Monday, June 24, 2002 | 8:20 a.m.
In the span of about one year "The Dennis Bono Variety Hour" has gone from being an obscure little radio production at Sunset Station's Club Madrid, to becoming a television show with national aspirations.
The television show debuted at 9 p.m. Sunday on UPN's KTUD Channel 25 (Cox cable channel 14). A few days earlier cameramen began taping the hourlong revue that mixes talk with entertainment from top-of-the-line performers, such as the Smothers Brothers, and also introduces new talent, such as Sharon Williams (the Singing Cabbie).
The program will continue to be broadcast on KJUL 104.3-FM at 7 p.m. Fridays, as it has been since its inception. The show is taped before a live audience at 3 p.m. Thursdays, but hard-core fans begin lining up at Club Madrid at about 11:30 a.m.
Bono continues to be amazed by his celebrity status. Almost every taping turns into a standing-room-only event, as an adoring crowd packs the 400-seat venue.
"It's the fans that have made the show such a success," said Bono, whose goal as a singer is to carry on the vocal tradition of his mentor, Frank Sinatra.
Most of the show's fans are over 40.
"I always felt this was a neglected audience," Bono said. "Middle America is being neglected." While his television and radio audiences are local for now, Bono and the show's producers envision a quick step to the regional market. Then, they say, it is only a matter of time before the program attracts a national audience.
"The regional will happen fairly quickly," Executive Producer Scutter Newton said. "But we'll have to wait on the Arbitron ratings. From every indication, we fully expect the ratings will help us go national."
There have been many attempts over the years to broadcast shows from Vegas.
"The Frank Rosenthal Show" aired from the Stardust in the early '70s.
"The Las Vegas Show," starring Pete Barbutti, lasted a short while in the early '80s.
Probably the most successful local effort is Tony Sacca's syndicated "Entertainment Las Vegas Style," which has been seen around the country on various channels and at various times for 16 years.
But Sacca's program is not exactly a variety show, in the vein of those that starred Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas, to which Bono's is being compared.
It would seem that Las Vegas is an ideal spot for a Griffin-like program, with its abundance of entertainers.
Laurie Fruth, director of UNLV-TV at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, notes that variety shows are more expensive than talk shows to produce.
"When a show features performances, that's going to escalate the cost of the production," she said. "It's easy to talk, but if they are going to perform it's going to cost more."
Another factor that kept locally televised variety shows at bay was a lack of required technical expertise.
"In the past 10 years the number of people with that expertise in Las Vegas has increased," Fruth said.
Also, she noted, television goes in cycles.
"Variety shows were dead, but they seem to be experiencing a resurgence," Fruth said.
In show business, timing is everything. And the time seems to be right for a Vegas-based variety show.
Newton said he and Bono came up with the idea for the radio show about 2 1/2 years ago.
"We went out and attempted to sell the concept to entertainment directors all over town," Newton said. "It wasn't until we got to Susan Ryder, assistant director of marketing at Sunset Station, that we made some headway.
"She loved the concept and thought it would be a great way to bring locals into the casino in the afternoons on a weekday," she said. "Then, we talked to KJUL, who had been playing Dennis' recordings for a long time. From that point on KJUL, Ryder and I put together the variety show."
While Bono's background is entertainment, the field is new to Newton.
The 57-year-old businessman was a perfusionist when he arrived in Las Vegas from Southern California in 1974 -- he operated heart/lung machines during open-heart surgery.
"I also had a group of perfusionists here and in Southern California," he said. "When I was 35, I set a 10-year plan to retire at 45. I made it at 44."
Newton became bored with retirement and took up investment counseling. He met Bono by chance on a golf course in 1992 and they became friends. Newton eventually became the singer's business manager.
"I began to work with Dennis and we came up with the radio concept," Newton said. "We thought it would be nice to put a show together to showcase the celebrities who were here as well as new talent waiting in the wings.
"We thought it would be fun to bring back the kind of variety hour that hadn't been around in years. We couldn't think of a better place than Vegas, with all the talent that's here."
Originally, Bono and Newton said they planned to go from local radio to nationally syndicated radio. Then they would add local television, which would expand over time into regional and national markets.
"That was the original plan," Newton said. "But as we got going, we ran into producer Jon Fondy. He saw the show and liked the concept and so we decided to expedite the plans for television."
Fondy had spent about 20 years in Los Angeles, first as an actor and then as a producer and director of commercials, local sports programs and talk shows.
Fondy also spent four years (1991-'95) producing news and talk shows on Catalina Island, 22 miles off the coast of Southern California.
"I still go back every year to host the island's Fourth of July Parade," Fondy said.
Fondy said he retired from the Hollywood scene because he was tired of the back stabbing. He moved to Las Vegas in 1997 and bought a wireless Internet company.
Fondy met Newton and Bono through a mutual friend when the radio show idea was beginning to take shape.
"I told them I didn't know how much I could help right then, but one day a few months ago they called me up to take a look at their show and I liked it," he said. "I said 'Yeah, let's do it,' and I threw my hat back into the TV ring."
Fondy is the show's producer/director who makes the decisions on how the show is going to look.
The radio show didn't need much of a look, but since it will be on television Fondy has made some changes. Last week the crew taped an opening for the TV show, using dancers from "Showgirls" at The Rio. They designed the set to make it more flashy. The lighting had to be re-programmed to get a brighter feel to the show.
One of the biggest challenges to doing a live show that also is being taped for radio and television is the sound.
"It has to be loud enough for the live audience to hear, but that creates a tough job for sound mixers who have to balance that with the radio mix," Fondy said. "You have to balance the sound for three different venues."
He said he wants to keep the show true-to-life.
"We want that edgy, Las Vegas showroom flavor," Fondy said. "Our job is to expose the excitement of Las Vegas to the world in a way that makes whoever hears us want to drop what they are doing and come here."
Fondy said Las Vegas has the greatest talent pool in the world.
"We have major celebrities, but we also have local entertainers who are the best in the world," he said. "Sometimes we forget that we live in a cornucopia of fabulous entertainment."
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