At
first glance, NPrint, a nationally syndicated television show being produced in Austin, looks a lot
like Entertainment Tonight — high tech computer graphics, quick
editing, flashy camera work and a colorful set with two perky, good-looking
anchors. And both shows aim for the same lowest common denominator market;
tidbits of fluff thrown out with a glitzy song and dance designed to keep those
with the shortest of attention spans from surfing channels for a few seconds.
But while ET is doling out Hollywood-style the latest gossip from the
big and little screens, NPrint has adopted the same tactic to the
written word. It’s an odd juxtaposition, using such an anti-intellectual
approach to literature — an art form that has resisted the mass
commercialization that’s been shoveled onto film and music. But Doug Foreman,
creator of NPrint, made millions from another strange combination when
he created Guiltless Gourmet, a line of “healthy” junk food.
This month, NPrint will begin appearing on about 100 TV stations across
the country, reaching a total of some 70 million viewers. No Austin-produced TV
show since Austin City Limits has had that size of an audience, Foreman
says. Locally, NPrint will air on KEYE-TV, very early Sunday mornings.
“Austin has one of the highest literacy rates in the country and one of the
highest book sellers per capita, so I thought it was a natural for us,” says
Dennis Upah, president and general manager of KEYE. “I also thought it was an
innovative concept.”
According to figures from the American Booksellers Association, Austin does
have the highest per capita book sales in the country, an average of
$195.86 per household — and those numbers are almost 10 years old. Today, the
city boasts about 70 bookstores, including a Borders Books and two Barnes &
Noble superstores, and the mammoth locally-owned Book People. Is it odd that a
well-read city like Austin should produce a show so unashamedly aimed at a
post-literate society? Or is it just business?
Not `Serious’ Literature
If you’re looking for a scholarly discussion on the use of regional dialect inthe works of Faulkner and Twain, or an examination of allegory in James Joyce’s
Ulysses, you’ll be sorely disappointed with NPrint.
“We are not trying to be that show,” Foreman says. “We are not going to try to
appeal to those people. We figure ourselves first as an entertainment show.
When you pick up a book, are you doing it to be entertained or are you doing it
because it’s educational?” Foreman doesn’t deny that there are those who look
for more in a book than just a good yarn, but that’s not the audience he’s
after.
“I’m not that type of reader, a `serious’ literature reader,” Foreman says.
“That doesn’t mean that we won’t cover it, but I can tell you as a whole from a
television standpoint, serious literature and `book shows’ have no ratings. No
one gives a damn about watching them. The people are out there, but if they’re
that serious about literature, they’re not watching TV.”
True to Foreman’s words, not much in the first episode could be considered
“literature” at all. There are features on the latest John Grisham potboiler, a
tell-all autobiography from producer Aaron Spelling, and a book of make-up tips
by supermodel Cindy Crawford.
“I wouldn’t call Cindy Crawford’s book serious literature, but people are
interested in her,” Foreman says. The premiere also includes a segment on Ray
and Mary LaFontaine’s Oswald Talked, the latest in the never-ending
stream of books on the JFK assassination. NPrint interviews the authors
and the subject of the book, John Elrod, a man who was being held in a Dallas
jail in November 1963 and briefly shared a cell with Lee Harvey Oswald.
Future segments will profile authors Kinky Friedman and Erica Jong, and
there’ll be a feature on Playboy magazine’s “Girls of the Big 12” issue. “Now
that’s serious literature,” Foreman jokes.
NPrint will also air regular features on CD-ROMs and the first episode
examines Murder in the First, an interactive game that allows computer
users to try a homicide case. “We’re trying to appeal to a broad
cross-section,” Foreman says. “The people who’ll say `What’s a CD-ROM?'”
Generally, NPrint will take a look at writers who have become
celebrities — like Tom Clancy, Anne Rice, and Stephen King — and those
celebrities who have become writers — like Dennis Rodman, Montel Williams, and
Tim Allen. And the latest quickie book by a TV star like Fran Drescher will be
given the same respectful, non-judgmental coverage as a new novel from a
literary giant like Norman Mailer.
“That’s not to say that we won’t have a review, but it would be more tongue in
cheek,” Foreman says. “We’re there really to promote the business, we’re not
there to tear people apart. Why do we want to promote something we think is
bad? There’s enough good stuff out there. You won’t see Entertainment
Tonight saying `We think this movie sucks.’ We just present it and let
people make their own decision whether it’s good or bad.”
Talking Heads
Hosting NPrint will be the husband-wife anchor team of Gerry Grant andMichelle Granados, both recent Austin transplants. Granados previously was a
correspondent for E! News Daily and Grant covered “the circus that was
the O.J. Simpson trial” for ET. Both will be developing segments for
NPrint.
“We take pride in the fact that we’re producers and writers,” Grant says.
“There are a lot of anchor people in the local news markets, Austin included,
who are Ken and Barbie. They come in for the 10 o’clock news, they stroll in at
9:30, they just read the news and then they leave. That’s not us.”
“It was part of our agreement when we came here,” Granados says. “We really
wanted to be a part of the show. We wanted to let our brains work.”
Granados, orginally from San Antonio, has covered the Academy Awards and
received the Silver Quill Award for video production. Grant was nominated for
an Emmy for his coverage of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake for CBS while
working as an anchor in that city. “I think having them and people having seen
them in the national market is one of the things that helped us market the show
nationally as we did,” Foreman says.
The host segments of NPrint are videotaped at the Ranch Studios, the
former kicker dancehall at Capital Plaza that Foreman recently converted into
a soundstage facility. But camera crews are being sent on location for stories.
“We go to New York, L.A., Dallas — we go all over for stories,” Grant says.
“It’s amazing that this national show comes out of Austin, Texas.”
Hitting a New Market
Taylor Foreman Productions began development of NPrint more than a yearago and had been nearing a syndication deal with Turner Broadcasting. But all
negotiations were put on hold once media mogul Ted Turner announced he would be
selling his company to the massive Time Warner conglomerate. So Foreman decided
to produce and syndicate the show himself. Foreman hopes his show will attract
businesses that traditionally haven’t put a lot of money in television
advertising, namely bookstores and publishers.
“The amount of money that has been spent on book promotion on television has
quadrupled from what it was just a couple of years ago,” he says. “I think
publishers now are willing to get in and promote and spend a little bit more
money on advertising than they did before.”
Already, it’s been shown that a mention of a book on programs like ET or Oprah boosts sales of that title, Foreman says. He points to a recent
Publisher’s Weekly article showing that a TV plug for a book increases
traffic in bookstores, and savvy publishers are attempting to cash in on that
trend. Austin’s Book People, one of the largest bookstores in the country, has
jumped on the bandwagon and has developed a working relationship with
NPrint.
“They have a standing invititation to show up with their video crew and tape
book signings, and they have the opportunity to interview the author,” says
Philip Sansone, president and CEO of Book People. Tammy Jordan, vice president
of marketing at the bookstore, says NPrint has expressed interest in
upcoming appearances by Johnny Cochran and Jimmy Carter. “Those are all things
that would do well on their show,” she says.
Not exactly the types of authors that come to mind when we think of this
locally-owned bookstore with such a literary image, but Sansone says he doesn’t
think the NPrint approach will do any harm to literature. “I don’t
really care about that if it works,” Sansone says. “If people watch it and get
interested in books, that’s fine. The book industry needs all the help we can
get.”
If NPrint catches on, Foreman hopes to eventually produce five or six
episodes each week. Spinoffs, like Business NPrint or Kids
NPrint, could follow. “It’s not just a show; we see it as a franchise,” he
says. Part of that franchise is an Internet service offering the books and
CD-ROMs featured on the show. A toll-free phone line provides the same service
for those who aren’t online. Foreman also is selling advertising time on his
show to national clients, bringing in a few extra bucks and lessening his
dependence on the affiliates carrying the show. Someday, Foreman would also
like to host an NPrint convention, bringing together several dozen
authors for panels and mass book signings.
But will there every be an NPrint for fans of Hemingway, M.F.K Fisher,
Thomas Pinchon or Edith Wharton? “I haven’t stopped anybody from doing shows
about serious literature,” he says. “If you want to go do one, I say, `Go do
one right now. It’s a free country, you can do whatever you want to do.’ But we
are not going to be the one who does serious literature. Are we going to
promote books? Yeah.” n Locally, NPrint will air early in the morning, on KEYE-TV Channel 42 at 7am on
Sundays; the show first aired on Sept 22.
This article appears in September 27 • 1996 and September 27 • 1996 (Cover).