TELEVISION & THE ARTS : Pay-per-Opera? : Boxing, wrestling and rock have been winners on pay-per-view. Can the arts score any points? We may soon find out.

By DIANE HAITHMAN

June 30, 1991 12 AM PT

<i> Diane Haithman is a Times staff writer</i> .

The George Foreman-Evander Holyfield fight in April grossed a whopping $48.9 million on pay-per-view television--shattering the previous record of $38.6 million for the Holyfield-Buster Douglas showdown last October.

So . . . what about a pay-per-view match-up between heavyweight tenors Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti?

Although Domingo and Pavarotti have announced no plans to enter the boxing ring, the two performers may soon find themselves thrown into an unfamiliar arena--an arena that, so far, has remained the domain of boxing, wrestling, pop music concerts and the Bikini Open: pay-per-view television.

The Metropolitan Opera has confirmed that it is in negotiations with NBC’s cable station, CNBC/FNN, to offer its 25th anniversary gala Sept. 23--featuring Pavarotti and Domingo--live from New York’s Lincoln Center as a pay-per-view TV event. Although the Met refuses to comment until plans become final, Metropolitan Opera general director Joseph Volpe said recently that the Met could expect a “six-figure profit” from such a deal.

If the Met follows through on its plan, the opening-night gala would represent cable TV’s first foray into selling live arts events to the home viewer on a pay-per-view basis.

While the Met may be the first to go public--sort of--with its plans to cash in on pay-per-view, the idea has been considered elsewhere. ABC Video invested in Broadway’s “Miss Saigon,” which opened in April, in hopes of offering its opening-night performance on pay-per-view. Although that plan failed, the company continues to invest heavily in Broadway productions and London’s theater scene in hopes of striking such deals in the future.

Disney, Reiss Media Enterprises and other entertainment companies also back Broadway and Off Broadway shows to nurture continuing relationships with the shows’ producers and stars.

To some of the players in possible performing arts-cable deals, a marriage between the 6-year-old pay-per-view industry and the arts represents the next wave in cable’s 10-year struggle to present the arts on the small screen. Those in favor of the idea argue that pay-per-view television is ripe to move in because regular cable channels have failed to provide arts programming to an audience that wants and is willing to pay for it.

Others, however, assert that attempting to present the arts as pay-per-view events--particularly live events like the opening night of the Met or “Miss Saigon”--would only intensify the legal, artistic and financial hurdles already faced by network and cable television in their historically unsuccessful (read: unprofitable) attempts to bring the performing arts to the small screen.

Bridget Potter, senior vice president of original programming for Home Box Office, is not among the converts. “I think it’s a really risky proposition,” Potter said. “There’s a very different ‘psychographic’ to the audience for a prize fight and the audience of the opening night of the Metropolitan Opera. It’s a question of how many people are willing to pay to see that--I just don’t know.”

Edward Bleier, president of pay TV, animation and network features for Warner Bros., expressed similar doubts. “Is the opening night of the Met a remarkable enough event so people will say: ‘I have to see it then and there,’ rather than waiting for it to turn up on PBS or on a videocassette? These are the questions the entire industry is asking itself right now,” Bleier said.

“When it’s a championship boxing match, and it’s major news on every newscast, and on the sports pages day in and day out . . . the potential public knows the time, the date and the place of the activity,” Bleier continued. “Secondly, the outcome of the activity is in doubt, and the viewer wants to have bragging rights the next day. So far, we have not seen any other kinds of events, other than boxing and wrestling, achieve this kind of success on pay-per-view.”

Cheerleaders for the idea include Lloyd Werner, president of Request Television and senior vice president of sales and marketing for Group W Satellite Communications. “ Everything is good (for pay-per-view),” he said. “Everything from opera to a heavyweight fight to a tax seminar . . . we could put on the frog-jumping contest from Calaveras County, if people were willing to pay $2.92 for it . . . you don’t need a huge buy rate to make much money.”

Herb Granath, president of Capital Cities/ABC Video, is the man behind the “Miss Saigon” negotiations and another believer in pay-per-view’s possibilities. Although one other executive in charge of pay-per-view at a major studio said financial considerations halted the project, Granath blamed the failure of the “Miss Saigon” deal on politics, not money.

Granath said that ABC Video entered into negotiations with producer Cameron Mackintosh at the time Mackintosh was challenged by Actors’ Equity over the casting of British actor Jonathan Pryce in the role of a Eurasian pimp, jeopardizing the show’s Broadway run. The dispute was settled in time for “Miss Saigon’s” April 11 opening night, but not in time for pay-per-view, Granath said.

“I think it would have done enormously well,” Granath said. “We had just about talked Mackintosh into giving it a shot when he became totally distracted by the problems with Actors’ Equity. The fact that it dragged on as long as it did made it an impracticality. There will be others.”

Some industry figures, as well as producers of the arts events, fall somewhere in the middle--calling pay-per-view possibilities promising, but premature. One of those is Bruce Karpas, president of Reiss Media Productions, which licenses and distributes product for its Request TV and Request 2 pay-per-view networks, as well as other pay-per-view companies.

“We’ve been looking into that cultural area for pay-per-view since its inception,” Karpas said. “We believe there is a market, although a small market, for cultural events on TV in the United States--and pay-per-view is the perfect medium for that type of what we call ‘niche programming.’

“The cultural audience is too small for the networks, and it’s actually too small for the cable networks . . . but it fits in perfectly for pay-per-view,” Karpas continued. “All you need is a small but dedicated following which is willing to pay $20 for programming that is otherwise not offered on TV.”

But Karpas cautions patience. “To date, the reason we’ve been a little frustrated is that pay-per-view is still in only 16 million homes--or 16% of the TV homes across the country. The audience is too small to justify doing any type of cultural event yet, but I emphasize the word yet . . . . At 20 million homes, that number is enough of a base to allow opera, ballet, theater and symphony concerts to come to pay-per-view. “

If Karpas is right, that day is not too far away. All told, 93.1 million American homes have television and 55.6 million of them have cable TV. According to Paul Kagan Associates, a Carmel-based media research firm, somewhere between 16.2 and 18.8 million homes currently have access to pay-per-view channels.

Kagan predicts that by the end of 1992, 22.7 million homes will have pay-per-view channels and 39.8 million will have access to pay-per-view by 1997. A spokeswoman for the company said that in the long term, still more households may be reached by alternative forms of pay-per-view delivered by satellite.

Though opinions clash on pay-per-view’s viability, most agree that when it comes to the arts and television, a huge void remains to be filled. The Big Three networks rarely risk presenting the arts--and, despite its promises, cable never achieved its lofty goal of establishing an unprecedented showcase for the arts on American television.

“I think there was a moment in time about 10 years ago when all the cultural cable started . . . and everybody thought that this would really work, and enough people would watch it to make it viable,” said Susan Wittenberg, director of performing arts programming for Arts & Entertainment (A&E;). “That didn’t prove to be the case.”

Richard Somerset-Ward, former head of music and arts for the BBC and now an independent producer, agreed. “(Cable TV) was the watchword of the ‘80s; it was how the arts organizations and opera companies were going to become rich. Not so,” he said. “Income from those things is small and will always be small, I think. And the cost of doing them is very high.”

1980 marked the launch of Bravo, which presents films, theater productions, music (highlighted by its jazz offerings) and dance specials. In 1981, three more channels unleashed cable culture on America: CBS introduced a performing arts network called CBS Cable, with ambitious plans to mix symphony concerts, live drama and dance with segments on literature, fashion, science and politics. ABC began a similar venture with its ARTS cultural channel. The Entertainment Channel, formed by Rockefeller Center and RCA, remained user-friendly by avoiding the word cultural but promised “premium network television at its finest”--including cable versions of Bob Fosse’s “Pippin” and Dudley Moore starring in “A Salute to George Gershwin.”

Less than a year after CBS Cable made its debut, the network canceled the project--having lost a reported $30 million. After struggling to survive independently for several years, ABC’s ARTS cultural channel and the Entertainment Channel, which presented mostly programs produced by the BBC, merged to create A&E.; A company spokesman acknowledged that the survival of A&E; required rounding out the all-arts format to include documentaries and comedy shows--which get higher ratings.

Other channels that touted their commitment to the arts also scaled back expectations. In 1982, Home Box Office launched HBO Theatre, which took its cameras into the theater to film stage productions, including “Barefoot in the Park,” “Bus Stop” and “Plaza Suite.” That venture died a year later.

HBO’s Potter acknowledged that the fledgling cable industry may have overestimated the audience for the arts on TV; “the word theater is not a plus for the TV audience--it denotes ‘Culture’ with a capital C,” she said.

But Potter blamed the demise of HBO Theatre more on the inherent problems of presenting theatrical productions on television than on lack of audience interest. “It was just a bad idea--or a good idea that didn’t work,” she said.

“What we did was to take the camera into a proscenium (theater) and shoot a whole bunch of stuff,” Potter said. “Which is something that works very well in sports, works very well in nightclubs, at concerts--but, unfortunately, does not work very well in theater.

“I think a piece of drama has to be adapted to the medium in which it is going to be seen--that’s the lesson that we learned,” Potter continued. “If you take a Stephen Sondheim musical that is very theatrical on stage, you can get away with filming it like an opera, because it doesn’t have the demands of reality placed on it. But if you are asking people to suspend their disbelief to follow a story, then I think you have to acknowledge that people are used to seeing plays adapted to movies--and adapted quite differently.”

Pay-per-view faces the same problem of losing something, artistically, in the translation of arts events to TV. But the biggest problem in taking cameras into the theater is money, money, money.

One theatrical producer estimates that presenting the opening night of the Met on pay-per-view could add $850,000 or more to the opera’s regular production costs. But, since the Met’s opening night traditionally sells out--at an average of $100-a-seat--Somerset-Ward believes there might be enough well-heeled opera fans left over to pay a steep pay-per-view price of $25-$50, which could still allow for a profit.

But such cases are rare, other producers say. Pay-per-view executives believe most such projects can work only if artists and theatrical unions become willing to waive or lower their TV fees in trade for a cut of the earnings. Pay-per-view companies also insist the publicity surrounding the pay-per-view presentation would enhance ticket sales for that show, rather than hurt at the box office.

In the case of the Met, argues Request TV’s Werner, the artists and producers should opt for a portion of the ancillary rights to foreign broadcasts and videocassettes, rather than allowing greed to make the deal impossibly expensive at the outset. “They were putting on the opera anyhow--it’s just a bigger payday for the opera,” Werner argued.

So far, however, most producers and performers remain skeptical; so do the theatrical unions. “Why would they do it for pay-per-view if they won’t do it for regular cable or PBS or anyone else?” said A&E;’s Wittenberg. “They could have attempted to negotiate the same deal with other broadcast venues.

“If you think of (PBS’) ‘Live From Lincoln Center,’ or one of the plays that originates from there--those cost $1 million to produce (for TV),” Wittenberg added. “It’s a labyrinth to negotiate these deals . . . I don’t know how you get around these issues, especially in New York City.” (PBS’ production costs are paid by corporate grants).

And the financial obstacles loom still larger for new Broadway and Off Broadway shows than for dance, opera and symphony performances, noted Jim Freydberg, producer of the New York production of “I Hate Hamlet,” as well as “Burn This,” “Master Harold . . . And the Boys” and other shows.

“If you open a show on Broadway, and you do a pay-per-view deal on it, you’ve probably eliminated most of the subsidiary interests you have in the show,” Freydberg said.

“When you make a film sale on a play for example, or a musical, it would include TV rights, and that would change your ability to make a film sale--and today, both on Broadway and Off Broadway, a film sale is extremely important. It’s a very large percentage of your investors getting their money back . . . and they are giving up the road rights as well. The road-company rights are worth a lot of money.”

Recently, Japan Satellite Broadcasting cut a deal to deliver the current Broadway production of “Will Rogers Follies,” starring Keith Carradine, via satellite to paying customers in Japan. “Will Rogers” producer Pierre Cossette said the show will be taped in the theater in September for satellite delivery in Japan Oct. 1. Freydberg guessed that producer Cossette might have been less willing to comply had the show been broadcast to potential ticket buyers here. “That show can make half-a-million dollars a week in the theater--why would they give that up?” Freydberg said.

Cossette disagreed. “I would have loved to do the opening night of ‘Will Rogers’ on pay-per-view,” he exclaimed. “I tried in vain to do it, but I couldn’t--(the pay-per-view channels) told me, ‘We don’t know if anybody’s going to watch that.’ ”

Cossette believes that a successful opening night on pay-per-view will never prevent a successful opening night on Broadway. “There is no room on Broadway for a marginal success--you are either there for four days, or you’re there for four years,” he said. “The money is just too big to keep a show up and running if it’s only marginally successful.

“My opinion is, if it doesn’t work on television at that big grand opening, it’s not going to work anywhere,” Cossette added. “And it’s going to whet everybody’s appetite.”

And, while Cossette agreed with Freydberg that those who stand to profit from royalties become nervous about pay-per-view presentations, he said airing such a show as “Will Rogers Follies” should not interfere with an eventual Hollywood movie deal. “The movie is altogether different from the play,” he said.

Freydberg suggests that pay-per-view might cut costs to a reasonable level by presenting revivals and regional productions, preferably when the run is over--such presentations would not endanger ticket sales or ancillary profits.

“A perfect example would have been the Ahmanson Theater’s production of ‘Light Up the Sky’ a few years ago,” Freydberg said. “It had an all-star cast, including Peter Falk. There are no subsidiary rights problems, and it was a star vehicle that would make people tune in.”

Warner Bros.’ Bleier regrets not being prescient enough to try presenting the closing night of “A Chorus Line” on Broadway--April 28, 1990, after almost 15 years at the Shubert Theatre--as a pay-per view event. “It was over --and it was unique, they had hundreds of dancers there,” he said. “There was an excitement and electricity to that. We missed that one.”

While hopeful about pay-per-view’s potential, Freydberg hopes that the Met and other artistic organizations will wait a while before diving into untested waters. “The thing that will get pay-per-view established is sporting events,” Freydberg mused. “More and more sports events will be moving to pay-per-view because the networks can no longer afford to competitively bid.

“The worst thing that could happen is for pay-per-view to go prematurely into a market that they know very little about,” Freydberg added. “Because if they fail, they won’t come back for many, many years.”