• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, December 9, 2004

Did anyone ever really doubt that Martha would be back? And big time! On TV, as well as in print, and the omnivorous variety of media that consumers voraciously consume from the once and always American lifestyle diva.

But a reality TV show? Oh yeah, that's what the new Martha Stewart show is going to be. To ensure that, Martha's Omnimedia hired the ultimate reality TV producer to craft the show, which will be distributed by her new partner, NBC Universal. Think about it. Burnett was the obvious choice. He's good at producing shows about survivors. And that's what Martha's new show will be about: surviving. More than that, it will be about thriving. It will also be about introspection, reinvention, rehabilitation, and, of course, the most popular of all American spiritual story lines - these days, anyway - redemption. Of course, Martha's team isn't calling it a reality show. They're positioning it as an extension of what Martha has always done best: convincing consumers to consume. Food, décor, home accessories, entertainment. All the things that are ideal for some considerable advertising categories.

But early indications are that the new show will be nothing like the old "Martha Stewart Living," a syndicated TV show that was unceremoniously dumped by its distributor, Viacom's King World Productions, when Martha fell on hard times, and got entangled in legal woes.

Sadly, so did many members of Madison Avenue, which has led to an exodus of advertising pages in Martha Stewart Living, even though readers still love the book, whose circulation continues to build. What better indication is there of Martha's survivor power?

As might be expected in the first installment of a new reality series story line, details were sparse about the new production. Unlike her previous show, this one will be taped in front of a live audience, which will get to interact with Martha, as well as hear special celebrity guests. But the real narrative will be a comeback story. And the media are already participating in it.

"Stewart, currently serving a five-month sentence in a West Virginia prison for lying to government officials about a suspicious stock sale, is said to be thrilled with the deal. Certainly, investors cheered the news -- sending the stock up almost 7 percent, to $24.43 on Dec. 8," wrote BusinessWeek columnist Diane Brady, adding that shareholders "are betting that Americans can't wait to see their favorite domestic icon back in circulation. Burnett, whose hits include 'Survivor' and 'The Apprentice,' argued that Stewart is the quintessential 'comeback story.'"

It's an old story line, but a good one. And from a media point of view, a highly repeatable one. Remember Richard Nixon's comeback? How about Michael Milken? Ozzy Osbourne? American media consumers love comebacks. And, of course, there's an industry insider subplot to this story that will escape the average TV viewer, but which TV and advertising executives will be watching especially closely.

And it turns out to be another story about redemption: the comeback of Susan Lyne, the jilted ABC Entertainment chief who now is CEO of Martha Stewart's Omnimedia. Lyne is the one who put the deal together with Mark Burnett, and she's the one who negotiated the syndication deal with NBC Universal. A deal, mind you, that has already cleared Martha's new show on stations covering 30 percent of U.S. TV homes and all in key DMAs. In TV industry parlance, that's a "firm go."

Best of all, the announcement comes just in time for next month's NATPE conference in Las Vegas, the TV industry's syndication trade show, which once was a hot property on Madison Avenue, but which has been waning in recent years. The only question is whether Martha's redemption power is strong enough to reclaim valuable TV station timeslots. Probably. One thing's for sure, Martha's new show will be the talk of NATPE, and among major market stations hoping to get on board and willing to dump the shows of other distributors, including some of King World's, to do so.