News Shows Are Infantry as TV Rating Battles Rage

NEW YORK —  “Dateline NBC” made $50 million in profit for NBC last year. But when it came to setting the 1996-97 fall schedule, network executives canceled the popular 9 p.m. Wednesday edition of the newsmagazine so that they could try to build a new night of comedy with four back-to-back sitcoms.

Yet they were happy to let “Dateline” continue filling the 7 p.m. Sunday slot against CBS’ dominant “60 Minutes.”

It’s not easy being news in a medium dominated by entertainment. Newsmagazines are the front-line troops in the prime-time wars. They’re scheduled in kamikaze time slots opposite the highest-rated foes. They’re moved into battlefields where the network’s entertainment shows have been outgunned.

And if they’re successful there, they may be asked to step aside for entertainment shows--or moved to even tougher duty on another night.

When entertainment programs didn’t work against NBC’s mighty “ER” this season, both ABC and CBS opted to throw newsmagazines against it come fall, CBS by moving its 8-year-old “48 Hours” in, ABC by reviving “Turning Point,” which had been a series in 1994 but then was cut back to occasional specials last year.

“We’re so excited to be in this [“ER”] time slot,” ABC News President Roone Arledge joked to an audience of advertisers previewing ABC’s fall schedule. “My only regret is that my co-presenter--Dr. Jack Kevorkian--couldn’t be here today.”

Network executives praise the public service and prestige of newsmagazines, but they also regard the programs as nifty place-holders while they get their acts together in weak spots in prime-time entertainment. Newsmagazines don’t make as much money as successful entertainment series, but they are less expensive to produce than an hour of comedy or drama and thus make better sense in a time period that the network isn’t likely to win.

Introducing the NBC schedule to advertisers here two weeks ago, NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield praised the four current nights of “Dateline” for improving the network’s performance in difficult time slots.

“The value to us [of having several nights of “Dateline” on the chessboard] is that it gives us flexibility to move strategically to dominance in prime time,” Littlefield said. His counterparts at ABC and CBS made similar remarks about their newsmagazines to advertisers.

Network news producers are realistic about the role they play in network scheduling; it wasn’t that long ago that they were nearly invisible in prime time. Still, they wouldn’t mind getting a little more respect from the entertainment executives on the West Coast.

“Apart from public service and our journalistic merits, the newsmagazines are of real benefit financially to the networks,” one newsmagazine producer said. “But the West Coast guys don’t want to give us too much credit: They don’t control our shows, and they can’t claim credit for them.”

“I know that ‘Dateline’ is an important franchise to NBC,” executive producer Neal Shapiro said. “But the cold, hard reality is that successful comedies and dramas make more money than newsmagazines. Newsmagazines start out as counter-programming and, if they do well, they can become hits of their own, like ‘PrimeTime Live,’ ‘20/20’ and our own newsmagazine.”

Network executives have a phrase for the newsmagazines’ role in tough time slots. “I’ve heard it many times,” Shapiro said. “ ‘News keeps the lights on.’ ”

Despite that attitude, Victor Neufeld, executive producer of ABC’s long-running “20/20,” said he believes newsmagazines are respected by the management of the networks. “They value what newsmagazines do for them--or there wouldn’t be so many of them on the air.”

Indeed, come fall there will be eight network newsmagazines in prime time: three editions of “Dateline NBC,” CBS’ “60 Minutes” and “48 Hours” and ABC’s “PrimeTime Live,” “Turning Point” and “20/20.” (There were as many as 10 on the air in the spring of 1994.)

Despite the advantages of entertainment over news in scheduling, entertainment doesn’t always beat news when it comes to the coveted time slots.

When ABC was putting together its current TV schedule at this time last year, sources say, Arledge and anchor Diane Sawyer lobbied hard against a plan to schedule Steven Bochco’s “Murder One” drama in the 10 p.m. Wednesday slot where “PrimeTime Live” has been successful. Instead, Bochco’s show drew the black bead--scheduled against “ER” on Thursdays.

Once again this spring, there was a move to put “PrimeTime Live” opposite “ER” in September--a spot where it had been crushed when the medical drama premiered in 1994, forcing ABC to move the newsmagazine to Wednesdays.

“We thought about several possibilities,” ABC President Robert Iger said in an interview. “But we finally decided we didn’t want to put another drama opposite ‘ER.’ ”

A compromise was reached. Instead of “PrimeTime Live,” sources say, Arledge suggested bringing back “Turning Point.”

It’s an infantry role with which the “Turning Point” staff is familiar. When ABC moved “PrimeTime Live” to Wednesdays to save the show from the “ER” artillery, it was “Turning Point” that got pulled off the Wednesday schedule to make room.

But it could have been worse. The program that ABC ordered to take “PrimeTime Live’s” Thursday slot against “ER” in early 1995 was a newsmagazine called “Day One.” It’s dead now.