By Daniel Frankel | Variety Magazine

For syndication's top off-network sitcom, value relates more to the dynamics of scarce resources than it does with ratings.

Distributor King World Prods. found this out - much to the delight of parent company Viacom's shareholders - earlier this year, when it sold the second syndie cycle of "Everybody Loves Raymond."

Signing deals that will render its backers $8.8 million an episode in licensing fees alone, "Raymond" becomes only the fourth skein to take in more than its second cycle than it did in its first (it took in about $3.5 million per show the first time around). "Seinfeld", "MASH", and "Three's Company" were the other comedies to do it.

When "Raymond's" second cycle starts in December 2008, Fox stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Houston - who won the high-price bidding war against incumbent Tribune stations - will take over "Raymond."

Certainly ratings had something to do with their decision to pony up the big money. "Raymond" is TV's top off-net program, averaging a 6.2 audience rating at the start of its fourth season in syndication, according to Nielsen Media Research.

But the show's current good syndie ratings don't explain why Fox stations would pay so much for a series that will have been off CBS prime time for three years - and stripped in syndication and on cable for seven - by the time its second cycle starts.

"There doesn't seem to be another off-network sitcom on the near horizon," notes Bill Carroll, exec VP and director of programming for Katz TV. "With (nothing) coming along to challenge 'Raymond,' its unlikely that we'll see a dramatic decline in popularity any time soon.

Indeed, from NBC's "Scrubs" to Fox's "Arrested Development," Carroll doesn't foresee any of the top-rated sitcoms on the networks right now as having the kind of dynamics - stand out ensemble, strong male lead actor - that can take a sizable audience away from "Raymond" in syndication.

At this point, it's not like the non-affiliate stations that run off-net sitcoms - those that aren't tied to ABC, CBS or NBC, and don't run national news, could afford a new hit anyway.

Besides, committing hugely to "Raymond," major-market Fox stations have paid out similar big money to a third cycle of Sony's venerable "Seinfeld"," making it the most profitable TV series ever.

Tribune stations, meanwhile, had to pay huge dollars to Warner Brothers to keep "Friends" around. They're quietly mulling plans to develop an alternative series of some kind that can replace sitcoms in the early evening time periods.

It might take that kind of outside-of-the-box thinking to challenge "Raymond."

Even if an inspired network launched a comedy today that could, King World CEO Roger King notes, it wouldn't hit the off-net marketplace until 2010 at the earliest.

Which, for the foreseeable future, leads everyone in the station community back to loving "Raymond," a show that's been in the after markets of syndication, cable and DVD - the series' first season is out on disc, and the second season arrives next month - for far less time than "Seinfeld" and "Friends." Being the newest to this elite crop of seemingly irreplaceable comedy franchises will have its advantages down the road.

The series' syndie run - as well as its daily airings on cable's TBS that started this fall - should also benefit as CBS winds down "Raymond's" network run this season with an ample amount of promotional buzz.

It's hard to tell how big a factor this will be in giving "Raymond" a boost. In the week up to NBC's shuttering of Central Perk in May, sydnie ratings for "Friends" spiked 5% to just 5.8.

"Just like "Seinfeld" and "Friends", it's going to be huge," King says. "The grand finale is going to be big."

Given the recent success rate of network programmers in the off net world, it might not be a stretch to say that King World is already thinking third cycle: "I don't think you'll find an ensemble cast like that again," King adds.