The Battle in Network News

By Janice Castro

CBS and NBC get new chiefs as the ratings war escalates

The departure of a top executive, even in the volatile news business, is normally a pleasant and courtly ritual marked by parting gifts and deferential staff tributes. That was not the way things went when NBC News President William Small, 55, was forced to resign two weeks ago. Reporters at NBC's Washington bureau danced in the corridors when they heard the news, singing, "Ding, dong, the witch is dead." Someone ripped the name plates from the doors of NBC Correspondents Bernard and Marvin Kalb, who had followed longtime CBS News Executive Small to NBC in 1980. Meanwhile, at NBC headquarters in New York City, the news staff gleefully made up "an endangered species list" of CBS emigres expected to go in Small's wake.

Later that night, at a party at the home of NBC Correspondent Richard Valeriani, 49, ABC's David Brinkley, 61, who ended a 37-year NBC career last September in a dispute with the abrasive Small, regaled the guests with a mock press release about the ousting of the executive. Describing the bitter and raucous incidents as "excessive," Small's embarrassed successor, Reuven Frank, 61, said last week: "It was as though somebody had uncorked something."

What was uncorked was more than a dislike for Small, more than a resentment of interlopers from his old network. It was an edgy tension that pervades the highly competitive TV-news business in a time of change and uncertainty. The frantic mood has affected not only NBC journalists but their counterparts at CBS and ABC as well. On the day that Small resigned, CBS News President William Leonard, 65, had just finished cleaning out his desk to make way for the newly appointed Van Gordon Sauter, 46. The management shake-ups at both networks were part of an all-out network news ratings war that is changing the style of TV news and filling the screen, say critics, with so much computer-generated imagery that some newscasts now resemble video games.

Many TV journalists are concerned that their colleagues' fascination with new gadgets capable of zooming and spinning images around the screen results in eyecatching but less informative newscasts. Says NBC Chief Washington Correspondent Roger Mudd, 54: "It would be a step backward if we succumbed to what I regard as the dangerous trend around on network newscasts, if we allow the pyrotechnics of television news to become more important than the news itself."

The latest and most furious ratings scramble among the networks began last March when CBS Anchorman Walter Cronkite stepped down to make way for Dan Rather. Cronkite's Evening News had consistently attracted the most viewers for 14 years, with NBC a strong second, ABC a distant third. Suddenly, however, all bets were off. While a visibly uneasy Rather adjusted to his new role, viewers began to drift to other channels. The major gainer: ABC News, which, since Roone Arledge took over as president in 1977, has fashioned a slick, fast-paced style of reporting that bristles with the latest video electronics. With Anchor Peter Jennings reporting in by satellite every night from somewhere overseas, explains World News Tonight Executive Producer Jeff Gralnick, "the viewer thinks there is more reporting in depth."

As ABC News picked up new viewers, NBC was no longer safe in second place. Several times last year it slipped to third. Even CBS was threatened. Its executives were particularly dismayed when ABC, for the first time in its 28-year history of national news, scored first place in the ratings for several weeks last summer.

In November, CBS announced that upon his retirement next May, Leonard, a respected 23-year CBS News veteran who was instrumental in launching the top-ranked 60 Minutes and the critically acclaimed Sunday Morning, would be replaced by CBS Sports President Sauter. During the interim, Sauter was to serve as Leonard's deputy, but Leonard soon decided to leave early: Sauter had lost no time in taking control. Around the network's west-side Manhattan broadcast center, what happened next was dubbed "Sauter on Tenth Avenue." A shrewd manager with a track record of boosting ratings at local stations, the Ohio-born Sauter spooked the normally self-confident CBS News staff with the pronouncement: "Today is the first day of the rest of your careers." He quickly purged the Evening News production staff of Cronkite's crew, added electronic music, a new set and ABC-style computerized control-room gadgets. CBS even adopted ABC'S penchant for hyping upcoming stories throughout the newscast.

Before long, CBS was firmly back in first place. Says Arledge: "CBS News is now a copy of our program." But there were other reasons for the CBS recovery. One was Commentator Bill Moyers, whose earnest analyses balance Rather's brisk style. Another, according to some industry wags: Dan Rather's sweaters, which are said to have softened the anchorman's hard-driving image. "Unfortunately," says Arledge, "the sweater seems to have worked."

If traditions are bending in the Evening News, they are snapping in the Morning News. On March 15, Sauter's CBS will unveil a new version of the traditionally hard-news-oriented morning report, fashioned to compete directly against NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America. Produced by former GMA Soft-News Whiz George Merlis, the new Morning will feature Bill Kurtis, a peppy, popular newsman imported from Chicago, in place of Charles Kuralt, as well as such other contributors as ex-GMA Show-Biz Correspondent Pat Collins and regular business, science and medicine reporters. Merlis denies that Morning will be a confection like GMA. Explains a CBS spokesman: "We will interview celebrities only if they are in the news. For instance, if Larry Hagman were made head of the American Heart Association, then we'd interview him."

As CBS gears up to battle ABC News by co-opting some of its flashy style, NBC News is hoping to win new viewers the old-fashioned way with Reuven Frank. Frank, who spent the past few years exiled to the twelfth floor at NBC, known as the elephant graveyard, is as widely admired by the staff as Small was disliked. Says former NBC News Producer Clare Crawford-Mason: "Reuven is not interested in beating people over the head with value judgments about the news. He thinks the audience is intelligent enough to make up its own mind." As an NBC News producer, Frank teamed Chet Huntley with David Brinkley in 1956, and even created their legendary sign-off lines: "Good night, Chet." "Good night, David." The team dominated television news until Cronkite became the undisputed leader in 1968. Does Frank, who served a previous stretch as president of the news division (1968-73), have a battle plan for NBC? "I'd like to make it feisty again," he says. "I'd like to bring back those days at NBC when people never watched the competition."

Next month John Chancellor, 54, will switch to a commentator's role, and NBC will launch a new anchor team: Roger Mudd and former Today Host Tom Brokaw, 41, who are already being touted as "the anchor team of the '80s." Muses CBS Evening News Executive Producer Howard Stringer: "We may be in the lead right now, but we cannot afford to be complacent. With Tom Brokaw and Roger Mudd starting soon, it certainly wouldn't take much to close the gap between our news programs." Only time and the Nielsens will tell. But some observers think there is even more heartfelt gratitude these days over at CBS when Dan Rather signs off with "Thank you for joining us." From his point of view, it sure beats "Good night, Tom." "Good night, Roger."

--By Janice Castro.

Reported by Maureen Dowd/Washington and Melissa Ludtke Lincoln/New York

With reporting by Maureen Dowd/Washington, Melissa Ludtke Lincoln/New York

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