Cable Success ‘Biography’ May Only Be the Beginning

NEW YORK — A large framed poster hangs over the desk of Nick Davatzes, the boss of cable’s Arts & Entertainment Network. And every time he enters his Manhattan office, it serves to remind him who the real boss of A&E; is.

On this poster is the word “Biography,” printed in elaborate and elegant script. Above it hovers the likenesses of people--Queen Elizabeth, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway--who have helped make this nightly series A&E;’s top-rated show and one of the more notable successes on cable television.

Indeed, in the fragmented world of cable TV, where audiences are usually measured in the hundreds of thousands rather than in the millions, “Biography” is an undisputed phenom. So far this year, its ratings are up nearly 20%, and 1.5 million faithful tune in each weeknight to catch a portrait of some heralded--or not-so-heralded--individual.

“Biography” has become, far and away, the signature show of A&E.; (A weekend version, called “Biography: This Week,” is seen on Saturdays.)

Born 12 years ago after the merger of two failing arts networks, A&E; was envisioned as a somewhat less tony (and more commercial) counterpart to PBS. Despite an occasional blockbuster like “Pride and Prejudice,” A&E; is mostly the repository of network reruns (“Quincy,” “Law & Order”), highbrow British mysteries (“Cracker”) and specials (the supernatural are preferred subjects).

To many viewers it is just one thing: “Biography.” The show is a one-hour look at the lives of famous (or infamous) subjects, which range from the feuding hillbilly families the Hatfields and McCoys (the highest-rated “Biography”) to Jim Carrey. The show will sometimes rush in programs on people in the news, such as Saturday’s program on Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp.

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And wherever success lurks in TV land, you can be reasonably certain that “exploitation” is not far behind. Over at A&E; headquarters, they prefer to use the more polite term “brand extensions”--marketing buzzwords that typically refer to offshoots of toothpastes or cereals rather than TV shows.

A “Biography” Web site (https://www.biography.com) was launched early last month, where the hard-core “Biography-o-phile” can download bios on some 15,000 people. Biography magazine, full of profiles and interviews, will launch in January. “Biography” home videos are being sold in bookstores, with audiotapes to be available in January. Oh, yes, there’s more: A book series (in conjunction with Random House) is in the works and so are “Biography” movie dramatizations, as well as a “Biography” fall series for kids.

Oh, yes, there’s much more: The apogee of all this activity will be a cable channel. The Biography Channel, with a likely launch date sometime late next year or in ‘98, will be wall-to-wall “Biography.” Twenty-four hours a day--365 days a year.

Ridiculous? Or brilliant? In fact, Davatzes says it is merely logical. One of the more durable series on TV, “Biography” actually began as a syndicated series back in 1961, when it was hosted by Mike Wallace who was trying to reignite a stalled career. (The show helped: After only a few years as host, he was hired by CBS News.) A revival in the late ‘70s was hosted by David Janssen.

A&E; launched its version in 1987, with Peter Graves and Jack Perkins as hosts. “We had in the back of our mind that we were looking for an anchor series, where people could say, ‘Tonight on A&E; at 8, this is what’s on,’ ” Davatzes says. “ ‘Biography’ was that choice.”

Fine, but a cable network? The idea, in fact, is not so preposterous. Consider this: Time Warner, which has been given a green light to purchase Turner Broadcasting System, is reportedly musing the idea of a cable channel based on People magazine. Such a channel would not be a dramatic departure from a Biography Channel, for it would incorporate lengthy profiles as well as news. (Davatzes says he is unaware of such a channel proposal, while TBS officials declined comment.)

The Biography Channel, in effect, would not merely be wall-to-wall bios because A&E; does not wish to dilute the franchise on its own network. But there will be various permutations, including movies, miniseries, dramatizations and even fictitious biographies (no big departure for A&E;: It has done Santa Claus and Sherlock Holmes).

“There are lots of stories to be told, in a lot of forms that they can be told,” says Davatzes, who once ran Time Warner’s revolutionary (and now forgotten) two-way cable venture Qube, before joining A&E; in 1983. “You could tell a one-hour story about Churchill or you could tell a 10-hour story about Churchill.” The basic litmus test for a suitable “Bio” subject, he says, is whether that person’s story can be told within an hour.

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A surprisingly large number of people, in fact, qualify. A&E; has a list of the 500 profiles it has done over the last nine years. It begins with names like Abbott and Costello, and Adam and Eve, and ends with the Great Ziegfeld and Zorro.

Right now, it would be hard to argue with Davatzes or A&E;, for it is currently proud proprietor of the golden gut in cable programming. In January 1995, A&E; (jointly owned by Disney/ABC, NBC and the Hearst Corp.) launched the History Channel, which has become one of the fastest-growing cable channels (just about 22 million subscribers).

History Channel’s success was unexpected, given the cable industry’s so-called channel-capacity crunch and A&E;’s unwillingness to sell stakes in the new channel to cable operators as a condition of securing a berth. Instead, its success was predicated on timing and marketing, both of which will be crucial in the Biography Channel’s kickoff, Davatzes says.

History Channel got around the channel-crunch problem partly because the Federal Communications Commission allowed cable operators to charge customers more for their cable service. They justified higher rates, in part, by claiming it cost them more to carry high-quality networks like the History Channel.

History’s relation with A&E; was also heavily promoted to cable operators. That also helped matters.

But Biography Channel’s launch won’t be quite so simple. Davatzes says the key reason A&E; wants to start a new channel is to fill a vast need for new cable channels in the near future. This expansion--sort of a “channel-capacity explosion”--will be fomented by a switch from analog technology (still used by most cable operators) to digital technology. While analog-based systems allow for only a relatively small number of channels (usually about 50 to 70), a digital system could theoretically carry more than 200.

Such systems would also offer two-way services so that Biography’s online service could be used by cable viewers as well. Digital service will start to roll out in 1998--the target date for Biography--presumably after some technical kinks can be worked out and after notoriously parsimonious cable operators figure a way to charge customers more for the enhancement.

With perhaps slight hyperbole, Davatzes says, “Either you embrace this or it’ll run you right over.”

* “Biography” can be seen weekdays at 5 and 9 p.m. on A&E.; “Biography: This Week” is shown Saturdays at 5 and 9 p.m.