Ricki, Arsenio Hope to Party Like It's 1993
Without aid of a DeLorean, syndicators look for new magic with former stars
By Paige Albiniak -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/23/2012 12:01:00 AM EDT
Everything old is new again. Or so syndicators hope.
This year and next, several former
stars of syndication will make their return to
the medium, among them 1990s talk-show
queen Ricki Lake, late-night star Arsenio
Hall and multi-hyphenate performer Queen
Latifah, who had her own daytime talk show
from 1999-2001.
Whether viewers will embrace the return of
these personalities is unknown, but syndicators
are betting on their name recognition and
know-how to attract audiences.
“You are always looking for a known quantity,”
says Bill Carroll, vice president, director
of programming for the Katz Television
Group. “The chances for getting sampled
are greater, because these people are already
known to audiences. It’s much more difficult
today to introduce a local host from Baltimore
and Chicago with an unusual name—Oprah
Winfrey—than it used to be. It’s less difficult
to convince the audience to at least take a look
at someone they already know. Once they do,
then the show has to deliver.”
Remaining in the public eye has also been important
for all three of these talents as they head
into their launches, says Carroll. Twentieth will
premiere Lake’s new talker this fall, CBS Television
Distribution has already sold Hall’s show in
more than half the country for 2013 and Sony is
in development with Queen Latifah for next fall.
In May, Hall won NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice,
getting him out in front of audiences again, even
though CBS and Tribune both say they had
been kicking around the idea of bringing him
back to late-night long before he agreed to give
Apprentice a shot. Lake went on ABC’s Dancing
With the Stars under similar circumstances. She
already knew she was planning to return to daytime
talk when she agreed to do the primetime
reality show, and her appearance on DWTS put
her right back in the spotlight.
“There’s no substitute for Ricki’s experience,”
says Greg Meidel, president of Twentieth
Television. “She’s done 2,400 shows. She
knows the mechanics of doing a talk show.”
Twentieth is also working hard to update
Lake’s image, branding the current Ricki as a
divorcee, newlywed, mother of a blended family
and a woman who has had struggles with
her weight, just like so many of the women
who will be watching the show.
As for Hall, “Eighteen years later, we’re going
to re-light lightning in a bottle,” says John
Nogawski, CTD president. “The generation that
watched him when they were 18-34 is now
35-54, and no one is really satisfying them. Arsenio
should appeal to those 35-54-year-olds that are
right in the sweet spot of the demographic of
those Tribune-owned CW stations.”
Queen Latifah has remained in the spotlight
with starring roles in movies The Dilemma and
Joyful Noise, along with a high-profile voice
role in Ice Age: Continental Drift. She is also
starring in a remake of Steel Magnolias for Lifetime
that features an all-black cast.
“There’s a familiarity there,” says Brad Adgate,
senior VP and director of research for Horizon
Media. “If those shows get the number of viewers
today that they got when they were originally
on, they would be megahits. I think that’s what
[the syndicators] are hoping to recapture. The
threshold for having a hit show in syndication is
a lot lower now than it was back then.”
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