Syndicators are the folks who sell shows to TV stations, clipping off a percentage of the price for themselves. if they have enough shows, and the shows get healthy ratings on enough stations, they can make a decent living. King World reaps an annual net income of $100 million and enjoys a cash cache of about half a billion. That kind of money-the kind David Letterman refers to as “Oprah money”-can buy a lot of flamboyance, presuming one has the appetite for it. The King brothers have big appetites. So big, in fact, that they may be about to gobble up a major network.
Roger, 49, knocks down $1,000-a-bottle wines and rolls for the loftiest stakes in Las Vegas, where he reportedly walks around with $30,000 in his pocket. At his annual self-produced birthday bashes, performers have included Elton John and the Pointer sisters. Roger is almost as famous for his public embarrassments. In 1987, he beat up a Florida taxi driver and stole his cab, worse, he was carrying cocaine at the time, all of which landed him on probation and in rehab. A few years later, another incident in Las Vegas sent him back to rehab. “Roger is fun-so much fun you’re sick for two days afterwards,” chuckles one pal. Michael, 46, is somewhat less colorful, though he favors Malibu estates and wears shirts that appear to be left over from “GoodFellas.” In fact, some of his earliest customers were real mobsters, including Meyer Lansky (“I thought he was just some nice old Jewish guy from Miami”). Like Roger, who calls himself “a legitimate billionaire,” Michael tends to get excited. “The King family is one of the greatest American success stories,” he proclaims. “Nobody has ever had a run like we’ve had!”
The boys owe their flair to their father, Charlie, a legendary Diamond Jim Brady type who roamed atop the broadcast-sales business wearing a bowler hat and a red lapel carnation. (When Charlie died in 1972, he was on the road peddling reruns of “Little Rascals”-which his sons have parlayed into this summer’s Steven Spielberg-produced movie with themselves as coproducers.) The boys owe their success to the work ethic of sled dogs. Logging up to 60,000 air miles a year, Roger figures he’s spent half his life on the road. As for Michael, he recalls once taking a breakfast meeting in New York (and making a sale), lunching in Boston (ditto) and dining in Toronto (ditto), before finally hitting the hay in Minneapolis (where he made a sale the next morning).
Television being television, not everyone in it is enamored of the Kings’ giant-screen image. Some point to their handful of flops: turning “Monopoly” into a game show proved almost as inspired as disinterring “Candid Camera” with Dom De Luise as host. The Kings also afflicted us (albeit briefly) with “Rock ’n’ Roll Evening News.” Others accuse the brothers of employing bullying negotiating tactics. “Some companies use velvet stilettos,” one program buyer has observed. “They use a meat ax.” The charge heard most often is that the Kings practice “block booking.” If stations want to have “Oprah,” they’re urged to buy a much less popular show to get it. “You find me a distributor that doesn’t do it,” says one King admirer with a shrug. “It’s called leverage. If you’ve got it, you use it.”
For a company flush with so much cash, King World has shown surprising reluctance to play the acquisitions game. But Wall Street, which has seen the company’s stock soar from $1.11 to $38 a share in a decade, is betting the brothers will soon do just that. The hottest rumor has them merging with or acquiring a broadcast network-with Capital Cities/ABC mentioned most often. (The network declined to comment.) A merger would remove the firm’s only threatening cloud: its hit shows are getting long in the tooth. “They can only ride those ponies so far,” says one analyst.
In the meantime, the Kings have taken up breeding real horses. “We’ve bred 17 of them,” boasts Roger, “and 16 have won races. Pretty good for a guy who used to sell light bulbs and vacuum cleaners.” Though both men claim their party-animal images are passe (Roger is, after all, the father of three), neither seems the sort to pack it in tomorrow. “I told Roger we’d relax after the harvest was in,” says Michael. “Well, it isn’t in.” Vanna, keep spinning that wheel.
