TV GETS ITS ACT TOGETHER STAGE SHOWS INSTEAD OF PILOTS, FREE PROGRAMS FOR NETWORKS AMONG FRESH IDEAS DRIVING DEVELOPMENT.

Byline: David Kronke Television Writer

As Fox and UPN conclude upfront week in New York today by announcing their fall schedules to advertisers, it likely will represent the last time business as usual will prevail.

Fox has already announced a summer schedule of original programming that, broadcast networks agree, is necessary to prevent cable from eroding audiences further. But producing such programming is expensive, and with more outlets competing for fewer viewers, the old economic model of production is quickly becoming outmoded. While expensive, high-profile series won't disappear anytime soon, both broadcast and cable networks have begun experimenting with less costly programming and modes of development.

Peter Tortorici, former president of CBS Entertainment, recently served as executive producer of Bravo's acclaimed low-budget comedy ``Significant Others'' and formed a partnership with MindShare North America to develop modestly priced entertainment. This summer, MindShare will allow ABC to air ``The Days,'' a limited-run family series, for free in exchange for commercial time within the show for his production company to offer advertisers.

``What often happens is when patterns emerge, people think, 'OK, this is the next thing,' to the exclusion of old things. That's not what this is,'' Tortorici says. ``It's another thing. In order for 52-week broadcast programming to make sense economically, you'll have to creatively use different things and different economic models to put a schedule together.''

Fox recently announced the birth of Fox 21, a boutique-style production studio based on independent-film models in which creators swap big initial payoffs for more creative freedom and more potential money down the line if their work becomes successful.

Says Jane Leisner, senior vice president of Fox 21, ``The most important thing is finding a new idea that organically fits the idea of producing something cheaper. It's getting writers to embrace the idea of this new process - taking an existing idea and throwing it into a low-budget model doesn't work. We want no one to feel they have to sacrifice anything.''

Leisner points to ``Significant Others'' as an example of the sort of series that would ideally come from this approach. Bravo's comedy, about husbands and wives bickering during couples therapy (many scenes were shot from the therapist's point of view), boasted a quirky visual style and sensibility that contributed to its appeal. It received rave reviews for Bravo and is being considered for NBC's summer schedule.

``That works so well because it found an untraditional way of shooting and producing a show, something that fit the concept organically,'' Leisner says. ``We don't want people to feel they're watching a cheap show but that they're watching something unique and engaging, as opposed to other prime-time shows. The look of the show adds to its reality and its appeal.''

Determining what kinds of shows will work in this mode of production is ``something we're still formulating,'' Leisner admits. ``Obviously, smaller casts are part of it, as are contained locations that organically make production less expensive. We're not kidding ourselves that we have to compete with the (Jerry) Bruckheimers of the world. There are certain shows I won't be doing.''

From stage to screen

Leisner expects to be working closely with Stefani Relles, Fox's director of comedy/drama development, who devised Naked TV, in which burgeoning writers develop one-act stage productions of potential sitcoms to perform live before executives (and interested theatergoers), rather than film exponentially more costly pilot episodes. The experiment's first run, produced in conjunction with the Naked Angels Theater Company, recently concluded at Santa Monica's Edgemar Center for the Arts.

Fox hailed Naked TV as a success - of the eight writers who prepared material for the program, Relles expects that half will work for the network, either to further develop their ideas or write for other Fox shows.

``We developed this program to give new writers insight to the TV process, not to be cost-cutting, but that it does that, too, is (gravy),'' Relles says. ``The purpose of my department is to find new writing talent. Naked TV was one of those blessing/curses where you're given enough rope to hang yourself. I knew what Naked Angels was capable of, but when explaining it to my peers, I often got blank stares.''

Mounting eight separate one-acts with completely different casts was something of a logistical nightmare, as well, Melissa Joan Hart (``Sabrina, the Teenage Witch'') recalls with a laugh. Hart appeared in a promising piece entitled ``Dirtbags,'' about Boston 20-somethings who never quite pried themselves from their high-school lives.

``It was huge - there were seven plays (one production was animated) and 37 people in the cast,'' she recalls. ``We had to figure out how to move all our props and actors and how it all melds together. The backstage dressing area was tiny. All we had was a curtain separating the boys and girls. It was so hectic.''

Hart fell in love with both ``Dirtbags'' and its work ethic - the cast performed for free. ``I can see this idea going years and years, and I had a blast doing it. I don't want to do another sitcom, but if this goes, I want to do it.''

Andy Bobrow, a ``Malcolm in the Middle'' first-year staff writer who contributed a show called ``Employed'' to Naked TV, observed the experience from another point of view.

Bobrow initially wrote ``Employed,'' about a young man reticently enlisted into the cubicle world after his brother blows their trust fund, as a pilot, but when asked to translate it to the stage, he encountered unexpected dilemmas. ``It was intended as a funny writing sample, to show off my chops,'' he says. ``Writers naturally compare ourselves to other writers - I didn't want to beat anyone but didn't want to be the worst. But at the table read, when I heard the other pieces, I had a genuine moment of panic (and realized) it had to work on stage.''

Bobrow says whether his work is accepted or not is no longer the point: ``I'm not holding my breath. I've done my job. We did good, and I'm trying to put it to bed on that. I can't think like a development executive.''

Not just for laughs

The idea of using live theater to develop quality TV is old news for cable network Comedy Central, which for the past couple of years has operated a live stage in Hollywood to develop comic acts. It will soon see the fruits of that development strategy when one series, ``Crossballs,'' airs in July, and another, ``Hollow Men,'' goes into production in June.

``It introduces us to writers we don't know about and perspectives not put out in the way it's put out here,'' says Gary Mann, executive producer of programming and development and producer at Comedy Central's theater on Santa Monica Boulevard. ``A lot of writers come from the broadcast world, but here they say things they don't usually say - or write about. That's what we want to latch onto.''

Prior to Comedy Central's involvement, Mann ran HBO's performance space, which developed the acclaimed cult sketch-comedy series ``Mr. Show.''

Comedy Central is currently installing three cameras of near-broadcast quality at the theater, as well as a mini-editing bay. ``Every show here is a potential mini-pilot presentation,'' Mann says. ``We'll be able to do 10 mini-pilots a month at the fraction of the cost of a broadcast pilot.''

NBC, too, is getting into the act: The network, which recently acquired the cable networks USA, Bravo and Trio, has developed a tiered budget formula for promising programs, depending on where the show winds up.

At budget-minded moments in the past, networks tinkered with the idea of cheap productions, usually unsuccessfully. Two summers ago, NBC aired ``She Spies'' before launching it in syndication; it succeeded in neither venue. Fox announced a low-budget series titled ``Septuplets'' that never aired.

Many in the industry don't want such low-rent series to succeed: Everyone wants to make more money. But as TV's economics evolve in response to diminishing viewers and the formidable phenomenon of TiVo, some are acceding to television's burgeoning reality.

``Now,'' says Tortorici, ``you can develop in the dark and let audiences be involved in development.''

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) REJECTING THE OLD

TV networks creating show in new (cheaper) ways

(2) no caption (video with a $20 dollar bill on top)

John McCoy/Staff Photographer

(3) Comedy Central's ``Hollow Men'' (with Nick Tanner, left, David Armand, Rupert Russell and Sam Spedding) was developed on stage at the network's theater space in Hollywood. The show goes into production next month.

(4) ``Significant Others,'' a successful comedy on Bravo (with Andrea Savage and Brian Palermo), proved to television executives that a show does not need a huge budget to achieve a distinctive style.