Here Today, Gone Tomorrow -- `Seattle Today' Signs Off, The Latest Victim Of Ratings And Syndicated Talk Shows

To appreciate the longevity of "Seattle Today," you need only watch the evolution over the years of the guests' and hosts' trouser bottoms and lapels.

They go in . . .

And out . . .

And in . . .

And out . . .

"Lapel aerobics," says Cliff Lenz, his nearly 17-year spell as co-host of Seattle TV's last surviving local morning talk show about to end, his choice of wardrobe for tomorrow's 10 a.m. farewell show about to be forever frozen on videotape like an insect in amber.

Anemic ratings and a glut of nationally syndicated talk shows helped turn "Seattle Today" into local television's latest fossil.

Since KING-TV officials announced the cancellation last Friday, the show's staff has been culling clips for this week's series of retrospectives. It is a walk down a marathon-length memory lane.

The montage of various "Seattle Today" introductions planned for the finale could fill 20 minutes alone, Lenz says.

"We've got suns coming up from behind mountains," says Lenz, "from behind the Space Needle, behind downtown buildings . . ." The show also went through almost as many name changes as Elizabeth Taylor did husbands: "Seattle Today" to "Northwest Today" to "Good Company" back to "Seattle Today."

Meanwhile, seismic changes were shaking daytime television. The success of Phil Donahue's talk show in the late 1970s started a syndicated avalanche: Sally Jessy Raphael, Oprah Winfrey, Geraldo Rivera, Regis and Kathie Lee . . .

The programs boast big budgets, big stars, big viewership.

"When Oprah has the cast of `Soapdish' the day the movie gets released, Whoopi Goldberg the day after she gets her Oscar, it's very difficult to compete," says Cathy Chermol, senior producer for "People Are Talking," a 14-year-old local talk show on KPIX-TV, San Francisco.

These days, a station can replace a local talk show with a syndicated one that might cost it nothing but bartered advertising time. Buying "The Oprah Winfrey Show" can carry a price tag higher than producing a local show, but because of its popularity, "Oprah" still can turn a tidier profit.

"The economic reality has set in," says Steve Ridge, vice president of the television consultant Frank N. Magid Associates. "Station managers have basically said hey, we just can't afford to subsidize that kind of image-builder."

Group W, which owns KPIX, in the past five years has axed long-running "People Are Talking" cousins at its stations in Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

"When I started there were thousands of morning shows," says Karen Melamed, who was associate producer of Baltimore's "People Are Talking" when it was hosted by the not-yet-famous Winfrey, and later produced "Seattle Today." Now she produces "Good Day" for WCVB-TV, Boston.

`More of my colleagues are either off doing local news or selling Xerox machines," she says.

Those local shows that have survived - in Houston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Portland and elsewhere - try to accentuate their strengths.

"Oprah can't take the time to do an hour about the homeless people in San Francisco," said Chermol. "We can."

More and more, though, it appears that television has no place - outside local news - for down-hominess, a sense of neighbors chatting over the backyard fence.

KOMO-TV'S "Northwest Afternoon" continues fo thrive in its 3 p.m. time period, yes. Elsewhere, though, other local talk shows seem sure to go the way of the dodo.

Lenz prefers to reminisce about "Seattle Today" triumphs.

Co-host Pat Finley recalls two personalized shows about breast cancer.

"Women have stopped me and said, `Gee, you saved my life.' You have no response to that."

In a lighter vein, the show once cajoled Col. Sanders, he of the finger-lickin' chicken, into limbering up his taste buds for a blindfolded test. Holy herbs and spices! He chose a local fried pullet over his own Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The national wire services picked up that shocker. "He was in his 90s," says Lenz. "He probably didn't even know what city he was in."

Come Monday morning, thumbing our remote-control TV clickers past game shows and "Love Connection" and Regis Philbin, neither will we.