It was a wonderfully delicious thought for Terry O’Neil, a network television producer who has built his career on the drama of big-time sports–five Wimbledons, five Olympic Games, three Super Bowls and three NBA Finals.
This would be the year, O’Neil thought just three months ago, for a brokered Republican National Convention. Choreography would give way to chaos. It would be four days of prime-time political mayhem, the likes of which have never been seen on national television.
“It was tremendously titillating for us,” said O’Neil, ABC News’ executive producer in charge of special events, including coverage of this year’s national political conventions.
The dream and the drama ended, of course, when Sen. Bob Dole won a string of primaries in early March, effectively wiping out his competition. This left ABC and all the other networks facing the likely ratings prospect of televising another series of midsummer nights’ clunkers, starting with the Republicans in San Diego and ending with the Democrats in Chicago.
True, politics has become, in some regards, a perpetual sporting event. But to the networks, the Democratic and Republican conventions are closer in audience appeal to the tedium of cricket than the head-bashing of football. The primaries have robbed the conventions of most of their suspense, transforming these one-time thunderous gatherings into little more than orchestrated coronations.
They have become a televised miniseries for the parties, designed to place each in the most flattering light. They are potential economic bonanzas for the host cities. And they are, to say the least, a programming challenge for the networks.
“People are voting with their remote clickers as they less and less decide to come to these events,” said O’Neil. “The coverage has been geared to the primaries, but that doesn’t render the conventions impotent.”
They clearly are not what they were, though. From the networks’ perspective, seldom does so much time, preparation and expense go into an event that produces such diminishing returns. In 1960, 8 out of 10 households watched the conventions; in 1992, fewer than 4 out of 10 tuned in.
Although there was a bump up in the total viewership during the 1992 conventions–approximately 20 million U.S. households tuned in during the average minute, according to Nielsen Media Research–the ratings are on the steep slippery slide, partly because at least six networks will be covering the proceedings.
ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN and C-SPAN will televise varying amounts of the four-day conventions, and Fox, which is still developing its broadcast plans, will provide some coverage for its more than 200 local affiliates.
“It’s not because we don’t put up a good broadcast, but when you add up the number of viewers, it shows people just don’t care,” said Lane Venardos, vice president for hard news and special events at CBS News. “Whatever we’re doing, it’s not crackin’ through to the American people.”
But no matter. That’s not discouraging the networks from covering what was once known as “the Olympics of television journalism.” Convention ratings, the networks say, are practically irrelevant.
“We have a responsibility to the public on this,” said Phil Alongi, senior coordinating producer at NBC News, who oversees the production elements of both conventions. “If we based all our decisions on ratings, we’d stay home for a lot of things.”
There are some intangible payoffs. Conventions are a platform to promote network brand identity and establish credibility that can produce dividends later. The conventions also remain the nation’s biggest political spectacle, and they still have a magnetic pull for the medium that thrives on shouting crowds and conflict. Even though the odds are against it, something big and unexpected can always happen, and the networks dare not be caught unprepared.
“We’re in the business of covering the unexpected,” O’Neil said.
The 1996 conventions, with the Republicans running Aug. 12-15 and the Democrats Aug. 26-29, will test not only the hides of the most inveterate couch potatoes but also the logistical capabilities of the networks, which are accustomed to the traditional month separating the conventions.
The Summer Olympics in Atlanta begin July 19 and will run through Aug. 4. That means that in a span of less than six weeks, the networks will have to set up and tear down facilities in three cities, each far from the other.
“It’s a logistical nightmare,” said Venardos of CBS.
Networks have had to deal with the complicating factor of the Olympics before. The difference this time is both conventions are in August, and only 11 days apart. “You have a very short lead time. There’s barely a week in between to take a breath and jiggle our schedules and then we’re on the air again,” Alongi said.
ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN will each send between 200 and 400 people for the broadcasts. Armed with mini-cams, satellite dishes, transmitting trucks and platoons of strategically stationed reporters and producers, this is the network version of military preparedness.
John Towriss, CNN’s senior producer for special events, said the compacted schedule has forced the networks to scramble for equipment to serve both conventions because there is not enough time to transfer some of it from Atlanta to San Diego and then Chicago.
“Some trucks are unavailable because of the Olympics. It’s definitely more of a problem this time around,” Towriss said.
Chicago, whose last convention hosting in 1968 is best known for riots, offers the more attractive of the facilities. The 2-year-old United Center, network officials say, is structurally ideal for camera placements and other technical aspects of televising a convention.
The San Diego Convention Center, on the other hand, is better suited for an auto show. With a sprawling floor, low ceiling and camera-blocking pillars, San Diego will be the first convention with remote-controlled robotic cameras, mounted on the pillars. Even with that innovation, though, the design of the building leaves open the possibility of camera blockage from signs, balloons and other pillars.
The most glaring obstacle may well be what to cover from conventions that offer, at this time, little suspense. This is where the objectives of the networks and the political parties clash. The networks are looking for news; the parties want four days of promotion.
“The biggest single challenge is assessing what news will be made and plan accordingly,” said O’Neil, who is eyeing the movements of the volatile GOP challenger Patrick Buchanan and the prospects for a floor fight over the Republican platform on abortion.
“If in our judgment there is no news in prime time, we simply won’t go on the air in prime time,” O’Neil said.
ABC, CBS and NBC followed that practice four years ago, broadcasting as little as 60 minutes (ABC) during the second night of the Democratic convention and 160 minutes (also ABC) on the Democrats’ final convention night.
“We sure don’t want to get committed to something and have the schedule change with the party passing through its agenda without any news value,” O’Neil said. “They’ll always try to sell us a little salami when we least expect it.”
CNN’s Towriss said concern about manipulation is ongoing at the cable news channel, which is in the business of going on the air with live events. “We’re constantly looking at the issue of whether we’re being used or manipulated,” he said. The hedge against it is commentators.
“We probably have more talking heads than anyone else, trying to explain what they’re saying,” said Towriss.
Network executives declined to discuss specific changes in their convention coverage plans or their budgets. The number of hours broadcast will be roughly the same, they say, despite the almost certain prospect of fewer viewers.
“There is a thorough justification to take a few hours every four years to do this. We have an obligation, even though there is considerable money to be lost by this,” said Venardos. “There is not one scintilla of a chance of us not covering it. Not a hair.”
But the day is probably coming when the conventions will be shorter. The move to curtail their length will not come from the networks, but from the political parties, as they realize they are losing their audience.
“I see the conventions themselves getting shorter,” Venardos said. “They could do their business in two days.”
