Is There a Shrinking Audience For Cable News?
KURTZ: Welcome back to RELIABLE SOURCES. Rick Kaplan was fired - his word - as president of CNN USA after three years, a victim at least in part of depressed ratings at this network. Kaplan presided over the Tailwind debacle, which brought a retraction and apology from CNN and had a very public spat with former CNNFN President Lou Dobbs, who quit. CNN has announced a new management hierarchy, including Jim Walton (ph), the head of CNN Sports Illustrated, who will now oversee CNN's 15 domestic networks. Joining us now to talk about the future of cable news, Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, and Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio Television News Directors Association. Tom Rosenstiel, Rick Kaplan tried to create what he called appointment viewing. And the chief example of that was the nightly show "NEWSSTAND," which to put it delicately has not been a smashing success. Were these bad ideas, or bad execution?</s>TOM ROSENSTIEL, DIRECTOR, PROJECT FOR EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM: Probably bad ideas. Creating appointment television is a 1970s broadcasting idea which is really hard to do in 1990 or in 2000. I mean, to create an appointment you have to create a phenomenon like "Survivor" and a national event. The idea that you're going to create a TV show that every Tuesday night people are going to want to watch is a little bit antiquated. The other problem is the synergy of journalism brands. CNN is a video news service, very fast, quick, and dirty. "Time" magazines are delivered once a week or once a month. What are you getting there, once a month, once a week? Quick and dirty or slow and deliberate? It's not a natural fit...</s>KALB: Why do you say antiquated? The broadcast networks have what you're calling these appointment programs. You're turning to see "60 Minutes," you're turning to see some of the "Nightline" shows on a regular basis. There are hours there that people in fact do respond to. If Rick Kaplan tried for this at 10:00 CNN, there was a good shot at that because he was bringing the heavy, substantive approach of broadcast journalism, bringing it here for an hour.</s>ROSENSTIEL: The appointment shows you're talking about were developed 10 or 15 years ago.</s>KALB: Yeah, but you have to start somewhere.</s>ROSENSTIEL: It's increasingly difficult for people to start those today. The other cable networks that have succeeded have done it through a signature around a topic, but not around individual shows.</s>KURTZ: Barbara Cochran, what does a network like CNN need to do differently? I'm sometimes struck because you have a network with all this time - 24 hours, in fact - and a lot of the time you see sort of routine, two-minute stand-up reports like they do on the broadcast networks, which have 22 minutes. And you see a lot of talk. Is that not too compelling?</s>BARBARA COCHRAN, PRESIDENT, RADIO TELEVISION NEWS DIRECTORS ASSOCIATION: Well, it would be great if CNN could figure out ways to use all that luxury of time, which is something that people who work in network news would kill for if they could get that much time.</s>KURTZ: You worked for CBS. You would have killed.</s>COCHRAN: Exactly. If they could do it more creatively. One of the things that I'm struck by is that CNN has not really made much of an effort to revive the documentary, which is doing very well on other cable venues, like Discovery and the History Channel and A&E; and HBO. All of those are making a market for documentaries. Wouldn't that be a great way to use some of that vast amount of time.</s>KURTZ: Bernie, you're shaking your head.</s>KALB: Yeah, I am because you're saying yes, and I'm saying no to you as well, Barbara, because in fact on CNN there have been these hour programs that take a look at the centuries, that take a look at these different issues. I think the problem here is the nervous system at CNN is adjusted for breaking news. The cable networks want breaking news. You need a war, an assassination, a coup, an upheaval, a tragedy...</s>KURTZ: Or a Monica.</s>KALB: ... or all at once, and then you move - in just one moment - then you move in. And that establishes that kind of image. When you do these other kind of broadcasts, you have a bit of a problem hanging onto that audience and expanding it.</s>ROSENSTIEL: That's not necessarily true. Howie has just got a book coming out about the financial television. CNBC has created an audience around that topic.</s>KALB: Wait a minute, that's the market and the economy. That's a crazy analogy.</s>ROSENSTIEL: ESPN has created a signature around sports and within that world has created appointment shows and even brought back to life documentaries because they are really an authority on that specialty.</s>KURTZ: All right, let me take this opportunity - just one second, Barbara - to look at the ratings pictures for these networks. And these are the third quarter to date ratings. CNN down 30 percent, although with 262,000 households still slightly ahead of the other cable networks. MSNBC down 8 percent. But on the other side of the ledger, Fox News up 9 percent and CNBC up 1 percent. Fox News had been very successful I think in creating a kind of a niche audience, some would say a conservative audience, for its brand of news coverage talk. So it's not a depressing picture everywhere, Barbara.</s>COCHRAN: Absolutely not. And I think we'd be foolish to focus too much on what's happening to the audiences at this moment because we're in the middle of a communication revolution. And one of the things that the cable networks have, one of their great assets that's going to serve them well in the future, is that they are already doing news on a 24-hour basis. And the news organizations that succeed in the future will have to be providing news to their audiences for 24 hours. Secondly, they have the ability to spread their news across multiple platforms. We're going to have wireless gizmos that we'll be carrying in our pockets very soon. And we'll be able to get the fix of the headlines. And maybe even we'll be able to get a brief video story that will be sent to us by a wireless Internet. And so an organization that's in the business of gathering news is very well set for the future. The packaging is much less important.</s>KURTZ: So...</s>ROSENSTIEL: I would agree very much that CNN is an extraordinary asset that could be used that way. I mean, the other cable networks do not have the infrastructure of worldwide news gathering or probably the talent, the reporting talent, that CNN clearly has.</s>KURTZ: But on that very point, Tom Rosenstiel, CNN's specialties have been foreign news and politics, arguably two subjects which are increasingly drawing yawns from the general public. I mean, the Republican Convention coverage on CNN was down 27 percent from '96 I guess because people are not that captivated by the subject.</s>ROSENSTIEL: Well, and there I think you ask the question is this execution? I think there are some problems in execution. What do you do with all this time? Take more risks, for God's sakes. Do something that breaks the mold. The shows on CNN, frankly, have been somewhat imitative.</s>KALB: Well, it seems to me that one of the things they can't do, although you're fed up with talking heads at times, is to bring experts in in kind of short "Nightlines" as it were incorporated into one-hour broadcasts where you have a high intensity on a specific subject. And you seek to illuminate all of the various refractions on it.</s>COCHRAN: One thing they don't need to do is more broadcasts of car chases, thank you very much. I was very worried about what direction all the cable networks were going a few months ago when they would seem to pick up on any kind of local story, slap that signal on the air. And it was nothing but voyeurism.</s>KALB: Is 24 hours too much time in one day? Should the day be shrunk to 12?</s>KURTZ: We'll submit a memo on that. Barbara Cochran, Tom Rosenstiel, thanks very much for joining us. Coming up, fact versus fiction. Are big claims and questionable charges slipping by publishers? That's next on Bernie's "Back Page."