"Implosion" At CBS News?

[searadiofreak]

News can add some fluff every now and then and get away with it. It just needs to be in moderation, and in context.

Great radio example today. I was listening to "Newsradio KSL" out of Salt Lake and they did a two minute feature on the meaning of "jump the shark"

Turns out it means when a tv show starts to go downhill, and amazingly developed out of a weird "Happy Days" episode where Fonzie was shown jumping over a shark while water skiing. I never knew that, and found it to fit in perfectly with KSL's news format. Nothing wrong with that. NPR also does this well. TV news could perhaps learn a lesson from radio on this. They could bill it as a "fact you might not know", and it would work. Unfortunately, network news tends to follow the "formula". Too bad.

 

[landtuna]

Great radio example today. I was listening to "Newsradio KSL" out of Salt Lake and they did a two minute feature on the meaning of "jump the shark"

http://www.tvguide.com/jumptheshark

 

[TheBigA]

I thought it was interesting that we've filled up 5 pages under the subject of "Implosion at CBS News," meanwhile there's another subject that the President of ABC News resigned today.

Here's an interesting article surveying the network news situation from the LA Times:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/09/the-next-president-of-abc-news-will-face-big-challenges.html

Now mind you, newspapers love to gloat about things like this. They will take any chance they can get to lay claim to true journalism, and blow off broadcasters as merely entertainers. But the article fairly assesses the challenges as they lay ahead. My view is that as long as the affiliates want an evening newscast, they will get one. But it probably won't command as much attention or budget as it has in the past. Meanwhile the goal will be to find ways to monetize all that valuable content they're creating. If content is king, why is the king driving a Ford Focus?

 

[LKellerIII]

And to get back to the main topic: in terms of status - CBS "fell from grace" a couple of decades ago. Walter Cronkite retired 29 years ago. By the mid 1970s, people were bemoaning the virtual abandonment by the network of those incredible CBS Reports (Hunger in America, Harvest of Shame, etc.)

But keep in mind that that coincided with the establishment of CNN in 1980 as the first 24/7 news channel. The CBS Reports specials ended because, to be honest, no one watched. The world was changing then, and they knew they had to reinvent themselves. And it wasn't just "CBS fell from grace," but what happened in the 70s in that ABC became a bigger player in news. Roone Arledge changed the style of news with better graphics and quicker pacing. Meanwhile, CBS was trying to hold the line on its tradition. That tradition became tired and dated. A few years of being blown away, and all those folks who created shows like CBS Reports were gone. You can't get stale or complacent, because someone else is going to come along and run past you.

These days, I listen to NPR in the mornings and afternoons, and get my mid-day and late night news fixes online. It's a new world.

Which is why I say that judging a company's news product by the ratings on its evening news is useless. These companies are moving into other things. CBS produces documentaries for the Discovery and History channels. So does NBC. That's where you'll see that kind of programming...IF you're interested.

Oh, I agree with you. I wasn't bemoaning the absence of the 'old' CBS through "rose colored glasses." Quite the contrary. I find excellent sources for news these days that are equal or superior to what was available in the 60s and 70s.
And I understand why CBS stopped producing CBS Reports9expensive to produce - low ratings). And as you way, there are still good 'news' documentaries to be found, though there as likely to be produced for a cable network (CNBC), or even premium cable (HBO).

Perhaps I stated it clumsily, but my basic point was that CBS is no bigger or smaller a player in TV news than the other 2 "traditional" networks, and hasn't been for at least a couple of decades. Roone Arledge's innovations aside, I thought ABC's nightly news in the Peter Jennings era was equal to or superior to anything from CBS or NBC.