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...however, the producers of the three broadcasts -- CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw and ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings -- fear they may be losing some of that hold. Besieged by budget cuts and competition, the news departments are going through a period of turmoil that is urgently forcing them to re-examine how they go about keeping Americans informed. Though most executives insist the quality of their flagship news programs will not be affected, many are not so sure. Says a CBS Evening News producer: "There comes a point when...
...West 57th Street, a mixture of anger and shock gripped employees. Rather refused to help pick those who should be laid off, and an anonymous letter circulated through the building urging a walkout to protest the cutbacks -- and to show support for the news writers, who struck CBS and ABC last week. (NBC's employees belong to another union.) Negotiations for a new contract collapsed when the networks insisted on greater flexibility in firing workers and hiring more temporary employees; during the walkout, news scripts are being written by managers and producers on the broadcasts. Rather, Jennings and 85 other...
...ABC, which pared 200 from its news staff of 1,470 before Capital Cities Communications took control in early 1986 and eliminated 75 more positions last year, News President Roone Arledge has ordered a re-examination of the division and its $275 million budget. Arledge's request for suggestions has already claimed a victim: Av Westin, vice president for program development, who distributed to Capital Cities/ABC executives an unpublished magazine article he wrote. Titled "Days of Penury, Days of Affluence," Westin's 18- page memo argued that ABC's producers were more efficient 18 years ago, when he produced...
FOOTNOTE: *NBC had a quarterly rating of 11.8, CBS 11.6 and ABC 10.6. That translates into 10.3 million sets tuned to Brokaw, 10.1 million to Rather and 9.2 million to Jennings...
...keep the network from losing in a limp. "This is a tough and tragic time for us," says the CBS News president. His tough job is to reverse the trend in soaring budgets, sparked a decade ago at all three networks by the lure of high-tech equipment and ABC News President Roone Arledge's U.S.F.L.-style raids on the competition. Sending the A team to sites of big stories is another hefty item; a weekend in Reykjavik cost each network around $1 million. And in the days of affluence, says a former CBS executive, "Dan Rather used...