Content area
Full Text
"If we can make it happen here, we can make it happen anywhere," Steve Binder said.
Binder, a producer and director, wasn't crooning a verse from "New York, New York." In fact, he wasn't even talking about New York. He was referring to Los Angeles, and to the critical test that his ambitious new children's series, "Zoobilee Zoo," is facing here.
Despite its elaborate animal costumes, original music and talented cast-headed by Ben Vereen-"Zoobilee Zoo" has faced an uphill battle getting on the air and developing the loyal following it needs to survive.
The syndicated show, which is aimed primarily at preschoolers, is running on about 60 stations at the moment-not enough to bring in hefty support from national advertisers. In Los Angeles, the series got off to a bad start when KTTV Channel 11 introduced it last September at 6 a.m. The distributor quickly arranged for it to move Dec. 1 to KTLA Channel 5, which positioned it Mondays through Fridays at the more accessible hour of 7 a.m.
"Now we're in...
