The Once and Future Kings

At 4 on a morning last April, Roger King sat in his suite at Manhattan’s opulent RIHGA Royal Hotel, eyeing papers that stood to make him vastly richer, though not necessarily happier. The previous three days had been a blur of last-minute negotiations, and King, known to log 100 sales phone calls before noon, was weary--maybe even weepy.

Everyone knows King World, if only by the television programs that made it so successful: “Wheel of Fortune,” “Jeopardy!” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” TV insiders know Roger, 55, and his brother, Michael, 51, through hard-to-forget encounters. Last year, at a trade show in New Orleans, for instance, the Kings threw a party to launch two offerings, “Hollywood Squares” and “The Roseanne Show.” They rented the Superdome, built a big-city skyline and hired Elton John to sing. When the escalating hoopla began to get worrisome, organizers approached Michael. What if the bash drew more than the anticipated 4,000 guests? they wondered. “Wait a minute,” he roared. “Don’t we have room for 70,000? Am I wrong here?”

Ultimately, attendance stayed in the four digits, but the tab still hit $2 million--a sensible sum if seen from the decidedly unorthodox King brothers’ perspective. Consider, for example, that when asked to assess his influence on television, Roger once replied: “Without me, there would be no television in America.”

There are those in the industry who think the Kings value themselves a bit too highly. King World Productions, after all, didn’t make its fortune by creating or producing television shows, but largely by peddling someone else’s product--syndication, it’s called. Last April, however, King World denigrators and skeptics got something of an “up yours” when CBS did a thorough evaluation of the Kings’ life work and assigned it a dollar value of . . . $2.5 billion. So there Roger was, scratching his name on a contract that eventually sold King World to CBS and will give each of the brothers more than 4 million shares of CBS stock. It also gave the brothers princely, if not regal, clout in the network hierarchy. And that wasn’t all. Although the brothers couldn’t have known it at the time, their new corporate parent was itself about to get swallowed by Viacom, creating the world’s second-largest entertainment conglomerate.

Yet it is said that Roger’s eyes glistened on that morning when the CBS deal was done. And while the notorious tough guy brushes off rumors of alleged weepiness--”No way!” he insists, “I was excited.”--neither he nor his brother denies that it was painful to let go of the business Dad created.

*

Charlie King was a 350-pound Irish American bruiser who closed deals with a handshake or a fist. Long after his death, the patriarch’s portrait hung in the company’s booth at trade shows, as if to underscore the fact that King World was, at heart, a family business.

Charlie made his fortune in radio syndication. Sporting his signature black Hamburg hat and lapel flower, he looked like a prosperous undertaker as he called on stations around the country. Once he nearly persuaded the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to host a radio show.

Charlie was earning as much as $80,000 a week in the late ‘40s. But with the rise of commercial television in the ‘50s, he watched his business fade like a weak signal. Almost overnight, he became a relic--a radio guy in a TV world. Charlie tried his luck selling appliances, novelty phonograph records, even a chain of golf ranges that promised a Cadillac to players who got a hole in one. Nothing seemed to work. The family moved in and out of a series of rental homes, nice ones when the times were good, rundown places when the money ran out. By the time Michael turned 16, the family had moved 19 times.

The ‘60s found Charlie struggling to get a handle on the TV syndication business. There wasn’t much money in it, even for someone with the physique of a grizzly bear and a penchant for shaking down clients, sometimes literally. One story that made the rounds in the late ‘60s involved a financial officer who refused to pay a commission. Charlie lifted him by the neck and shoved him through an open window. As he dangled, the man agreed to write the check.

In 1972, Charlie King died of a heart attack while trying to make a sale in San Antonio. He was 59. Michael, then in his mid-20s, took over the debt-ridden business, working out of the cramped kitchen of his brother Bob’s house in New Jersey. While dogs barked and babies screamed, he would dial up tiny stations in Illinois and Texas.

“Where are you?” one manager asked.

“Uh, I’ve got a pilot, a children’s property, I’m looking at here,” Michael said.

One of his father’s few good moves in television had been to purchase, for $250,000, the rights to the series “The Little Rascals.” Now, with the ancient episodes edited to eliminate racial stereotypes, Michael set out to pitch Spanky and Alfalfa to small television stations. He grossed $150 a week.

In the late ‘70s, Charlie’s widow, Lucille, gave each of her children--sons Bob, Roger, Richard and Michael and daughters Karen and Diana--one-sixth of King World. At the time, syndication meant “Hee Haw” and “Wild Kingdom.” Stars and producers wanted to do first-run shows for network broadcast, and they regarded people who hustled syndicated shows on a par with used-car salesmen. “Syndication was considered nothing, a wasteland; there wasn’t enough money in it,” says Dennis McAlpine, an entertainment analyst at Ryan, Beck & Co. That was about to change.

*

One day in 1983, Merv Griffin was working in his office when the King brothers arrived for a meeting. They were there to talk about the new evening version of Griffin’s game show, “Wheel of Fortune,” which King World had already signed a deal to distribute. Now the company had to prove that it could make the show a hit. Griffin admired the brothers’ pluck but was skeptical that they knew how to roll out a syndicated program. He asked what percentage of broadcast markets the brothers thought they could get for the show’s first season.

“If God were on our side, you mean?” Michael asked. “Ninety percent.”

Griffin smiled. “That’s pretty good.”

“Um,” Michael said, “I don’t think God is on our side.”

The brothers explained that, realistically, they were going to get only about 40% of the United States--if that. Griffin’s smile vanished. You can’t have a big hit with 40%. That’s a one-way ticket to the ratings cellar. You’ve got to have broad national exposure.

“Wait a minute,” Michael pleaded. “Take a look at the stations we’ve got.”

Griffin scanned the list. He saw several network owned and operated stations, considered the cream of the crop in television. Some were stations he’d long coveted for his own syndicated talk show. The Kings insisted they could establish “Wheel” on these top stations, then spread to other markets once (the brothers never say “if”) the show became a hit.

As it happens, “Wheel of Fortune” set ratings records, making it a must-buy for local stations the following year. King World collected a hefty licensing fee from each sale, which it then split with the producers. Griffin was so pleased that he let the Kings sell his next offering, “Jeopardy!”.

Flush with success, the Kings bargained hard. Some stations originally bought “Wheel” for as little as $200 a day. After it became a hit, the Kings jacked the price up to $5,000 a day--a 2,400% increase. When Michael discovered that stations were bidding more for network reruns such as “The Dukes of Hazzard” than for “Wheel,” he called the stations directly to harangue the general managers.

“You buy ‘Dukes of Hazzard,’ it’s the biggest disaster you ever had!” he shouted. “Mine you know works!”

Competitors paid attention. The Kings’ huge fees alerted everyone to a huge new source of profits. Soon local television markets were flooded with new, first-run syndication fare: “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Baywatch,” and the like. When you watch “The Jerry Springer Show” or “Xena, Warrior Princess,” you have King World to thank.

“It was always a company that was gonna take us to the top of the world,” Roger says. And somewhere, the brothers knew, Charlie King was smiling. But probably not for long, because King World’s triumph was, in many ways, the King family’s unraveling.

When the the money started rolling in for “Wheel” and “Jeopardy!”, Bob, the eldest sibling, began battling Roger and Michael for control. He felt his brothers were taking too many risks, and he objected in particular to their decision to take the company public, say former employees. Screaming matches erupted, and ended, more than once with Roger and Bob thrashing around on the floor before stunned workers. Bob quit in 1984 and sold his stake for a paltry $1.7 million; the same shares were worth $70 million just three years later. Within months he was shopping an ill-fated nighttime version of “The Price is Right,” which competed against “Wheel” in some markets.

Roger and Michael seldom discuss Bob’s role at the company, even though, according to Griffin, he’s the one who struck the all-important original pact for “Wheel.” “Suddenly Bob was gone and two big guys [Roger and Michael] showed up. . . . They said, ‘We’re taking over the deal here,” Griffin says. (Bob, still listed as a senior vice president at King World, did not return phone calls.)

Family tensions escalated in 1986 when Karen, the older sister, decided to sell more of her stock than permitted under a legally binding family agreement. Her siblings worried that the sale might depress the price of King World shares. Karen quit her post as a vice president and director and sued to force the transaction. Her brothers stopped speaking to her for months. Roger says the relationship has since been mended, but those who know the family say relations remain fragile at best.

A television executive who has known them for years offers that the Kings were once “so tight you couldn’t get a piece of single-ply toilet paper between them. The worst thing that ever happened to the family was becoming mega-wealthy.”

*

The foyer ceiling of Michael King’s 8,000-square-foot Brentwood home features a Raphaelesque painting complete with cherub. It takes some scrutiny to see that the angelic face floating on high is that of Theodore King, son of Michael and his second wife, Jenna, a former yoga instructor. The couple had the house built in 1996, importing the fireplace and other details from a ruined villa in Tuscany. On one wall is a framed portrait with a quotation: “The noblest act is that of making others happy.” More telling than the homily, perhaps, is the accompanying photo of the man to whom it is attributed: P. T. Barnum.

For his part, Michael is happiest when regaling listeners with tales of King World triumphs. Over a breakfast of lox, bagels and omlettes prepared by his personal chef, he describes a rare King World departure from entertainment. The company had entered into a partnership with Sears to do infomercials for Robogrip pliers, causing a Sears executive to wonder how Michael could spend his day selling glitzy Hollywood shows and then talk to a retailer about a household tool. Michael says he looked at the executive, and said: “You know, they’re all the same.” He laughs at his anecdote and adds: “They really are.”

As breakfast continues, Robert Madden, the brothers’ attorney, suggests that Michael talk about how the company “redefined” the syndication market. Michael orders Madden to tell the story.

“But this is your interview,” the lawyer objects.

“No, go ahead,” Michael says with a smile. “I wanna hear what I said.”

What he said, of course, is that the King brothers’ clever deals and hard bargaining changed everything--and guaranteed that no one would ever again dismiss syndication as “Hee Haw.”

On the record, station managers praise the Kings’ shrewd instincts and willingness to go all out in promoting their shows. Privately, though, many had come to resent the brothers’ bullying. “They’ve roughed up a few people in their time,” says Alan Bell, president of Freedom Broadcasting in Irvine. “The entire syndication industry is known for high-pressure tactics, and they are the ultimate high-pressure operators.”

In fact, browbeating became a point of pride at King World. As King World’s chief executive officer and vice chairman, Michael oversaw the Hollywood side of the business, while Roger, listed as chairman, supervised the sales side. It’s easy to see how the two might intimidate buyers. Barrel-chested and bull-necked, with the softening musculature of an aging tackle, Michael still looks like a good bet in a barroom brawl. Roger’s 6-foot-4 stature makes for an even more imposing presence. His ragged baritone can rise above the noise level of the most raucous party. Acquaintances say he’s just naturally physical.

“Roger,” says Bill Carroll of Katz Television Group in New York, “is the kind of guy who will put his arm around your neck and give you a hug.” It’s not a habit everyone appreciates. On a 1987 trip to Atlantic City, Roger hit the baccarat tables with some friends. News accounts say that when he won a $22,500 bet, the King World chairman let out a whoop and gave the dealer a bear hug. Then he held him aloft. By the neck. For 20 seconds. The dealer gasped for air. “Let him go!” one of Roger’s friends cried. Roger--who was scheduled to enter a substance-abuse treatment center the very next day--finally relented. The dealer sued and collected $66,000 in damages.

Just months before, Roger had gotten into a heated argument with a cabdriver in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. According to published reports, King commandeered the cab. When police arrested him, they found cocaine in his pocket. Roger pleaded no contest to auto theft and drug possession and received two years’ probation. Five years later, Roger again made news when he flew into a drunken rage at two guests at the Caesars Palace health club in Las Vegas. Speech slurred, he reportedly shouted “I’m gonna kill you!” His victims tried to escape. King pounced and hammered one of them with his fists. Three Caesars employees tackled him and dragged him away.

Roger blames these incidents on drinking, and says he receives treatment for alcoholism to this day. “We’re all capable of having frailties and I have them,” he says. “And I deal with them. Privately.”

Such frailties never seemed to hurt him on the business side, though Roger’s style was always unusual. He showed up irregularly at the company’s New York office, preferring to work from his homes in New Jersey or Florida. He never carried a briefcase, never took notes. Some associates wondered if he even knew how to read a ratings book. But none doubted that he knew how to make a sale. He memorized the license fees and programming schedules in dozens of cities and learned every station manager’s name, even in backwater markets. “He had almost a savant-type of intelligence when it comes to the television business,” says a former employee who worked closely with him for years. But he was a savant with an edge. After closing particularly favorable deals, Roger would boast to subordinates: “You don’t wanna be the guy walking into a television station selling a pencil after I’ve been there. They don’t have another dime left.”

*

At first, the King brothers wanted no part of this profile. As the sale to CBS unfolded, however, that changed. Now with Viacom in the picture, and the Kings likely to become mere courtiers in a vast corporate empire, the brothers seem even more eager to carve their names in TV history. “There’s a little bittersweetness [here],” Michael says. “This is our last interview as an independent company.”

The past few years have not been easy. With the exception of a new version of “Hollywood Squares,” a modest hit the company co-produces with Columbia TriStar Television, the Kings have stumbled badly in trying to develop their own programming. The worst fiasco is “The Roseanne Show.” Last year, the Kings made headlines by signing the abrasive sitcom star for an annual salary of $8 million. Roger promised “a monster hit,” and without having seen an episode, stations signed up for costly two-year deals. Ratings quickly took a nose dive. Last July NBC announced that its 11 stations--including those in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles--would pull the show, even though they were committed to paying licensing fees for another year.

Without a new breakout hit, the company was left clinging to its old standbys. Eighty-one percent of King World’s 1998 revenues of $684 million came from Columbia TriStar’s “Wheel” and “Jeopardy!” and Harpo Productions’ “Oprah.” These are the same three shows that carried King World to fame during the mid-’80s. Michael insists that the game shows could easily last 50 years. That’s clearly not the case with “Oprah.” Winfrey has watched her ratings erode, in part because of competition from Jerry Springer and others. Last year, she agreed to keep doing the show until 2002. After that, most industry observers suspect she’ll leave to focus on other projects. Even if she were to hang around, though, her latest deal with King World has already sharply cut back the syndicator’s distribution fee.

The biggest problem facing the Kings, however, is simply the changing business. They rose to prominence in a different era, before Disney bought ABC, before Time Warner bought Turner Broadcasting, before most people had cable TV or even knew what the Internet was. Today a major studio such as Disney--or, soon, Viacom--can control every aspect of television programming, from development to distribution. It’s called vertical integration, and it doesn’t bode well for independents. As far back as the late ‘80s, King World promised shareholders it was going to buy other firms and build a TV and video powerhouse. But the deals failed to materialize, several proposed mergers fell through, and so the company just accumulated more and more cash--$800 million as of last March. King World was stalled in the water, and in the midst of the longest bull market ever, its stock price failed to soar. By the time Roger went on the road last winter to sell King World’s latest effort, “The Martin Short Show,” the writing was on the wall.

A number of recent syndicated talk shows the Kings had nothing to do with bombed spectacularly. But it was “The Roseanne Show” that made stations particularly skittish. Roger, accustomed to dealing with top network affiliates, seemed unable to adjust his approach. In one case, he entered a meeting with executives from a prominent Midwestern independent station, joking: “You gotta be [kidding] me! This is what it’s come to? I’m pitching to you guys?” The executives were not amused and decided not to buy “Martin,” which is now airing on many less-than-stellar outlets. Short’s manager, Bernie Brillstein, echoes a common view of the Kings. “I don’t think they had any choice but to make the CBS deal,” he says. “With networks buying up every station, my God, how are you gonna sell a show?”

Roger is relatively sanguine about the recent turn of events. “In a perfect world, would I have liked to have been able to expand my own company on my own?” he asks. “Yes. But we couldn’t take my company any higher the way it was.” Michael, while insisting he is happy about the deal, refers to the transaction as “the end of an era.”

Many doubt the Kings would have found roles to suit their egos within CBS, let alone within Viacom (under the pending merger, CBS will be but a piece of a sprawling corporate empire with interests in everything from the Internet to billboards). The King brothers’ style is not conducive to a big corporate enterprise, explains McAlpine, the entertainment analyst. “They’re like bulls in a china shop.”

Indeed, it sometimes seems that the Kings have spent their careers on the wrong side of the camera. Back in the ‘80s, Michael would take over the piano at Mimi’s, a restaurant in Manhattan, and do a killer impression of Joe Cocker: You are so beautiful . . . . “We always liked the creative side,” he says. “We never liked the business as much. I never wanted to be a pinstripe suit with wingtips. I never wanted to be a banker. My brother was the same way. We absolutely wanted to climb to the top of entertainment broadcasting . . . . But we sort of had, you know, that rock ‘n’ roll spirit. We didn’t want to be IBM.”

That may explain why, in August, Michael announced that next year he will resign his CEO position at the King World subsidiary. Although he intends to stay on as a consultant, some observers expect him to split and form his own production enterprise. They say that’s just as well. Corporate suits, after all, tend to get alarmed when a party tab hits $2 million.