Basking in The Shadow Of Ted Koppel New 'Nightline' Draws Viewers, and Media Criticism
By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 2, 2006; C01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/01/AR2006030102531_pf.html The problem for "Nightline," as Terry Moran sees it, lies not with the viewers but with the media. In the three months since Moran, Cynthia McFadden and Martin Bashir took the helm of a revamped "Nightline," the ABC program -- faster, far from frivolous but in some ways shallower -- has enjoyed modest ratings success. Yet there has been considerable carping about the abandonment of the Ted Koppel tradition. "Because of the tremendous shadow that Ted and the 25 years of that program still casts on the whole industry, establishing ourselves and who we are is still a challenge in the industry and with critics," says Moran, a former White House correspondent. "The audience is getting it. . . . Because Ted and 'Nightline' were such an icon, any change disturbs people in our business." McFadden says the criticism "stings" because some of it is true. "Sometimes we've deserved the knocks," says McFadden, who also co-anchors "Primetime." "We haven't gotten the balance right every night. It's very much a work in progress. . . . Sometimes we don't give things quite enough time." McFadden says it's also fair to question "whether we've had on a few too many Hollywood types in the run-up to the Oscars." With its flashy Times Square studio, "Nightline" has evolved into a journalistic smorgasbord. The program isn't serving up empty calories, but some stories seem to be of the reduced-fat variety. For all of its strengths, "Nightline" now seems difficult to distinguish from a dozen other newsmagazine or cable shows. Still, the early returns are encouraging for ABC. For the week of Feb. 13, "Nightline" was up 3 percent in total viewers -- to 3.7 million -- over a year earlier, and 14 percent in the key 25-to-54 demographic. The program still trails Jay Leno and, most nights, David Letterman. In reinventing "Nightline," James Goldston, the British-born executive producer, also cites Koppel's "long shadow. What one does following Ted was a complicated issue. . . . Was there an audience for the show without Ted?" Goldston says he is proud of the subjects tackled by the anchors and correspondents Chris Bury, John Donvan and Vicki Mabrey. "The expectation was very clearly that this was going to be a show that wouldn't be substantive. We've proved those people wrong." He points to Moran's reporting from Iraq and half-hour interview with Vice President Cheney, McFadden's one-hour special with mothers of fallen soldiers, Donvan's four-part series on a neonatal unit, and investigative reporter Brian Ross's debriefing of a former National Security Agency staffer who objected to the administration's warrantless eavesdropping. Goldston also boasts about the program's features, such as Bashir's profile of Oscar nominee Terrence Howard and McFadden's discussion with Angelina Jolie about working with impoverished children. "People said the old 'Nightline' never would have done Angelina Jolie," McFadden says, but ABC's George Stephanopoulos interviewed her on the program a year ago, "and did it twice as long!" By splitting the show into three to four segments most nights, "Nightline" has not just tinkered with the Koppel model but junked it. Segments come and go before gaining traction, and without the in-depth interviews that were Koppel's trademark. Moran's sit-down with former president Bill Clinton was dispensed with in eight minutes. On the show's opening night, McFadden says, she was given four minutes to talk to two priests about gays in the clergy. "Bad idea," she says. "So it failed." Now, she says, the program is moving toward allotting two segments for the lead story more often. The critics have damned the show with faint praise. "Just a respectable if slightly overheated newsmagazine now," Paul Brownfield wrote in the Los Angeles Times. It "isn't terrible," Alessandra Stanley said in the New York Times, and some segments are "quite good," but overall "the revised show is surprisingly ordinary, a flimsy, fast-moving magazine show like '20/20.' " Last Friday's edition was typical. For a look at childhood obesity, McFadden followed a 368-pound teenager preparing for stomach-reducing surgery and chatted up various experts. This was followed by a Moran feature from a Rockville rink on the prevalence of injuries to young ice skaters, and then a ditty on "James Blond," the actor Daniel Craig, who lacks Sean Connery's dark hair. On Tuesday, "Nightline" kissed off excerpts of an exclusive Elizabeth Vargas interview with President Bush in two minutes, while devoting more time to a Mabrey report on a new movie, a comedy about the romantic trials of a successful black woman. Asked if American audiences can sit still for half an hour on one subject, Goldston says that "people lead busy lives" and have no tolerance for news reports that are longer than necessary. Donvan, describing himself as among those "most sorry to see the old regime go," says the switch to live programming at 11:35 p.m. "keeps us all much more on our toes all day long because we're in a world where the show can change at the last minute. It crackles with more energy because it's live." He cites the nighttime decision to jump on news that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had suffered a stroke and that he was able to provide a live update after flying to Jerusalem. "Nightline" also scrambled the jets for Moran to interview a Hamas leader when the terrorist organization won the Palestinian elections. Donvan says he finds it "liberating" to tackle subjects that don't warrant more than a few minutes, saying: "Sometimes in the old show we did spectacular things in that half-hour, and sometimes we didn't." The audience, says Goldston, is still getting to know his triumvirate. "There are a few iconic figures in the business that people tune in to see what they think, and certainly Ted Koppel was one of those people," McFadden says. "None of the three of us are close to that." But the upside of the team approach, she says, is "we can continue to be reporters." ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
