Posted on 03/13/2002 7:15:16 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
NEW YORK - Now that Ted Koppel's Nightline has dodged the bullet at ABC, does 60 Minutes feel any safer? "Perhaps momentarily, but if you look at the long-term picture for broadcast-network news, I think the arrow is still pointing downward," says veteran 60 correspondent Lesley Stahl.
Though CBS's David Letterman on Monday declined ABC's offer of Nightline's 11:35 p.m. weekday slot, the network is still on the hunt for an entertainment show there.
If ABC News' 22-year crown jewel can be put in play, what does that say for CBS's even more venerable 60 Minutes, in its 34th season?
"We're no longer a sacred cow," says Stahl, 60, who joined the legendary newsmagazine in March 1991. "I always thought we had a little coating around us, that we were different from all the others. We're not different."
For the first time in its history, 60 Minutes had a staff cut this season. All five correspondents had to drop one person from their eight-member production teams.
Disney-owned ABC was after Letterman's Late Show because it attracts younger viewers than does Nightline. That translates to more advertiser dollars.
Stahl worries that the same corporate-think will threaten 60 Minutes, where the median age of viewers is a Methuselah-like 58.9 years. That alone might lead CBS suits to question 60 Minutes' relevance, she says.
"No one has ever said that to me, but you can hear it out there. I'm told our viewers aren't in a coveted age group. You would think every network would have a place where an older audience definitely wants to go. Now I'm wondering."
So is CBS.
60 Minutes is 17th among 185 shows this season - its lowest ranking ever. It averages 15.1 million viewers at 7 p.m. Sundays, down 600,000 from last season and 4.7 million below 1997-98.
After finishing in the Top 10 for 22 of the last 23 seasons, 60 Minutes fell to 15th in 2000-01.
ABC's plan to ditch Koppel for Stupid Pet Tricks "is the canary in the mine shaft," says Stahl, who has two years remaining in her four-year contract. "It means, eventually, we're all in play. I worry for all of us."
Koppel was the second shot fired by ABC, Stahl says. The first was in May, when Barbara Walters' 20/20 learned it would be evicted from its longtime Friday slot for the low-rated drama Once and Again.
"ABC dared to go after Barbara Walters. I expect there to be many others.
"We've been hearing for years that we're dinosaurs. We've held that off. It's been like the little Dutch boy with his thumb in the dike. I'm afraid the thumb is getting very tired."
Radio O'Reilly.> Fox News Channel star Bill O'Reilly will host a weekday call-in show for radio-syndication giant Westwood One, it's expected to be announced today.
The broadcast will air from noon to 2 p.m., pitting O'Reilly against radio's top talker, Rush Limbaugh, whose syndicated show runs from noon to 3.
Quittin' time. The queen of TV talk will call it quits in 2006.
Oprah Winfrey has extended her deal with King World Productions for two years, and will host her top-rated chatfest through the 2005-06 season - marking its 20th anniversary in national syndication.
The hourlong Oprah generates about $300 million a year for King World.
It's also over for chat host Sally Jessy Raphael. Syndicator Studios USA will pull the plug at the end of this season - her 18th - due to anemic ratings. Sally Jessy ranked ninth among talk shows during the February sweeps.
Beatles book. Another book deal for KYW's Larry Kane. This one, about his experiences on tour with the Beatles, will be published by our town's Running Press in fall 2003.
Kane was the only Yank reporter to accompany the Fab Four on their U.S. tours in 1964 and '65. At the time, he was an infant radio news boss in Miami. "I was the very unhip guy with short hair."
The book will include a 75-minute CD with excerpts from Kane's interviews.
"People have asked me for years and years to write this book," says Kane, 59. "Now's the time."
Larry Kane's Philadelphia was published in fall 2000 by Temple University Press.
Chen to CBS. Exiled CNN anchor Joie Chen today joins CBS as a Washington-based correspondent. Chen, 40, a CNN staffer since '94, will relocate from Atlanta.
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