Imagine Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather on a boat with a very slow leak. They’re seeking harbor, but can’t agree on where to go.
Any one could jump overboard and swim for shore, but the risks seem too great.
So they stay, er, anchored–and sinking.
That’s the way it is these days on the network evening newscasts. They remain the flagship programs of ABC, CBS and NBC News, but fewer people are paying attention.
What’s more, now that Connie Chung has been pushed off the “CBS Evening News,” the broadcasts are again remarkably similar. They are anchored by middle-aged men who have been doing the job, by network standards, for a long time: Rather since 1981, Brokaw since 1982, Jennings since 1983. They cover similar stories in similar ways. They’re scheduled at the dinner hour, as they have been since the format was created in the 1950s.
Are they at risk of becoming irrelevant?
Not at all, say network executives.
“There is still, and always will be, a basic need for a program that tells people what happened to their world, in a serious, authoritative way,” declares Paul Friedman, the executive vice president of ABC News who produced ABC’s “World News Tonight” for five years.
But insiders admit that they are worried by the audience decline, and casting about for ways to reach more people without alienating the viewers they have.
“Everybody’s got to be somewhat concerned,” says Andrew Heyward, executive producer of CBS’ evening news. “We all realize that we have a tough battle ahead.”
Gradually, viewing levels have fallen for all three network newscasts. Fifteen years ago, before the growth of cable, they reached a collective 73 percent of the viewing audience each night, a number that has fallen to this year’s 52 share. Still, together they reach a formidable 35 million viewers each night. And demand for advertising on the programs is strong, so they all make money–even CBS, where the “Evening News” has suffered the steepest audience drop.
These days, though, when President Bill Clinton wants to go on a TV show, he’s more likely to choose “60 Minutes” or “Larry King Live” or a “Nightline” town meeting than he is to sit down with Brokaw, Jennings or Rather. It’s hard to remember the last time a network newscast broke a big story or generated buzz–unless you count Chung’s downfall.
That’s a far cry from the 1960s, when Walter Cronkite’s reporting and commentary about the Vietnam War on CBS helped shape political and public opinion, or even from 1988, when Rather’s testy interview with Vice President George Bush caused a huge stir.
The big problem for the evening newscasts is an old one: the wide availability of national and international news on CNN and local stations. Much of it, ironically, comes from the networks themselves because they want to strengthen their affiliates. CBS, for example, provides a newsfeed to affiliates that employs five full-time reporters and provides hours of taped and live footage each day.
Changing lifestyles have also hurt the evening news. With longer commutes and more women working outside the home, fewer families are able to finish dinner and gather for the network news at 5:30 or 6 p.m. More broadly, public interest in news appears to be waning.
Recently the O.J. Simpson trial has come into play too. Network researchers estimate that their newscasts together lose up to 2 million homes a day to cable’s CNN, Court TV and E! Entertainment on days when trial coverage runs into the early evening.
To counter the slide, the networks are cautiously trying new approaches. The second week of June, for example, NBC’s “Nightly News” provided one segment of daily news and headlines, and then devoted the rest of its “Special Edition” to magazine-style stories tied to the anniversary of the Simpson murders. The idea is to provide a depth of coverage not seen elsewhere.
At post-Chung CBS, Rather is said to be newly focused and revitalized. The program aims to showcase a core of expert reporters, such as Washington veterans Bob Schieffer, Eric Engberg, Rita Braver and David Martin, business analyst Ray Brady and foreign correspondents Bob Simon and Tom Fenton.
ABC’s “World News Tonight,” the top-rated newscast since 1989, has the least reason to change. It’s the most serious of the programs –providing, for example, significantly less Simpson trial coverage than the other two–and the most influential.
No network, in fact, appears ready to take any big risks in the near future, perhaps because the last one to do so, CBS, got burned with Chung. What could they do? Possibilities include:
– Aim lower: Although they’ve cut back on foreign coverage and done plenty of O.J., no network seems to be targeting a broader audience by providing a more frivolous or sensationalistic program. Unlike the network magazine shows, the newscasts still take their responsibilities seriously.
“We have not yielded to what we know would be exclusively popular,” says Andrew Lack, president of NBC News. “It is not popular to run Bosnia stories, but we run them. `Nightly News’ has to be a symbol of the best we can do every time.”
– Change anchors: One program could set itself apart by naming a female or minority anchor. Most expect that will happen, but not soon.
For now, ABC is committed to Jennings, NBC to Brokaw and CBS has no one ready to replace or join Rather. One lesson of the Chung experiment, a CBS executive says, is that there’s not enough room for two anchors on a 22-minute program that tries to pack im lots of news.
– Try a new time slot: Only a year ago, NBC was talking about running five nights a week of “Dateline” and ABC offered Diane Sawyer anchor slots on three 9 p.m. magazines. Executives thought a newscast-magazine hybrid might work nightly at 9.
That idea’s now dead, thanks to “E.R.” and the prime-time drama revival.
A variation, however, is being tested by a local cable station in Washington, D.C., which rebroadcasts ABC’s “World News Tonight” in prime time. Years from now, if interactive television becomes a reality, viewers may be able to order the evening news programs whenever they want them.
Until then, the networks are likely to keep delivering more of the same, even as the world around them changes. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, they say.
“It’s really difficult for me to perceive that, 10 years from now, the program won’t be pretty much constituted the way it is today,” says Jennings.
