The new TV news: less O.J., more public affairs focus
Since I started this blog in September, I have been writing regularly about the way in which these hard and confusing times seem to be driving viewers back to traditional sources of fact-based journalism.
The evidence ranges from viewers turning in record numbers to CNN’s down-the-middle coverage on election night, to 60 Minutes becoming the number one show on network TV two weeks in a row with reports on the war in Iraq and interviews with President-elect Barack Obama and some of his key advisers.
As I reported yesterday, retired NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw cited that trend as he handed the baton off as host of Meet the Press to David Gregory. Comparing the troubled times of today to the societal tumult of 1968, Brokaw stressed how important shows like Meet the Press have become as viewers turn to TV for information and guidance.
He’s right, viewership for all the Sunday morning programs is up significantly year-to-year for November, with Meet the Press leading the way with an increase of more than 10 percent. But the even better news is that the networks and cable channels are responding to that viewer appetite by putting some of their best talent and more resources into the programs -- thus, re-energizing Sunday morning public affairs TV.
Beyond the arrival of Gregory at Meet the Press, John King looks poised to take over CNN’s Sunday morning showcase, Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. That is not a reflection on Blitzer, who has done stellar work this year, but he is on-air 15 hours a week as host of Situation Room. But putting King, the star of election coverage, in that job shows how committed CNN is to its Sunday morning public affairs mission.
How could anyone who cares about the future of TV news not be encouraged at least a little bit by this weekend?
Start with the Friday afternoon conviction of O.J. Simpson – and its guarantee this time that the former football star would go to prison. But even the cable channels CNN and Fox resisted going into rolling coverage in favor of treating it as one of several stories that were being covered. (MSNBC, which seems to have utterly lost its news compass these days, did go all-O.J. initially before pulling back.)
And then, look at all the interest in the Sunday morning programs. I am not talking as much about the keen attention from the media and public as to who would become the new host of Meet the Press, though, that certainly suggested how valued that job is both by the industry and viewers.
No, I am talking about the growing audience that now totals 11.1 million viewers just for the three network shows: NBC’s Meet the Press (4.5 million), ABC’s This Week (3.5 million) and CBS’ Face the Nation (3.1) million. That is a big audience for Sunday morning – an audience that can still more than pay its way on Sunday mornings.
One final note, as much as I am willing to be labeled a Pollyanna for my conviction that good journalism can be good business, there is one large aspect of the Sunday morning public affairs issue that needs to decried: local TV’s embrace of infomercials over public affairs programs.
TV stations used to have to produce their own local public affairs programs to stay on the right side of the FCC. But once de-regulation arrived in the 1980s, many of the local stations dropped the shows in favor of infomercials – a Sunday morning blight that continues to this day.
(Above: NBC News photo of Tom Brokaw and David Gregory)
Comments
How ironic, Zurawik, the argued reason why OJ was acquitted the last time, was because it became a media frenzy.
It's sick when the media influences a jury in California to let OJ go of murder, despite overwhelming physical evidence. Plus having a media savvy lawyer, Johnnie Cochran certainly helped his case.
This time, there are too many more important things going on in the world to be focused on the Juice and his BS theft charges. Plus JC is dead, can't help him out this time. But we know what he's *really* on trial for--MURDER! His sentence is 12 years overdue, thanks to popular media.
I close this statement with lyrics from the Depeche Mode song, "New Dress"
You can't change the world/But you can change the facts/When you change the facts/You change points of view/If you change points of view/You may change a vote/And when you change a vote/You may change the world
Posted by: Eamon de Valera | December 8, 2008 10:52 PM
That's 11.1 million people who aren't going to church. Could this represent a potential separation of church and state? It's probably just a little wishful thinking. But with more people un-brainwashing themselves by tuning into world events, change may in fact be coming. It may not be because of the new president elect Obama, but his election will certainly mark this moment in time as a time when people started asking questions again with a desire to know the answer or at least a desire to find it. Giving up church to find these answers on Sunday mornings is a small gesture, but one in the right direction. Now if we can only get people to accept the existence of evolution that'd be something, but I say too much.
Posted by: Conor | December 9, 2008 10:36 AM