A little more than a year after P&G, Sears and some other major advertisers started pulling their money out of tawdry TV talk shows, it almost seems as if some of the sleaziest hosts have had their mouths washed out with a bar of Ivory.
With some obvious exceptions - most notably Jerry Springer's braindead Cincinnati export - the Geraldos and the Rolondas and the Gordons seem to begetting in step behind Oprah Winfrey.Ms. Winfrey announced a couple of years ago that that her show would no longer wallow in the gutter with incestuous uncles and teenage hookers on shows that seemed to offer little more than kinks du jour.
It's paid off marvelously for the undisputed Queen of TV Talk.
In addition to a ton of positive publicity, Ms. Winfrey's ratings have soared, pushing her even farther ahead of her nearest competitor, Rosie O'Donnell.
Ms. O'Donnell's feel-good show was launched in the fall of this year after Ms. Winfrey had proven that millions of viewers enjoy TV talk that's uplifting without a single model flaunting her D-cups.
For the just completed November ratings sweeps, Ms. Winfrey was way out in front of the competition by her estimate and those of Nielsen Media Research.
Ms. Winfrey's numbers, based on her show's performance in major markets, showed Ms. O'Donnell running second during November.
Nielsen's national numbers for the first two months of the TV season showed Ms. O'Donnell in third place behind the warm and fuzzy "Regis and KathieLee" and the usually trashy "Montel Williams."
Two industry observers with strikingly different perspectives are convinced that trash talk is dying.
"There's definitely been a change," said Robert Peters, president of the conservative watchdog group Morality in Media, which scrutinizes TV, movies and the Internet and offers its opinions in a bimonthly newsletter.
"Yes the pressure - other than for Jerry Springer - has brought about positive change. My only question now is how long it's going to last," said Peters, who believes Rivera, Richard Bey, Sally Jessy Raphael and Jenny Jones are among the hosts who have seen the writing on the advertising contracts.
"From what I see, Jerry Springer once again wins the booby prize for the worst TV talk show," Peters said.
Morality In Media conducted a talk show survey last month that asks its members to report about advertisers who support talk shows.
"We're going to be real interested to see who supports Jerry Springer," Peters said.
Once the survey is completed, Morality In Media plans to approach the sponsors and determine if they plan to continue supporting the show. If so, the organization will call for a national boycott, Peters said.
Jack Myers, who began writing about trashy talk shows as early as 1993 in his influential newsletter "Jack Myers' Advertising Insights," looks at economics - not morality - in his assessment of the shows.
"There's been a clear shift. Many of the talk shows have cleaned up their act, some have fallen by the wayside and the new ones are following an FCC-and advertiser-friendly format," Myers said.
Myers said P&G, Sears, Bristol-Myers, Unilever, Kraft General Foods and General Motors were among the major advertisers that began pulling their ad dollars out of the trash talkers.
"I don't think they realized how anti-societal much of the contents of these shows was," Myers said.
Although Myers and Peters have decidedly different foundations for their opinions about television, both men agree that Springer's show is reprehensible.
"I think he's found the one career that could take him lower than politics," said Myers, referring to Springer's political background in Cincinnati and as a candidate for governor of Ohio.
Myers believes that MCA, which is purchasing Multimedia Entertainment, the company that produces Springer's show, is going to give the show plenty of attention.
"I don't think MCA in the long run will allow itself to have that corporate albatross around its neck," Myers said.
From his office in New Jersey, Myers said he's curious about how many Oprah and Rosie imitators will be unveiled next month when TV executives gather in New Orleans to take a look at new shows that will be launched next fall.
Those new shows will be up against a number of existing shows whose hosts say they've reformed.
Geraldo Rivera went so far as to say that he was canceling "Geraldo" and re-launching his show as "The Geraldo Rivera Show" with a new "Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" that emphasized integrity and honesty, solutions over shock, and "accentuating the positive."
Rolonda Watts made a similar pledge in September, just before her show entered its fourth season.
"This season," the show's spokesman said, "... Rolonda is committed to toning down the sensationalism characteristic of this genre, and has strengthened her commitment to educating viewers on such family-oriented subjects as drug and alcohol abuse, child care and teen violence."
Mark Walberg pledged to take a new course and then got canceled. Same goes for Bey, who toned down the topics right up to the point when All American Television told him it was dumping the show.
In an interview just before the start of the new season, Gordon Elliott talked about the new direction he planned to take with his show.
"The dentally challenged need not apply," Elliott said in reference to the common theory that the guests as well as the audiences for many of the shows somehow fit into the category of "trailer trash."
"There was a feeling that you could throw on a prurient topic and you've got a TV show," Elliott said.
"I didn't even like watching the show myself because I knew there would be moments when I'd be sucking my breath in (in horror) and now I'm watching my show and I'm really enjoying it," he added.
While many of the shows have been revamped in the wake of not-too-subtle pressure from advertisers and the media, Springer's still wallowing in the muck - and making money.
A sampling of topics this season: "My Wife Weighs 900 Pounds" (Sept. 23),"I Was Born Both Male and Female (Oct. 11), "On Location: First Female ChainGang" (Oct. 31) and "I'm In Love With A Serial Killer" (Nov. 12).
Springer's show is part of the $50 million package MCA TV in Los Angeles is acquiring from Multimedia. If approved by federal regulators, the purchase of Multimedia will make MCA a major player in daily syndication immediately.
An MCA spokesman sounded extremely optimistic about the acquisition, especially the "Sally Jessy Raphael Show," which is running sixth for the new season with ratings.
And MCA's feelings about Springer's show?
"It is what it is," said a spokesman who asked not to be quoted by name."We might be able to tweak it a little and make it a little more advertiser friendly.
"We like `Springer' because the show does well in terms of making money - the profitability. It beats the competition," said the spokesman. He added that he did not know what form the "tweak" might take.