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...weeks when the hotly contested new ratings come out, CBS Evening News finds itself leading the pack, but just barely. Hooray, the challenge from Tom Brokaw's NBC Nightly News has been beaten off again. But CBS's edge is misleading. The audience of the proud longtime leader in network news has actually declined by 375,000 "TV households" from the same period a year ago. NBC and ABC news programs have been gaining viewers...
Whether such matters of style and tone affect CBS's ratings is hard to say. News executives argue that many factors go into the ups and downs of ratings. CBS's news-gathering staff is still regarded as the best in depth of talent. In the past year the network has been buffeted by a takeover attempt, an embarrassing libel trial and distracting ideological attacks. The gung-ho Dan Rather believes "all of this has made us tougher, better, more mature." Still, a little anxiety might not hurt...
There can be no one left at the network who has failed to get the message. Since Capital Cities Communications assumed control of ABC in January, the newly merged company has embarked on a stringent cost-cutting campaign, an alien notion in the high-living world of network television. Layoffs have hit nearly every part of ABC's TV operation. More than 70 people were let go in the news division; some 300 positions were cut at ABC-owned stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. Such familiar trappings of the executive life-style as limousines...
...operations. ABC, meanwhile, has been floundering financially. As NBC last week celebrated its first victory ever in Nielsen's cumulative annual prime-time ratings, ABC chalked up a last-place place finish for the second year in a row. Capital Cities/ABC executives told stockholders three weeks ago that the network may post a net loss this year for the first time since 1971. Nor is the situation likely to improve quickly, as all three networks face growing competition from cable, videocassettes and independent stations. "The landscape is changing," says Sias, the former head of Capital Cities' publishing division. "We want...
...over, argues that the cutbacks are simply an effort to streamline operations, and were initiated by the news division itself as the result of a study begun in late 1984. "When I first came to ABC News," says Arledge, "by and large it was not a competitive force in network journalism. We had to get people's attention. Our needs are different now. We have more depth than the other two networks...