Syndicate Wars

Trying to market something for everyone

When the newly formed Universal Press Syndicate of Mission, Kans., was struggling to sell to newspapers a witty but amateurishly drawn comic strip transplanted from the Yale campus daily, Philadelphia's Bulletin was among the first big papers to give the new entry a try. Seven years, a Pulitzer Prize and 400 newspaper subscribers later, Doonesbury had become one of the industry's--and the Bulletin's--hottest features. Last month Universal abruptly abandoned its old customer and, after an acrimonious court battle, gave Doonesbury to a higher bidder; archrival Philadelphia Inquirer.

That hard-knuckled faithlessness is standard practice in the rough-and-tumble world of syndicates. Since Publisher Samuel S. McClure launched the first modern-day newspaper syndicate in 1884, the marketing of comics, columnists and other readymade editorial matter has become a large and lively industry. Some 300 syndicates are trying to flog a total of 10,000 features, from "Accent on Pets," to "Zane Grey's Best," with combined sales estimated at $100 million a year.

It can be a cutthroat business. The total number of dailies in the U.S., currently 1,762, is virtually the same as three decades ago. With many newspapers already devoting from one-quarter to one-half of their news space to syndicated features, more and more syndicates are fighting harder and harder over the same territory. It is a giant zero-sum game. "If somebody wins, somebody loses," explains Dennis R. Allen, president of the (Des Moines) Register and Tribune Syndicate. "If a newspaper adds eight new comics, it cancels eight others. It's highly, highly competitive."

So competitive, in fact, that the syndicate industry is one of few in America that have not been able to form a trade association. It is also a business so fluid and freewheeling that the typical feature contract between newspaper and syndicate allows either side to cancel without cause upon giving only 30 days' notice. Thus was the New York News last May able to grab Peanuts away from the New York Post, where it had appeared for a decade. Syndicates raid each other's rosters as well. In one of the most spectacular snatches in syndicate annals, the Chicago Tribune-New York News in 1966 spirited Abigail Van Buren ("Dear Abby") away from her longtime home at the McNaught Syndicate, reportedly by promising her far more than the standard fifty-fifty syndicate split on gross revenues.

To help prevent such shenanigans, syndicates are quiet as clams about their methods and finances. Since most major syndicates are either privately held or are subsidiaries of large newspaper chains, profits and revenues are almost never disclosed. Thus there is no way of knowing for sure which syndicate is largest, though most insiders would probably not dispute this rough ranking: 1) King Features (Blondie, Beetle Bailey, "Hints from Heloise"); 2) Field Newspaper Syndicate (Dennis the Menace, "Herblock," "Ann Landers"); 3) United Feature (Jack Anderson, Peanuts); 4) NEA (Alley Oop, Bugs Bunny); 5) Chicago Tribune-New York News (Dick Tracy, Li'l Abner, Brenda Starr). After that, the field becomes blurred.

Blondie is thought to be the most widely distributed comic strip, with some 1,700 clients worldwide; Jack Anderson, with about 600 clients, is probably the most popular columnist. There is no way of knowing for sure; nor will the syndicates disclose how much they charge newspapers for their wares. The fees are based on circulation; the least a small daily can pay for any feature is probably $5 a week, and the $325 a week the Bulletin (circ. 541,000) was paying for Doonesbury is probably near the top end of the scale. Any feature that does not eventually attract about 25 clients--at an average of $10 a week--is thought to be not worth the effort. Doonesbury is said to net about $200,000 for Artist Garry Trudeau, and columnists like Buchwald and Anderson are probably in the same league.

Newspapers have lately developed a huge appetite for so-called service features on every self-help subject, from "Indoor Gardening" to "Outdoor Life." "People want to read about how to maintain the car, keep their health, fix the plumbing," says Priscilla Felton, manager of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Book serialization is another growth industry. The New York Times Syndicate has paid six-figure sums for the rights to syndicate forthcoming blockbusters by H.R. Haldeman and Richard Nixon, and picked up Alex Haley's Roots for a song before the book's TV series caught on. Universal is turning thrillers like Raise the Titanic! and Storm Warning into comic strips.

It is not easy for young artists and writers to break into the game. Field Syndicate examines about 2,000 new comic strips a year, but adopts only one of them every two or three years. Some budding Buchwalds and Trudeaus have tried to syndicate themselves. Former Buchwald Partner Robert Yoakum wrote his own humor column for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate from 1972 to 1975; since then he has successfully sold it on his own--to twice as many newspapers. But few would-be Yoakums can afford the start-up costs that technology now demands; a major syndicate transmits a feature instantaneously via wire or satellite from its computer directly to a newspaper's computer.

In addition, newspaper editors are notoriously reluctant to shuffle their comic-and-editorial page lineups to accommodate newcomers, for fear of alienating readers. That preference for old, familiar faces is becoming easier to satisfy as newspapers, prodded by antitrust actions, gradually give up the broad exclusivity they have long insisted upon. Universal, for instance, had to guarantee the Bulletin that no other paper within 100 miles of Philadelphia could run Doonesbury; switching to the more permissive Inquirer opened the strip to 26 other potential newspaper customers in the area.

Nevertheless, in the past decade or so, new columnists and cartoonists have, by dint of sheer talent, broken through and gathered a following. Among them: George Will and David Broder of the Washington Post Writers Group; Ellen Goodman, whose hip and compassionate Boston Globe commentary is also distributed by the Post Group; Jeff MacNelly, the Pulitzer-winning editorial cartoonist who next week will launch with the Trib-News syndicate a comic strip about a bird who edits a newspaper; New York News Funnyman Gerald Nachman (TIME, Aug. 23,1976); and, most recently, Jack Germond and Jules Witcover, a pair of Washington veterans whose six-month-old investigative column promises to match Jack Anderson scoop for scoop.

Just because such talent is syndicated does not mean it always sees print. Some editors subscribe to a feature simply to keep it out of the hands of a competitor. Syndicated scribblers are also accustomed to having their more controversial works suppressed, a frequent fate of Jack Anderson's sometimes steamy disclosures and Doonesbury's acid wit. Such censorship, however, can boomerang. The New York News last week quietly dropped six Doonesburys that poked fun at the paper for its breathless Son of Sam coverage. To be sure that the twitting of its rival be made public, Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, which has no contract with Doonesbury, ran two of the offending strips anyway.

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