without the revenue from syndication it will be more difficult to commission adventurous, expensive programming. The producers counter that the licensing fee the networks pay for two airings of a series often does not cover production costs (more than $750,000 for an hour show, $400,000 for a half-hour). The profits from syndication do, though: $800 million a year. Both sides are arming themselves for the FCC decision, and the sniper fire has already begun. Says Chester Midgen, executive director of the Association of Talent Agents: "Now that the networks feel the breath of competition on their backs, they want the FCC, Congress and everyone else to bail them out."