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To viewers, of course, the question of how the networks and studios divide the money may seem to have little bearing on what they see onscreen. But these new network-producer partnerships could have an impact. With a chance to share at last in the back-end revenues, the networks may have a greater incentive to stick with a program that is struggling in the ratings, in the hope it will catch on. Yet many in Hollywood are fearful that the networks will give preference to the shows they produce or own a piece of, making it even more difficult for small, innovative outsiders to break into prime time.
Network executives argue that it would be self-destructive to make programming decisions on the basis of who owns a show rather than how popular it is. "This is an intensely competitive business," says David Westin, president of the ABC television network group. "It's a business where 250 million Americans get to vote every night and we get a report card the next morning. No network can afford to start playing fast and loose with its programming decisions in order to reap some benefits out of syndication five years down the road."
Still, the networks are busy looking for new ways in which they can profit from the afterlife of their shows. NBC is engaged in exploratory talks with Ted Turner, the Atlanta cable entrepreneur who has long hankered to own a broadcast network. NBC views Turner's cable networks TBS and TNT as a promising market for NBC reruns. Explains network president Braun: "Historically, what's always happened is that the broadcast networks create the value for a show and the third parties are able to exploit it in the aftermarket. Now the networks can participate in the value they create. And that aftervalue is increasingly going to be exploited in media supported not by advertising dollars alone but by consumer dollars -- like basic cable and various forms of pay-per-view."
As the networks take on new roles, make new alliances and face new competitors like Paramount and Warner, the old verities may no longer hold. "I think we may well see more and more situations where stations are just buying blocks of time -- whether it be from the network or from one of these new networks or from somewhere else," says Richard Kostyra, head of Media First International, a Madison Avenue media-buying firm. "Right now the networks have an exclusive in certain time periods, but there's no reason why that couldn't open up. It's possible that we could move to the point where stations will take five hours from ABC and four hours from CBS and 10 hours from Warner."
The networks are working busily -- locking up affiliates with long-term contracts and increasing the compensation money they pay stations to carry network shows -- to make sure that day never comes. But in the new world of network TV, anything can happen. Even a singing frog.