Webheads go for the jugular

The race for first place is tighter than ever

By JOSEF ADALIAN

The WB is hyping new sudser "The Mountain" with billboards and print ads predicting, "Conditions Are About to Get Nasty."

The same slogan could be applied to the entire network TV industry.

With six nets fighting for an ever-shrinking number of viewers, and the race for first place tighter than it's been in years, execs on Broadcast Row are dropping any pretense of civility. Even before the 2004-05 season officially kicked off last week, there was plenty of evidence that the men and women who run the Big Six had turned into Desperate Webheads:

• Fox's strategy of cloning other nets' reality skeins before they hit the air ("The Contender," "Trading Spouses") provoked noisy protests from NBC and ABC, with execs at both nets sparing no adjectives in denouncing Fox's actions.

In response, Peacock topper Jeff Zucker upped the ante -- or, some say, lowered the bar -- when he revealed details of two top-secret Fox reality projects at a July press conference.

• Network chiefs have long made sport of the ratings game, playfully mocking their peers. But things have turned intensely personal of late, with agents and producers aghast at some of the vitriol uttered by webheads about their competitors over lunches and in private meetings.

• NBC-owned stations that carry Viacom's "Dr. Phil" were ordered to cut out any references to the doc's primetime special next week. The reason: Spesh aired on CBS, and Peacock execs didn't want to help the competish on the first Wednesday of the new season.

• Peacock and Eye webs got into a press release spat in August after CBS declared victory for the summer season, right before the start of NBC's Olympics coverage. Despite touches of humor in the releases, neither net made any attempt to cover up its contempt for the other.

• Not content to complain about how reporters cover their networks, web execs these days feel no shame about calling up journos to bitch about their coverage of other networks' ratings.

Failure to declare NBC's "Father of the Pride" an instant failure provoked howls of protest from execs at two other webs. Likewise, one high-level PR exec expressed puzzlement that the OK numbers for the WB's "Jack and Bobby" didn't have scribes writing off the show as DOA.

• Spin has gone high-tech and high-speed, with network flacks racing each morning to be the first to serve up Nielsen analysis via detailed e-mails to reporters. The missives aren't afraid to bash the competish -- " 'LAX' fell a staggering 38%," Fox's Scott Grogin pointed out last week.

Likewise, nets have become shameless in touting dubious gains: NBC's Tom Bierbaum crowed that last week's "Fear Factor" "dominated the competition," even though the reality skein scored its worst numbers ever for a firstrun episode and beat timeslot rival "Still Standing" by a single share point.

• NBC U and Viacom have turned "Access Hollywood" and "Entertainment Tonight" into house organs for the Peacock and Eye, respectfully. Mags are being used to zing competish -- as when "Access" aired an extended interview with Jeffrey Katzenberg bashing Fox's "Next Great Champ" on the same night "Champ" premiered opposite Katzenberg's "Father of the Pride."

Not surprisingly, network execs declined to talk on the record about the new climate in TV land, in an effort to maintain at least the illusion of collegiality among broadcasters.

But speaking without attribution, the gloves came on.

"It is nastier out there, and it all has to do with the personalities in charge," says one exec.

Most fingers point to the relationship between Zucker and Viacom co-prexy/co-COO Leslie Moonves.

"It's the tale of two different types of execs, both with enormous egos," adds another veteran industry insider. "They're the epicenter of all this."

Moonves doesn't hide his distaste for Zucker's management skills, openly referring to the NBC chief as "Zippy" during conversations with agents and producers.

Likewise, Zucker -- an ex-newsman who's never met a reporter he can't spin -- isn't afraid to play hardball in the scheduling room or to openly dis a rival.

Some believe Zucker's arrival in Hollywood four years ago marked a turning point. The Peacock supremo's showman abilities galled his colleagues, who felt Zucker hasn't achieved the sort of creative or commercial success to justify his oft-bold comments.

"It's all changed since Zucker," says one net execs. "Les has become nastier in response to Zucker. If you look at (ratings releases), they've become tougher since Zucker."

Others argue Moonves is far from an angel, noting that as the Eye has done better in the ratings, the entire network has taken on "an air of superiority," as one rival says.

But Zucker and Moonves aren't the only webheads on the warpath these days.

Newly installed ABC Entertainment prexy Steve McPherson "can dish it out as well as he can take it," one rival observes.

Unlike past Alphabet execs, McPherson isn't afraid to bluntly call out a competitor (he called Fox exec "thieves" during this summer's reality war) or complain to a producer he feels has aided the enemy. McPherson also shifted repeats of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" to Tuesday nights in order to blunt Fox's "Trading Spouses."

And execs from at least two nets (guess which ones) believe Fox's decision to copy other nets' reality ideas before the original concepts hit the air has "taken things to a whole different level," as one exec says.

They point to Fox reality guru Mike Darnell's win-at-any-cost philosophy as an abandonment of the old rules of engagement, using words like "desperate" to describe the net's unscripted moves in recent months.

All of this backbiting and name-calling has some TV industry observers shaking their heads. With cable continuing to eat away at the Big Six, and the economics of broadcast TV growing more insane each year, squabbling over press releases is the equivalent of Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

"There are hundreds of other guys out there offering TV shows," one insider says. "If you're spending your creative, financial and emotional resources trying to take down the other guy rather than trying to attract an audience, you're gonna be screwed in the end."