Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 20, 1995 TAG: 9501200058
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY VOBORIL NEWSDAY
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
Yet this gripping example of modern-day info-tainment isn't likely to translate into a commercial bonanza for Steve Brill and Court TV - not, at least, if you believe Brill.
``People say to us, `This must be like what the gulf war was to CNN,' but to say the Simpson case is a pivotal moment is like saying an umbrella company has a pivotal moment when it rains,'' said Brill, mastermind and president of the 3-year-old cable network.
``You don't start an umbrella company unless you think there's a reasonable chance of rain.''
In fact, Brill said, so far the Simpson case hasn't done much to push Court TV further down the road to profitability. ``If anything, Simpson could have put us a little behind, because production costs are higher. We have to have more live remotes,'' or stand-up commentary from Los Angeles County Courthouse.
As he speaks, Brill, a Yale-trained lawyer who never practiced law - ``never took the bar exam,'' he said - gestures with what has become a personal trademark, an unlit cigar.
It's here in his second-floor corner office in mid-town Manhattan that Brill personally micro-manages Court TV, mandating which trials (about 350 so far) will be aired.
Brill, 44, has a reputation for being mercurial and temperamental, but today, talking about Simpson and its alleged lack of impact on Court TV, he's warm and affable.
Brill notes that only one advertiser, the Florida Department of Citrus, showed overt enthusiasm for sponsoring the gavel-to-gavel proceedings on Court TV.
Florida Citrus' plans soured, however, when Brill decided that its commercials would be in terrible taste, given Simpson's nickname.
``They literally used the term `OJ','' Brill said of the advertising. The way it would have worked, ``You'd cut right to a commercial that said, `Get OJ.' It would have looked like a `Saturday Night Live' skit.''
Only three years out of the starting gate, Court TV has 15.8 million subscribers, a number that is expected to climb to about 19 million as the Simpson trial gets under way.
As orchestrated by Brill, Court TV goes beyond gavel-to-gavel trial coverage, which can feature hours of mind-numbing argument over esoteric points of law. Brill books lawyers to explain the whys and wherefores of, say, a line of courtroom questioning.
The channel still is losing money, though Brill declines to say how much. Brill does say Court TV is doing well enough to break even ahead of schedule, ``at the beginning of 1996 instead of the middle, and maybe a few months sooner.''
Court TV gets no advertising uptick from exceptionally high-profile trials since ``we don't sell for any one trial,'' Brill said.
That includes Simpson.
The Florida Citrus ads are not the first Court TV has rejected. He also turned down spots for a Mace-type product, and he's careful about choosing lawyers he allows to advertise.
Gig Barton, Court TV's vice president and director of national advertising, said the channel's viewership tends to have a female skew, and ages tend to be 18 to 54. In other words, it's the soap opera crowd. Brill says Court TV's ``prime time'' is daytime.
Craig Leddy, editor of the cable trade magazine Cable Vision, credits Court TV with establishing itself in the public mind.
Court TV, as Leddy sees it, is in a kind of sophomore class of cable services, along with Comedy Central, E! entertainment TV, the Sci-Fi Channel, ESPN2 and the Food Network.
Court TV has benefited from a number of sensational cases, most notably the trials of the Menendez brothers, John and Lorena Bobbitt, William Kennedy Smith and now Simpson.
To get started, the originators of Court TV had to move against prevailing opinion. Despite the success of such law-related shows as ``People's Court,'' ``Perry Mason,'' ``Divorce Court'' and ``L.A. Law,'' focus groups had suggested that the public never would accept a 24-hour station built around real trials.
``Our answer to that was to stop using focus groups,'' Brill said. Otherwise, ``I looked at 10 years digging out what trials Court TV could have covered. Every year there were one or two, maybe three very high-profile trials.''
Marty Edelman, a well-known Manhattan lawyer and occasional Court TV commentator, isn't surprised that the channel is catching on. Trials, he candidly said, are a little like public executions: ``They appeal to the prurient interest.''
The judicial branch, he added, ``is a part of government most people don't come in contact with. Sure, you can wander down and walk in the door of the courthouse, but most people don't. It's like sports, one of the few activities where one side wins and one side loses.''
Brill, on the other hand, prefers to focus on the educational aspects of televised trials. ``The most misreported and oversimplified branch of government is the judicial branch, with its focus after the fact on who won and who lost, and not on why and not on how,'' he said.
by CNB