The whole CBS network went up for grabs last week, and it made a lot of people nervous. ABC and NBC had already been sold off in the past year to Big Business cost-cutters, and now the legendary monarch of the TV news business seemed on the verge of going belly up and being sold for salvage.
It was an ominous prospect. CBS has been the dominant force in TV news almost since the first days of television, when Edward R. Murrow could take on the accountants and the profit-takers and still get two hours of prime time for a prize-winning news special. Murrow’s integrity and intensity are revered by TV executives today, but at the time of his best work he was regarded as a prima donna and a troublemaker.
Yet it is mainly on Murrow’s reputation—along with heroes like Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, Hughes Rudd and currently Bill Moyers— that CBS has traditionally been viewed as the champion of TV news.
This is no longer true. CBS net profits were only $27.4 million last year, down from $212.4 million the year before, and these numbers annoy the stockholders. In the era of Reaganomics it is not chic to hold low-net stocks. Anything short of 20 percent might be sniggered at by the Joneses.
The news is not seen as a good investment these days—except by those of us in the trade—and I am not the only one who broods on it. Sometime around noon on a bright afternoon last week I seized the phone and called another member of the tribe—Ed Turner, executive vice president of CNN in Atlanta—for a professional consultation.
HST: I’ve been a believer in CBS for all these years.
ET: Hell, I used to work there. ... In the old days there were just three networks, and really there were only two because ABC was not a news factor. ... Up until the ’70s, you had two networks providing news programming. They were doing a half hour in the evening, but they were also doing one or two hours in the morning of real news. . . . Now there is so much more competition, because you have independents doing their programming, you have the cable movie outlets and you have the big and growing monster called VCR, where you don’t even have to watch TV as a vehicle for your movie. You have more radio stations than ever before, you’ve got more magazines.
HST: How are you doing so well down, there, then?
ET: Because we specialize. We provide a very perishable product. It’s called news. The other three entertainment networks have elected, and wisely so, to compete for those who want to be entertained. HST: Why is “60 Minutes” rated so high?
ET: Because there’s always a place for a damn good news program.
HST: What about “West 57th Street”?
ET: It is news that is edited and produced in a real zippy, snappy fashion.
HST: What about “20/20”?
ET: It’s a more ponderous version of “60 Minutes” with Barbara Walters’ celebrity interviews. She’s done very well at what she does, but it’s not news in the traditional sense.
HST: How about “Nightline”?
ET: “Nightline” is hard news. It’s first-rate.
HST: Why did they cut it from an hour to half hour?
ET: The affiliates weren’t carrying it at an hour and it was dying in the ratings in that second half hour.
HST: News is a drag on the economics of TV?
ET: News if it is properly handled by the managers can make a lot of money. At your local station it is probably the most profitable thing they do. At the network, it can go either way. NBC says it will lose $50 million on its news budget this year . . . This “1986” program, the NBC version of “60 Minutes,” if you can believe this, this is their figure: They spent $21 million trying to come up with the format. I’d have to stand there until I rot and throw money out the window . . .
HST: I couldn’t spend that much money on booze, drugs or anything else. ... Is that Linda Ellerbee’s?
ET: No, she’s on a new show on ABC. It starts in a couple of weeks. “1986” has been on for a while, that’s with Roger Mudd and Connie Chung.
HST: If they lose money, why are they starting new news shows?
ET: Going back a few years, for a long time, and by that I mean, half a dozen years, “60 Minutes” was a losing proposition. It could not draw audience if they’d pay people to watch it. Then they moved it to after the football game on Sunday night. And from that moment on, it has become the most profitable thing CBS does.
HST: Why is that? I know why I watch it. Those are my two things, football and news.
ET: Just what you said: You like news, you like football. It’s at a comfortable time of the week when people are settling down in front of the TV set.
HST: Will network people be hired away for local stations?
ET: The local stations are getting more and more into network news operations and that is a major problem faced by the networks today. . . . The trend is for local stations to send their own person to that big story and satellite it back home so they show their own journalistic skill and they build their own image. For the 1988 Democratic Convention, there have already been request for parking for 280 trucks for individual television stations. . . . The technology has gotten so mobile to hit these new satellites that they don’t need the networks like they used to. They can go do it themselves and look like heroes in their hometowns.
HST: Is this good news for us?
ET: Oh, yeah. Absolutely it is. The more the better for the viewer. The more volume you’ve got, the more opportunity you’ve got for someone like Bill Moyers to come along . . . It’s a training ground for a lot of kids.
HST: So what do we have here?
ET: Your local news is going to get better, your network news is about as good as it going to get, the three network stars will remain stars, they’ll have healthy audiences, but the action is no longer in those three shops in New York City.
HST: What are you people going to do?
ET: Live from everywhere. If the people explaining understand what the hell they’re talking about, it doesn’t matter how deep their voices are, it doesn’t matter how pretty they are. If they don’t understand what they’re talking about they’re going to be boring and they’ll lose their audience and lose their jobs. The need for real journalists who can talk about what they know is going to grow as never before.
September 15, 1986