Posted on 07/01/2002 1:57:30 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Two hot stories from Houston -- the Rockets' Yao Ming and Playboy's "Women of Enron" -- set off fire alarms last week on Connie Chung Tonight.
Chung kept her cool, but -- sorry to say -- those false alarms were the most excitement so far on her new CNN show, which debuted a week ago today.
CNN's bid to reclaim its 20-year title as No. 1 in cable news is off and running. And the strategy is clear: Fox News Channel is No. 1 now, so if you can't lick 'em, join 'em.
That explains CNN's infusion of happy chat during the day and the presence of three prime-time stars at night: Chung, Larry King and Aaron Brown.
CNN is not alone at the catch-up gate. MSNBC, the laggard at No. 3, is not about to go down without a run for the ratings money.
MSNBC hits the track July 15 with CNN Crossfire alums Pat Buchanan and Bill Press at 1 p.m., Lester Holt Live at 3, Dan Abrams' Report at 5, new MSNBC editor in chief (and former Politically Incorrect producer) Jerry Nachman at 6, Phil Donahue at 7, Chris Matthews' Hardball (already getting louder, faster and harder every night) at 8, and the peripatetic Ashleigh Banfield at 9. Whew!
MSNBC's new early-daytime crew is chatting us up now, and more on that in a minute.
Chung got off to a terrible start. My first impression last Monday: It couldn't have been as bad as I thought it was. Then on Tuesday: Yes, it was. Between Wednesday's fire alarms, there were signs of small tweaks -- fewer tacky tabloid whams, whooshes and throbby music bumpers. The tacky tabloid teases are still there, and so's that tabloid announcer voice to hype them.
Chung's news choice is curiously eclectic -- good interview "gets" from the day's news budget (Secretary of State Colin Powell, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt and Michael Newdow, the Pledge of Allegiance fire-starter) mixed with tabloid stuff, including arson, pedophilia, assault by sleepwalking and Playboy's "Women of Enron."
It's live, and Chung hasn't hit her stride with that; she's made some bobbles. Her comfort level should increase with practice, though.
Her show's the problem. Cut the bells and whistles, calm down and do real news. Chung's been quoted as saying, "We're taking Nightline's great idea and borrowing it."
Nightline this most certainly is not.
Monday's debut drew 850,000 viewers, while the show CNN hopes Chung can take out, The (Bill) O'Reilly Factor, snagged 2.15 million for Fox News Channel.
Even at that, though, Chung drew twice the crowd of her lead-in, Crossfire. CNN's awful new hourlong hit-and-run format for its 20-year veteran is Exhibit A of what not to do on a TV news/talk show, even a show that deals only in predictable partisan spin.
Do not put on paid political pit bulls, like liberals James Carville and Paul Begala, to debate issues. They don't debate, they harangue.
And don't expect syndicated political columnists to polish up into slick news readers and comics. Conservative Robert Novak is out of his league at the TelePrompTer or trying to play a jolly entertainer.
Finally, don't put Crossfire on with a live audience, particularly one as dead as the one at George Washington University.
As MSNBC has figured out, there is more to CNN's fall and FNC's rise than the O'Reilly factor. Never underestimate the power of a catchy slogan, especially when it's incessantly repeated.
"News fair and balanced. We report, you decide." What a concept. And, despite the grousing of disgruntled competitors, FNC's growth spurt indicates that slogan has been, more often than not, a promise delivered. FNC's Special Report With Brit Hume has become the best hard-news digest of the TV day.
Now MSNBC has its own new mantra: "America's news network!" Its new promise to viewers is "to provide fiercely independent analysis of the news."
In its new format, MSNBC is trying to make that network so Foxy, it's funny.
New York radio ego Don Imus simulcasts 5-8 a.m., but 8 a.m.-noon MSNBC Live has become MSNBC's version of Fox & Friends, with chummy threesome Alex Witt, Rick Sanchez and newcomer John Elliott, just in from anchoring at San Diego's NBC affiliate.
Elliott's a good get, but why did they get Curtis & Kuby, another team of New York radio transplants? Conservative Curtis Sliwa wears his Guardian Angels uniform -- he's the founder and leader of that crime-fighting organization. Liberal attorney Ron Kuby, longtime associate of the late William Kunstler, has defended subway gunman Bernhard Goetz, black rage gunman Colin Ferguson and Muslim Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman of the first World Trade Center bombing.
They talk your ears off talking to each other about what they think about everything. For about two minutes, maybe, I care. But 11 a.m.-1 p.m. daily? No way.
It's too early to tell how the cable news shake-up of 2002 will shake down for news junkies.
But one thing is clear. After a superb job of covering 9/11's horror, there was cause to hope that cable's news channels had finally found their rightful role in the TV scene -- to let the news speak for itself.
Well, now we know.
Not as long as talk is cheap and pulling in the ratings. Cable news is no different from the rest of TV. Getting numbers is the game, and profit's the motive.
Its new promise to viewers is "to provide fiercely independent analysis of the news."That means they have to fire at least 90% of their staff!!! Can they do that?
A big AMEN bump!!
To understand do a survey of the politics of the people who are watching news-talk radio and TV. It is overwhelmingly Republican. Next call 3,000 random homes. Survey only those that say they are Democrats, and ask how often they tune in to CNN, CNN headline, CNBC, MSNBC, and Fox. Very few do. Survey those that vote Republican, too. You will find lots of them tune in. It will quickly convince anyone with a brain that there is no lefist TV news-talk audience to garner. If you put it on, Democrats won't watch.
The key to Fox is to be unbiased and entertaining. The lesson to take from fox is entertaining .... not bongs whooshes and wizbang noises. The left won't watch.. period. The right will watch but the winner will please them with content and amuse them with presentation.
You would think they could figure it out. But they don't. They see Fox do X on Y's show. So they say we must do X on Z's show. That is just plane stupid.
Let me give you an example. My sister is a very very very pretty woman. When she was young she was flat out beautiful. She had naturaly very light brown hair, very light blue eyes and a very fair complection. Mrs. 'tator is also very very very attractive. Her hair is dark brown. She always looks like she has a very light tan, and has dark blue eyes. The clothes and makeup these two ladies wear could not be more different. What makes Mrs. Tator irresistable to me would make my sister look awful and vice versa.
It is the same in media shows. The presentation (sounds, sets, pace i.e makeup ) has to be suited to the person doing the show. What works for Bill 0'Reilly is not going to workt for Connie Chung. And what works for Chung would be an even bigger bust for Bill.
The research I did years ago is still true. News talk is a conservative format. The show's presentation much match the host. The show must be entertaining.
The people running these channels apparently don't get it. It is what I call the MBA syndrome. They only know how to manage assets. They don't know how to create them.
There are only two questions to be answered. Who is my potential audience, and how do I get them. The guy from MSNBC has yet to ask either. And none of them have apparently looked at the answers.
As an aside, I wonder how many times Larry King has to yell into the phone "For the last time, you want Geico!"
Might as well. When you're doing talk radio on TV for 21 of your 24 hour schedule, you don't need a lot of staff.
I agree in general, but I worry a little that they WILL watch Donhue's show, no matter how good or bad it turns out to be, just out of spite for how un-lefty all the rest of the programming on the cable news channels are (by their goofy belief system, anyway).
No, you're right. But the judge wouldn't let Ferguson ditch his lawyers entirely, so they basically sat in the background as he pursued his "it wuz somebody else" defense. Which must have been a huge disappointment to Kuby - by all accounts, he was preparing to put the entire white race on trial by putting forth the "black rage" defense...
Fox is fair and balanced and geared to a thinking audience.
And I'll go against the grain here: Curtis and Kuby ARE funny. You should have heard them last week when Ricci's father came on tv with no shirt on. It was hilarious! After all the people on TV all day long who think they are God's gift to the spoken word, these two don't take themselves so seriously.
Nothing works for Connie Chung, because there is one problem: Connie Chung.
CNN simply hasn't discovered there is a whole nation west of the Hudson River.
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