The Rise of Rukeyser, Inc.

For Louis Rukeyser, then economic correspondent for ABC, it was just another bit of moonlighting. The job: hosting an experimental program produced by the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting. The time: 1970. The result: Wall Street Week, the wise, witty half-hour review of business and finance that has defied all laws of gravity that usually apply to the tube and become one of public TV's top shows, drawing 5 million viewers every Friday evening. WSW has done more than make its natty 6-ft. 2-in. star the most popular figure on PBS since Sesame Street's Big Bird. It has also enabled him to parlay his blend of authority and irreverence into a one-man miniconglom-erate that has both a name (Rukeyser Enterprises, Inc.) and an income that may exceed $300,000 this year.

Not bad for a journalist in a medium where economic news is usually relegated to some place between the weather forecast and the cough syrup ads. Wearing one of his Rukeyser Enterprises hats, the WSW moderator is a hot item on the lecture circuit, where he gives about 100 speeches a year, com mands a top fee (at least $4,000 per appearance) and is booked through next May. He also turns out a thrice-weekly column on politics and economics that appears in 170 newspapers, has written one bestseller (How to Make Money in Wall Street) and is preparing another book on economic policymaking.

The core of Rukeyser's ventures remains Wall Street Week. Part of its appeal is that it creates a kind of party atmosphere in which viewers seem to eavesdrop on what investment professionals say to each other in private. The set resembles an upper-middle-class living room. Rukeyser begins with a five-minute summary of the week in business. He then opens a discussion with three analysts of the latest trends in the market and the financial world. Finally, the main guest--usually a member of the Administration or the business establishment--is brought in for a freewheeling Q and A on subjects that can range from stocks to the gold market and prospects for inflation and energy.

Jargon is forbidden. More than once Rukeyser has smilingly asked a guest,

"Would you please go over that again--this time in English?" The show's preoccupation is money and how to make it. As Rukeyser told TIME Washington Correspondent George Taber, "Talk exclusively about economics, and people are bored to death. But talk to them about money, and watch their eyes light up."

Onscreen, Rukeyser has a rakish air that appeals especially to women. One Florida newspaper described him as "looking as if he just rolled out of a haystack having administered investment advice to a lady client." His puckish commentaries on the ups and downs of Wall

Street or the latest Government goof are laced with vinegar and lightened with pixie dust. "I follow the Mencken rule of never saying anything good about a sitting President," he laughs. His standard advice to worriers: "It's just your money, not your life." Rukeyser is addicted to puns and one-liners (sample: "One more week like this and we'll have to call this program Wall Street Wake").

Critics quibble that some of the show's regular analysts and guests display an almost Panglossian optimism about Wall Street and most stocks they discuss. Though Rukeyser emphasizes that the show does not recommend any stock, the mere mention of a company can set brokers' phones ringing. In one case, an issue listed on the New York Stock Exchange called Nucor was mentioned. A similarly named company, Newcor, was on the American Stock Exchange. Shares of both jumped a couple of points early in the next trading day.

Rukeyser, 45, was to the manna born.

His father Merryle was a leading economic columnist for the Hearst papers; one brother, Bill, is managing editor of MONEY magazine; another, Merryle Jr., is an executive vice president at NBC; and a cousin, Muriel, is the famed poet. Lou started in journalism with the Baltimore Sun, reported from Britain and Asia, then joined ABC in Paris. He was its national economic commentator until he quit five years ago to work at WSW.

An admitted sybarite--he says his proudest boast is that he had eaten in all of France's three-star restaurants before he was 30--Rukeyser indulges his fondness for numbers in occasional bouts of blackjack and other forms of gambling. His growing celebrity surprises him, as does the eagerness of fans he meets at airports or in restaurants to offer him market tips. Says he: "There seem to be thousands of people out there trying to make me rich." With all that Lou Rukeyser has going for him, they could save themselves the trouble.

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