For most of its two years on the air, the ABC News program ”Prime Time Live,” with Diane Sawyer and Sam Donaldson, has been straining to become something different from what it was when it began.
Even Rick Kaplan, the show`s executive producer, had distanced himself from identification with it. ”When people used to ask me what I did,” he said recently, ”I`d say I used to be the executive producer of `Nightline.`
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The program began with a much-publicized live format that included a studio audience and planned ”spontaneous” conversation between its two anchors.
The ratings were lackluster and the reviews were scathing. All the flashy live elements have been scrapped in favor of a more traditional magazine format of taped reports.
Part of the impetus to reinvent the program was a search for better ratings. But just as important for the talented and celebrated journalists who hitched their reputations to the program has been a quest for legitimacy.
The ratings are certainly better. Although scheduled against two established hits with intensely loyal followings-CBS` ”Knots Landing” and NBC`s ”L.A. Law”-”Prime Time” increased its ratings last season, climbing to a 9.7 from an 8.9 a year earlier.
This summer, ”Prime Time,” running new segments every week, has made dramatic gains, highlighted in recent weeks by an edition that focused on problems in day-care centers, when the program soared to a 13.4 rating, making it fourth among the most-watched shows on TV that week. This week features a segment on an investigation of private, for-profit psychiatric hospitals, and interviews with French Prime Minister Edith Cresson and country singer Willie Nelson (9 p.m. Thursday, WLS-Ch. 7).
Now the ”Prime Time” staff declares that the program`s journalism is also better.
”I had to change the show until I liked it,” Kaplan says. ”Now I think we have a program I can truly recommend people to watch.”
What is the program now?
”To me we`ve become a `60 Minutes`-type show,” Donaldson says. And for Donaldson, who knows he is the ”old dog” of the show, still pressing for as much live, off-the-news pieces as possible, that is ”a bit of a disappointment.”
But he agrees with Kaplan that the change in form amounted to the show`s salvation. In order for ”Prime Time” to escape its early rejection as a gimmicky show of little substance, Kaplan says, he had to make it more conventional.
”We set out to do an experiment. It didn`t work. Maybe it didn`t work because it was a gimmick, but we didn`t set out to do a gimmick.”
”Look where we came from,” Sawyer says. ”An audience.” She whispers the last word, as though still astonished that they actually tried to do a weekly news show in front of an audience.
Now ”Prime Time” tries to distinguish itself from the TV magazines in other ways. That, Kaplan says, includes a bit of ”sass” in such offbeat stories as why men dominate TV remote-control devices.
But chiefly, Sawyer says, ”Prime Time” tries every week to present one
”substantive, serious investigative piece,” such as the shocking look inside some dangerously shoddy day-care centers.
The piece, reported by Sawyer, generated enormous public response, including thousands of calls to the National Association of Child Care Centers.
”Prime Time” intends to be aggressive in seeking investigative opportunities, making wide use of hidden cameras, some of which are smaller than a pencil. In the next few weeks the show will broadcast such stories as a demonstration of the ways black Americans face racism in their daily lives.
Investigative journalism has been a strength of ”Prime Time” from the beginning. In its first two years, it won Emmy Awards and National Headliner Awards for the best investigative pieces in TV news, an unprecedented achievement for a new program.
One ”Prime Time” staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said: ”The show still gets caught up in these waves. Sam interviewed Kitty Kelley live, and we were going to make sure we did live interviews every week. Then Diane did the great day-care investigation, and now we`re into investigations every week.”
Sawyer says the show finally found its ”rhythm” during its coverage of the Persian Gulf war. ”The story was serious, and we are serious
journalists,” Sawyer says.
The war also capitalized on Donaldson`s live, hard-news reporting, a talent not ideally suited to the magazine format the show has evolved into.
In May 1990, Donaldson packed up and returned to his home base in Washington. That departure ended all the discussion about the impact of the Sam-Diane superstar ”chemistry.” But both agree that the efforts at cross-talk were ill-conceived.
When Donaldson went to Washington, speculation increased that he might leave the show. Says Kaplan: ”I think he was unhappy with everything. And there was some unhappiness in the upper levels of ABC News. Without exception everyone on the program wanted Sam to stay and still wants Sam to stay.”
Kaplan says be believes ”Prime Time” is now established and will grow as viewers lose some interest in ”Knots Landing” and ”L.A. Law.” Even though some at ABC News, including division president Roone Arledge, would like to see the program moved to a time period without such formidable competition, Kaplan says: ”I`m sure Roone would shoot me, but I would rather not be somewhere else. We`ve worked hard to be a successful Thursday night show. I think we`ve finally found ourselves.”
