DATE: Tuesday, September 16, 1997           TAG: 9709160068

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Bonko 
                                            LENGTH:  102 lines

NEW OWNER LIKELY TO MAKE WGNT MORE ACTION-PACKED

ON THE OUTSIDE, it's still the same ol' Channel 27 - the rock on which Pat Robertson built the Christian Broadcasting Network decades ago. The station is still at the same ol' address on Spratley Street in Portsmouth - right smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

The WGNT tower rises to meet the clouds from a clutch of modest homes, clotheslines and chain-link fences.

Inside the building at 1318 Spratley, it's anything but the same 'ol same 'ol WGNT.

The station has a new owner - an 800-pound gorilla named Paramount Stations Group, a subsidiary of an even bigger beast roaming the media bush. That's Viacom Inc., which is into everything from renting movies (Blockbuster) to invading the brain cells of the pre-puberty crowd (MTV). They paid $42.5 million for the station.

The station has a new general manager - C. Michael Gehring, who comes here to the 39th largest TV market from running WATL in Atlanta, which is market No. 10.

WGNT has a new schedule for the fall. It's where you'll find ``Judge Judy'' (Monday through Friday at 9 a.m.), TV that springs from a Disney movie (``Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The Series'') Saturday night at 8, and the ``lost'' series of ``Star Trek'' creator Gene Roddenberry (``Earth: Final Conflict,'' Thursday at 8 p.m.). It was lost until somebody realized the money it might generate if it were found.

New owner. New boss. New schedule.

What's it all mean for you, the viewer in a TV market that's bigger than Buffalo and New Orleans, both of whom have teams in the National Football League but we don't?

It means nothing . . . today.

For the moment, the only changes you'll notice on Channel 27 are those that Gehring has wrought. WGNT will continue as a UPN affiliate, so there's no danger of being deprived of Andrew Dice Clay in ``Hitz.''

Much of the WGNT schedule was set before Gehring took over July 14 and the Paramount deal was struck.

He's been here long enough to study the population and learn it's a young viewership that isn't much into ``Masterpiece Theater.'' He's booked action, action, action on the weekends with a second run of ``Earth: Final Conflict,'' the ``Star Trek'' clones (``Voyager'' and ``Deep Space Nine''), plus ``Viper,'' ``Highlander,'' ``Team Knight Rider'' and reruns of ``NYPD Blue'' and ``Walker, Texas Ranger.''

In the future, when the Paramount Stations Group really gets its fingers into the WGNT pie, you may see different, even better, programs. Paramount owns the sixth largest group of stations in the United States, covering 23 percent of the country's TV households.

While Gehring is still trying to figure out this ``Hampton Roads'' thing - would you expect a man newly arrived from Atlanta to understand that it's more a state of mind than a place? He has been here long enough to realize this: He'll need a strong sunscreen to keep the heat of the competition from burning him.

It comes from NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, PBS and Warner Brothers' affiliates plus a zillion cable channels. If it's made for TV, we see it in this market.

WTVZ picked up ``Frasier'' and ``Living Single'' weeknights starting at 6:30. WVBT will run new episodes of ``Due South'' Sundays at 3 p.m. WTKR booked two new weekday morning shows, ``Martha Stewart'' and ``Gayle King,'' which begin at 9.

``This is a great place to be a TV watcher,'' said Gehring, who will fit in just fine in Virginia. He has the tie-tied-tight, buttoned-down-collar look of a Virginia gentleman and a gracious way about him.

Under all that gentility, there better be a programming bulldog. There are station owners in this market who will do almost anything to get an edge in the ratings. They put weather forecasters on the roof in rain and snow, and they chase unscrupulous vinyl-siding salesman in the name of being the station on your side.

This TV market is hot.

Gehring admits that he's coming into the 1997-98 season short by about two sitcoms. The station bagged reruns of ``Grace Under Fire'' (weeknights at 6 p.m.) and ``Boy Meets World'' (weekdays at 3:30), but Gehring wishes he had more shows like that.

His competition has some of the the shows he wants. He'd kill for ``Home Improvement.'' Gehring's inventory includes ``Star Trek: Voyager'' from UPN and ``Soldier of Fortune Inc.'' from syndication.

He will go from there, building what he calls an alternative schedule, hoping the 18-to-49-year-old viewers who are looking for butt-kicking action and cars-blowing-up adventure come to WGNT.

While the networks shy away from action-adventure programs for fear the pow-zap-wham stuff will upset parents of impressionable 10-year-olds, syndicators roll out the pow-zap-wham by the ton. Stations such as WGNT, with less than a full week of network programming, will take all the ``Soldier of Fortune Inc.'' they can get.

``My guy is very much a Wild West hero,'' said Brad Johnson, star of ``Soldier of Fortune Inc.''

If you think the Batman movies are cool, wait until you see ``NightMan,'' which premieres Saturday, Sept. 27, at 4 p.m. on WGNT. One minute, he's a sax player at the House of Soul named Johnny Dominoe. Then he's struck by lightning, and wow! He's NightMan in a cape with the ability to pick up the evil thoughts of others.

NightMan is a C. Michael Gehring kind of a guy. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Judge Judy...

TRIBUNE ENTERTAINMENT photo

Kevin Kilner stars as Commander William Boone in ``Gene

Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict'' on WGNT.

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