Looking for news? Not on local television this spring, as TV producers and correspondents have chucked journalism out the window in a frenzied pursuit of higher ratings and bigger bucks. The catalyst for the most recent spate of inanity was the just-concluded “sweeps month,” a fourtimes-yearly annoyance during which the nation’s 1,500 local stations call upon A.C. Nielsen and Arbitron to record the size of their audience, information they then use to set their ad rates. In a business in which competition for ad dollars is fierce, sweeps I has always been a period of wretched excess. But this year, faced with dwindling audience shares and intense competition, newscasts across the country sank to new taste levels. In mid-May, News 4 New York broadcast “Sex Tapes,” a three-part series about pornographic videos that featured shadowy shots of nude bodies and a panel of “experts” like Dr. Joyce Brothers debating their value as aphrodisiacs. Sent to produce a sweeps-month report on the horrors of dogfighting, Denver reporter Wendy Bergen recently found herself under investigation for allegedly paying a promoter $100 to stage a pit-bull battle for her TV cameras.
Tie-ins: Equally manipulative and controversial are the local affiliates’ relentless attempts to capitalize on their networks’ popular prime-time shows. Although the trend began as a sweeps-month inspiration, it has now become an integral part of the nightly news throughout the year. Night after night, the 11 o’clock news takes viewers behind the scenes at “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” interviews the stars of that evening’s movie of the week, or assembles lawyers to ponder how “L.A. Law” has affected their style in court. “The tie-ins are getting more and more outrageous,” says one veteran local correspondent in New York. “Everyone’s desperately trying to prevent viewers from deserting after prime time.”
The most egregious attempt to hold the prime-time audience occurred last month on the NBC affiliate’s local newacast in New York. Block-jawed WNBC anchorman Chuck Scarborough announced during a news promo before “L.A. Law” that a “famous face” of the hit series had committed suicide. Viewers were forced to wait until the newscast’s final minutes-and endure repeated teasers-before learning the identity of the victim: David Rappaport, a dwarf who’d appeared as a guest on several episodes. “I waited through the whole news program, wondering whether Harry Hamlin had died,” says Robert Goldberg, a Wall Street Journal TV critic. “It was the biggest sucker ploy I’ve ever seen.” Tie-ins to prime-time programming have become as common to local newscasts during sweeps as stabbings and drug busts. The benefits work both ways: the local news holds on to more viewers by featuring the network’s hit shows; the network gets free promotion. During the original “I Love Lucy” pilot aired on CBS, the New York affiliate hyped a related report at 11 o’clock; reporter Jill Rapaport delivered a lame interview with 1960s sitcom producer Sheldon Leonard, who had no involvement in the making of “Lucy.” Los Angeles’s “Action News” on KCBS-TV followed a Connie Chung CBS special last month with a “retrospective” of inane footage from her days as a local anchor. “You’re seeing unprecedented cooperation between network entertainment and local news,” says Al Primo, a local TV-news consultant.
Night life: When network promos fall short, sex is a guaranteed numbers grabber. Consider “The Search for Sleaze,” a four-part “investigative series” produced by KCBS’s “Action News.” Until last month, “Action News” was running behind. Then came the special report, hyped with a Los Angeles Times ad that read like a tout’s spiel on Hollywood Boulevard: “10 gorgeous GIRLS! 9 gorgeous COSTUMES! Watch what happens!” KCBS-TV correspondent Dorothy Lucey probed Los Angeles night life, exposing viewers to mud wrestlers and X-rated birthday cakes. The series lifted “Action News” out of the ratings basement-but plunged it into the critical sewer. The series, wrote Los Angeles Times critic Howard Rosenberg, was “utterly tawdry and mindlessly banal.” Even one top “Action News” executive admits, “We’re all ashamed of ‘The Search for Sleaze’.”
While nearly everyone in the industry deplores the focus on sex, they’re divided over the merits of tie-ins. ABC media analyst Jeff Greenfield says they can inspire socially redeeming journalism, like a recent story on spousal abuse on WCBS-TV that followed the CBS movie “Shattered Dreams.” Too often, however, the segments are mindless hype. Randy Covington, news director for KYWTV, Philadelphia’s NBC affiliate, just decided to eliminate tie-ins for good. “We were fearful that we weren’t serving our viewers,” he says. “We were just manipulating them.” In the pumped-up atmosphere of sweeps month, of course, manipulation is the name of the game. Anyone wondering whether “thirtysomething’s” Hope is having an affair? Tape at 11.
