August 5, 1991 BROADCASTING MAGAZINE

Talk shows the talk of Synditel
Hosts Maury Povich and Maureen O'Boyle questioned about fall season
BY MIKE FREEMAN

In the past, hyperbole-weary newspaper columnists have viewed Synditel as the anticlimax of the Television Critics Association's three-week-long press tour, but last Thursday's closing session in Los Angeles benefited from a stronger than anticipated turnout. The TV critics apparently seized upon the rare opportunity to personally grill soon-to-be-launched talk show host Maury Povich and news magazine host Maureen O'Boyle on the growing use of dramatic re-creations based on actual news events.

It was clearly evident that the critics took advantage of a scheduling change in which Synditel officials moved the syndication conference up a day after PBS decided to shorten its portion of the TCA tour by a day.

Kinder, gentler Povich

In recognizing that his image with viewers has been associated with "tabloid" television, former Current Affair host Povich joined co-executive producer Kari Sagin in detailing how the format for Paramount Domestic Television's fall 1991 talk show, The Maury Povich Show, will give viewers a chance to see him "in a different light." Povich said the hour talk show, which has been cleared on 130 stations (88% of the U.S.), will be split into separate half-hour segments, each featuring opening remote packages introducing the segment's subject.

"I have always done best as a story-teller," said Povich.

Sagin, who was a senior producer on The Sally Jessy Raphael Show prior to being lured to Paramount, stressed that the format will "differentiate" Povich from current syndicated talk show hosts Phil Donahue, Oprah Winfrey, Geraldo Rivera and Joan Rivers. "More often than not, single-subject talk shows will lose the interest of viewers," Sagin stated.

When asked if the so-called hit list some national advertisers had him on when he hosted Twentieth Television's A Current Affair has hurt ad sales for his new talk show, Povich replied that 100% of the national commercial inventory has been sold.

"We're not going to do dramatic recreations," said Povich, in an oblique reference to their use on A Current Affair. "Frankly, I think that the use of recreations has gotten out of hand recently."

O'Boyle, A Current Affair's host following Povich's exit from the show earlier this season, replied that her program will continue to use dramatizations. She said one of the re-enactments produced this season, the rape charge against William Kennedy Smith, was based on depositions that the alleged rape victim gave to West Palm Beach, Fla., police after Smith's arrest.

"This was an opportunity to take testimony that was quoted in Associated Press and newspaper stories and best piece together events as ... the alleged victim says they unfolded," O'Boyle said. "If the newspapers have printed it, and it's a matter of public record, why should it preclude us from recounting events from her testimony?"

Investigative Geraldo

Al Primo, executive producer of Tribune Entertainment's Now It Can Be Told, emphasized that host Geraldo Rivera's image as a tabloid talk show host doesn't diminish the fact that Rivera came from an investigative reporting background, where both had originally teamed up on WABC-TV New York's Eyewitness News in the 1970's. Primo has also surrounded Rivera with six investigative correspondents, including his brother, Craig Rivera, who served previously as a correspondent with King World's Inside Edition.

While acknowledging some concern over advertiser hit lists. Primo said that more than 50% of Now It Can Be Told's advertising inventory has been sold on the upfront market. In terms of clearances, which are said to be scattered evenly between early fringe and late fringe news adjacencies, Primo stressed that out of the show's 109 markets sold, 98 of those clearances are with network affiliates.