• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, April 11, 2005

The last great pool of broadcasting stations is up for sale, but does it matter? Not unless you are looking to crunch some numbers - or some abs.

Paxson Communications entertained offers from two parties last week -- the talent management company, the Firm and TV entrepreneur Byron Allen. Both are interested in spending some $2.2 billion for the company and reports sent Paxson's shares skyrocketing.

The bigger question is, what becomes of dozens of small-scale TV stations in a TV business where it becomes virtually impossible to distinguish a cable network from a broadcast station?

Paxson's brand name as "the sixth broadcast network" has never been convincing. It has a number of family-friendly shows of little notoriety, such as "It's a Miracle" and "Faith Under Fire," and some old chestnuts such as "Bonanza" and "Candid Camera."

It also has over $1 billion in debt and an acrimonious relationship with NBC that owns 32 percent of Paxson.

Paxson has always bridged the gap of being part-cable, part over-the-air network. That hasn't given it any unusual leverage though, certainly not the type that broadcasting stations had as of the late 1980s.

As usual, programming drives TV networks - and Paxson in its short history hasn't been able to drum up the goods. Perhaps it needs some controversy to draw viewers in. But that isn't likely to happen, especially not when your marketing efforts are built around family-friendly programming. Controversy might make you some short-term friends with advertisers, but no one gets rewarded for low-rated family-friendly shows.

Perhaps the real answer to the future of Paxson is what Byron Allen suggested he might do to bring the network into either broadcast or cable TV's versions of the modern world. He suggested turning it into a network of infomercials.

Now we're talking. That would take the network's current air of distinction, and target a niche audience. It would be the first family-friendly network of ab crunchers and Pilates videos.