DreamWorks study: syndie 'Spin' control
Sitcom to profit while others crash, says Nielsen
That statement could sum up the exhaustive Nielsen study that the head of DreamWorks TV, Bob Jacquemin, will send out to potential TV station buyers of off-network sitcoms early next week, touting the merits of "Spin City" and the (mostly) demerits of 12 other sitcoms that will come into syndication in the next year or two.
The content of the study fills an illustrated brochure called "Show Me the Money: A buyer's guide for access and late fringe." The chart in the brochure that will hit DreamWorks' competitors like a cattle prod ranks all of the forthcoming sitcoms according to a number of criteria ranging from how well the shows perform in their network time period to their audience composition to the comedic skills of the ensemble cast.
For example, the report says four of the sitcoms -- Columbia TriStar's "NewsRadio," Eyemark's "Everybody Loves Raymond" and two from Carsey-Werner: "Cosby" and "Cybill" -- will be of so little interest to TV stations that they'll end up having to "find a home in basic cable," where the average license fees are far below the average for TV syndication.
TV stations that need a comedy that's playable latenight should avoid the young-skewing sitcoms from Paramount, "Sabrina" and "Clueless," according to the study.
Two other comedies, Warner Bros.' "Suddenly Susan" and Eyemark's "Caroline in the City," get such a high percentage of their network audience from women that the programs are a crapshoot. As DreamWorks interprets the Nielsen numbers, "there is no correlation between the size of a sitcom's female comp and success in syndication."
The study documents that assertion by running the numbers on the 40 sitcoms that completed at least four years on one of the network's primetime schedules between 1986 and 1995. Dreamworks establishes one criterion of off-network success: if the show finished in the top 25 among all syndicated programs for four or more years.
Of the 25, the report says 12 met that criterion of syndication success in the Nielsens. But across three of DreamWorks' four crucial demographic categories -- kids/teens 2 to 17, adults 55-plus and women 18 to 54 -- the 12 syndie hits fall in an almost random pattern: a big network rating in one of these three demos will offer no guarantees of either success or failure in syndication. Dreamworks' advice to stations buying "Suddenly Susan" or "Caroline": "Consult your crystal ball."
The fourth demo category, men 18 to 54, is not foolproof as a predictor of Nielsen happiness in syndication. But seven of the 12 syndie winners also finished among the top 10 in men 18 to 54 during their network-primetime run, leading DreamWorks to conclude: "You can't win without men" in rerun syndication.
"Whatever other attributes they may have," the study goes on, "75% of the high male-comp sitcoms are also the decade's big-gest successes." "Spin City," of course, has a high male 18-to-54 comp.
In the area of competitive ratings, DreamWorks disses Columbia TriStar's "Just Shoot Me" as a brittle comedy that thrives in a protected environment on NBC's Must-See-TV Thursday, but drops off dramatically when it moves to another night. For example, "Spin City" beat it both times head-to-head when NBC moved it to Wednesday at 8.
Sources say Buena Vista TV will probably end up as the domestic distributor of "Spin City" because DreamWorks has no plans to set up a syndication division, at least in the foreseeable future. Buena Vista's parent company, Walt Disney, has a 50% stake in DreamWorks TV.
While not commenting on the Buena Vista negotiations, Jacquemin says he's disseminating the study "to try to create heat around 'Spin City.' But I also hope I'm giving a tool to the stations to help them choose a show in what has become the most crowded sitcom marketplace in the history of syndication."
