WHAT'S THE BUZZ?

JEAN BERGANTINI GRILLO

Early word's good for Battlebots and Strong Medicine, but will sizzle mean success?

Jay Leno mentions your cable program more than once a week. The Wall Street Journal splatters pictures of your stars down page one. Saturday Night Live spoofs your show with glee. And a cult following keeps ratings up before Main Street even knows you're on the air.

Call it free publicity, call it "buzz," but when a program begins to generate interest money didn't buy - sprouting from people's tongues without special prompting- then you've hit PR heaven. This year, in particular, a number of basic and pay programs has everyone talking. And not one of them has anything to do with the mob.

Battlebots, Comedy Central's mechanical answer to the WWF, not only was the topic of discussion on The Tonight Show several nights recently, but Jay Leno has even built his own killer robot, affectionately called "Chin-Killa."

Lifetime's newest series, Strong Medicine, lured Northern Exposure star Janine Turner back into series television in August, and after only a few weeks has become the No. 1 new primetime dramatic cable series.

Over on the Food Network, Japanese import Iron Chef and BBC hit Naked Chef have made superstars of their food-obsessed culinary experts. Jamie "Naked Chef" Oliver, along with Masaharu Morimoto and his fellow "Iron Chefs," have been featured in macho publications such as GQ and Rolling Stone.

Then there's Cartoon Network's dynamic animated trio, The Powerpuff Girls, who made it on to Entertainment Weekly's "Top 100 Most Powerful People."

The question for cable executives is how to translate such series' white-hot buzz into long-term ratings, marketing and advertising gains. According to several cable networks caught up in the delightful dilemma of carefully handling a hot show, buzz is a legitimate commodity, a currency that can be traded and upgraded, milked and enhanced.

Comedy Central, in particular, knows what it's like to have a single show propel it out of obscurity, thanks to those odd little third graders from South Park.

"Before South Park launched, we were around 30 million homes," notes Doug Herzog, former Comedy Central president. "Sure, we already had our rocket built with successful programs like Win Ben Stein's Money, but South Park was the rocket fuel that really let us take off."

This year, Battlebots buzz swirls around Comedy Central, but Jay Leno's mania for the mechanical creatures isn't just a singular enthusiasm. By the third quarter, the show was ranked fourth among all new basic cable series in primetime.

"If Battlebots' buzz raises the profile of the show, then it will translate into advertising sales," says Hank Close, SVP-sales, Comedy Central. "What's important is that it's a very necessary continuation of the buzz and advertising generated by South Park."

While Close says he really hasn't had a chance to get out there and sell against the latest Comedy Central buzz-creator, Lifetime deliberately set out to continue its series' success by pushing Strong Medicine from the get-go. The show is the No. 1 new basic cable dramatic series and enjoys the No. 2 slot for new basic cable series overall.

According to Lynn Picard, Lifetime EVP-ad sales, the show, executive produced by Whoopi Goldberg, created a stir when it was previewed for advertisers in the spring. But no one show is enough, she adds. What made the buzz around Strong Medicine even sweeter was it built on positive vibes already generated by Lifetime's first real breakthrough hit, Any Day Now.

"Any Day Now really changed the perception about Lifetime," Picard says. "Advertisers saw we were spending the money on shows defining who we are. Advertisers who want to reach women realize women's health issues are very important." Strong Medicine's setting in a Philadelphia woman's free clinic makes it "perfect for the pharmaceutical industry," Picard adds.

Along with health care, packaged goods also stepped up advertising, Picard says, especially given Strong Medicine's No. 1 spot among new cable drama series in its ability to reach women 18-49 (hitting a 1.5 cable rating in those households, far outdistancing USA's second- and third-placed shows, Cover Me and The Huntress.)

Make no mistake, in cable, strong demos often trump strong ratings. In the case of Iron Chef, the unexpected presence of male viewers on a (gasp) cooking show, even sent one beer sponsor looking for time on the Food Network.

"The success of Iron Chef made it appointment viewing," says Karen Grinthal, SVP-advertising, Food Network, of the show, which pits celebrity cooking mavens against one of four culinary masters designated as "Iron Chefs." When Morimoto, the "Iron Chef Japan," took on hot New York-based chef Bobby Flay (the owner of Manhattan's Mesa Grill), Rolling Rock beer wanted in, Grinthal says.

"Typically, we don't have a lot of male viewers," Grinthal says. "But the duel between the Iron Chef and Bobby Flay when first run in June hit a 1.9 rating for us, one of our highest."

Now Food Network is pinning its hope on another macho cuisine gladiator, Jamie Oliver, host of Naked Chef. Instead of stripping himself, however, the cheeky, Cockney-accented chef strips food preparation to its bare essentials. The fact that Oliver is also hunky, 25 years old and very irreverent in his approach to cooking has helped the show get noticed in TV Guide, Rolling Stone and People magazine.

Is Madison Avenue getting motivated by all the hoopla as well?

"We're supposed to know about these shows ahead of time, not react to them," says David Lerner, partner/associate director, national TV, MindShare. According to Lerner, it's an agency's job, based on relationships with broadcast and cable networks, to know ahead of time if a show's likely to be a hit.

"Sure we listen; we pay attention," adds Aaron Cohen, EVP/director-national broadcast, Horizon Media, who says agencies will naturally prick their ears up when someone reports a series generating a lot of buzz. But, he quickly adds, "Then we take a wait-and-see attitude."

Buzz isn't always a good thing, according to Lyle Schwartz, SVP/director-media research, Mediaedge.

"There is positive buzz and negative buzz," he explains. Schwartz cites the body slam the World Wrestling Federation took over the violence issue, which Schwartz says cost it at least one fast-food chain's advertising.

"Good news travels well, but bad news travels even faster," Schwartz says. "Anything that creates a positive buzz raises the consciousness of advertisers. But it's got to be positive."

Another show that walks that fine line, Schwartz says, is MTV's new hit, Jackass, a weekly comedy show which includes what MTV calls "a bumbling cast of idiots playing with poo and dressing in a variety of men's undergarments."

While many agencies consider MTV to be in a separate category that allows for edgier content, they also raise the issue that for buzz to work in terms of creating additional ad dollars, it's got to be really, really loud.

"In order for buzz to work, it's got to expand the network's audience," Lerner says. "Otherwise, buzz doesn't stretch that far."

According to Lerner, Strong Medicine generates good buzz because it helps Lifetime reach a younger demo.

"This comes from a network where most of their core audience had been 35 years old and up," he says.

Meanwhile, Powerpuff Girls, while very strong among its target audience of kids 2-11, is also pulling in a hard-to-reach demographic, with 21.6% of its audience teens 9-14 and 14% of those male, according to Nielsen tracking conducted since the show premiered Nov. 18, 1998.

According to Cartoon Network, October's Powerstuff Powerpuff Marathon delivered a 2.1 household rating, averaging 1.3 million viewers, a 24% increase versus the same time period a year ago. Among kids 6-11, a more elusive demo, household numbers grew 81%, while teens 12-17 ratings rose by 86%, and overall delivery numbers skyrocketed to a 129% increase over the year before.

Brian Graden, president of programming for MTV, is more skeptical of the benefits of buzz. While he's delighted Jackass is doing well, he says, "We didn't go after any overt publicity at all."

Graden says that thanks to today's Internet-saturated world, MTV was confident its core audience would find this show. The payback, he says, is maintaining the brand.

"When you're MTV," he says, "you are buying into the uber-notion of music and youth culture. We are a brand, more than a set of shows."

While Graden says he "supports an advertiser's rights to place spots where they want," he doesn't fear losing ad dollars over content issues. To underscore that, MTV has placed Jackass smack in the middle of a block of programming - including Celebrity Death Match and Senseless Acts of Video - that are not for the faint-hearted.

MTV is a "destination all its own," says Graden. "And our ratings are up 500% over the past three years."

With the right mix of planning and research, niche programming's built-in appeal to a narrow core audience should easily expand beyond the show's natural reach.

Certainly, Nickelodeon's decision to create The Brothers Garcia, the first TV show to feature an all-Latino cast and creative team of writers, directors and producers, has paid off.

According to Cyma Zarghami, EVP/GM, Nickelodeon, the show's impressive 3.7/15 national rating and share debut has stood up beyond mere novelty. In the third quarter, Garcia averaged an overall 3.4/12 rating/share among kids 2-11, earning triple-digit gains for that time slot over last year's numbers.

Nickelodeon has ordered an additional 13 episodes. In October, it launched the first syndicated cartoon, Pelswick, which not only looks at the everyday life of a young boy in a wheelchair, but was created by nationally syndicated cartoonist and author John Callahan, himself a quadriplegic.

Notes L.A. Times' critic Howard Rosenberg, Callahan, "a recovering alcoholic and former mess-up, has just created a groundbreaking animated series."

"Pelswick" he adds, despite a "mutant-bordering-on-grotesque look" is "great fun. (It's) more evidence that Nickelodeon is just about TV's classiest locale for kids."

Those comments definitely sound like a buzz-bite.