OUT WITH THE SLEAZE

By BRUCE HANDY

THIS WOULD MAKE FOR A GOOD installment of a daytime-TV talk show. Listen as one of the genre's most expert practitioners--a man who never flinched even when airing shows on sleazy topics like "Women Who Marry Their Rapist"--bares his soul and confesses his very own addiction...an addiction to sleazy talk-show topics. "I began in recent years to feel very seedy about what I was doing," he admits to TIME, "and yet I was seduced by the big Hollywood money. Every year you say, 'This is the last year.' Then you say, 'No, I'm going to stick around and buy one more house; let me stick around and establish one more scholarship.' And year in and year out it goes on and on... " And on, judging from the fact that on any given weekday the nation's broadcasters fill the airwaves with 23 hours' worth of daytime talk shows, most of them devoted to flaying the most personal of foibles in front of tens of millions of viewers.

Of course, recognizing an addiction is the first, most important step on the road to recovery. "I just said, 'Basta!' " explains the host, whose mix of tabloid breathiness and self-aggrandizement discerning readers will have already identified as belonging to Geraldo Rivera. Last week Rivera publicly vowed to clean up his eight-year-old daytime show, long criticized--or celebrated--as one of TV's tawdriest. How would this work in practice? "We're not going to go into the cycle where if you do hookers on your show, we'll do hookers and their daughter hookers. You can't win that way. You can't win by constantly trying to lowball."

Rivera's newfound forbearance is the most recent change in daytime television, which is facing increasing pressure, both economic and political, to tone itself down. And indeed, after years of topics like "Get Bigger Breasts or Else" (Rolonda) and "He Slept with the Baby-Sitter" (Sally Jessy Raphael), there is evidence that there may actually be a limit to what audiences will watch. Last week saw the twin cancellations of Gabrielle Carteris' and Charles Perez's shows; already consigned to the scrap heap are the programs of Carnie Wilson and Danny Bonaduce. Of the eight new shows introduced last year with great fanfare--or at least as much fanfare as could be drummed up for programs built around former stars of Beverly Hills, 90210 and The Partridge Family--only four remain; all are struggling. Even the more established shows have seen their ratings fall. Ricki Lake, whose success prompted the current batch of trash-talking clones, has seen her ratings fall 10% since 1994. Rivera's numbers have dropped even more steeply, 20%, which may indicate that his conversion is not 100% altruistic. Other shows in similar straits--including Mark Walberg's and Jerry Springer's--either have announced or are considering kinder, gentler makeovers.

All in all, it's enough to bring a smile to the face of William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education and dependable moral scold who, along with Democratic Senators Joseph Lieberman and Sam Nunn, launched a crusade last October against what Bennett termed the "cultural rot" of TV talk shows. Said Lieberman at the time: "These shows increasingly make the abnormal normal and set up the most perverse role models. It's time for a revolt of the revolted." The trio went so far as to make a TV ad targeting advertisers on the more controversial programs.

But even before Bennett's push, a number of companies, including Procter & Gamble, Sears and Kellogg, had become far more selective in placing ads. "Shows were becoming increasingly sensational, sometimes to the point of being just plain outrageous," says Elizabeth Moore, a Procter & Gamble spokeswoman. "Last spring we approached all the producers and distributors of talk shows with whom we did business. We asked them to raise their standards and improve content. Where it was clear that the shows had no intention of changing, we told them we would be withdrawing our support." The company has since stopped advertising on seven shows.

Although industry analysts give Bennett et al. some credit as a civilizing force, they point to an even more compelling factor: supply and demand. Five years ago, there were only six daytime talk shows--Oprah, Donahue, Sally Jessy, Joan Rivers, Geraldo! and Live with Regis and Kathie Lee--compared with today's 23. "You're trying to slice and dice a fairly narrow audience among an increasingly large group of players," says Betsy Frank, executive vice president of media-buying firm Zenith Media. "That wouldn't work even under the best of circumstances, even if every one of these shows were a quality offering."

In this harsh environment a new or struggling program has to stand out, and if that means forgoing shows about neo-Nazis and transsexuals, that is a price producers are apparently willing to pay. In two weeks they will head to Las Vegas to pitch their new shows at the annual convention of the National Association of Television Program Executives. Among the many allegedly more elevated offerings:

A "talk variety" show featuring Rosie O'Donnell, late of The Flintstones and K Mart commercials. "No dysfunctional families beating up on each other, I can promise you that," O'Donnell notes in a promotional video for her show, which aims to be a "Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas for the '90s."

The Bradshaw Difference, a "thought show for the '90s" from the counselor John Bradshaw, a former host of a pbs show and author of self-help books like Homecoming: Reclaiming & Championing Your Inner Child. Sample Bradshaw topics include "Dealing With Jealousy" and "Longtime Friendships that Have Failed." Producers admit that shows about neo-Nazis and transsexuals are also under consideration but insist that any such programs would be strictly limited to sensitive explorations of neo-Nazis' and transsexuals' feelings.

The Pat Bullard Show stresses the "maturity, integrity and sensitivity" of the standup comic, a former Roseanne writer. Says Burt Dubrow, programming chief for producer Multimedia Entertainment: "He's a very clean, almost Ivy League kind of guy. We're not talking about any kind of sleaze television at all."

The Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show, featuring Tammy Faye Messner (previously Bakker) and Jim J. Bullock, an unprepossessing comic and ex-regular on the New Hollywood Squares. Aiming to be an even more "fun-loving" version of Regis and Kathie Lee (as if such a thing were possible), the program's success is contingent on chemistry developing between Messner and Bullock, who suggests a more anxious, less funny Paul Lynde.

The show is already on the air in 40% of the country; producers hope to take it nationwide by fall. We'll find out then whether audiences and advertisers are so sleaze-saturated that they'll accept the former Tammy Faye Bakker, fake eyelashes and all, as their deliverer.

--Reported by Daniel S. Levy and William Tynan/New York