TOM SNYDER MAY RETURN TO AIRWAVES

Tom Snyder, former KNBC-TV anchorman here, former star of NBC’s late-night, since-canceled “Tomorrow” show and former anchorman at WABC-TV in New York, may return to the airwaves later this year in a syndicated program or a late-night network interview show.

Ed Hookstratten, the agent for the brash, peripatetic anchorman, confirmed industry rumors that he has been discussing a Snyder-hosted program both with executives at CBS and at the division of ABC that is in charge of the five TV stations the network owns.

The talks only are preliminary and nothing is definite, Hookstratten said in a phone interview here Thursday.

The proposed syndicated program, in a talk-show format, conceivably would be carried by some or all of ABC’s five-owned stations (of which KABC-TV Channel 7 here is one), as well as other stations around the country.

Hookstratten said he also has been discussing with CBS a late-night 90-minute program, similar to Snyder’s old “Tomorrow” show. It would air at 1 a.m. each weeknight. That “wasn’t quite as attractive to Tom,” he said, but it’s still a possibility.

Hookstratten said he expected that he would know more about prospects for either program in March. Snyder left ABC-owned WABC-TV in New York last September after two years and poor ratings there.

His late-night “Tomorrow: Coast to Coast” was canceled by NBC in 1982 after its ratings fell and he had a much-publicized feud with Rona Barrett, who had been brought in to co-host the show with him.

In the early ‘70s, Jess Marlow, now a news anchorman at CBS-owned KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, and Snyder were a potent one-two punch on the back-to-back local news programs they anchored at NBC-owned KNBC-TV in Burbank.

Snyder is vacationing in Los Angeles, where he now lives, Hookstratten said.