Low-cost, high-gain newsmagazines make headlines.

Throughout the spring and summer of 1998, television newsmagazine programs were making lots of news on their own. NBC announced that it was expanding Dateline to five nights a week in the fall. CBS got in on the act by jump-starting plans for a second hour of 60 Minutes, despite objections from the show's executive producer. ABC chose to bring Prime Time Live under the 20/20 umbrella in order to solidify the network's newsmagazine profile. On the syndication front, Paramount remodeled the nine-year-old Hard Copy, shrouding the whole operation in CIA-style secrecy. Meanwhile, CNN, television's standard-bearer in news-related matters, gave the genre a benediction by joining with the Time Warner print magazines Time, Entertainment Weekly and Fortune to launch three newsmagazines of its own. With all this activity going on, one can't be faulted for thinking that the motto for American television has become "No news is bad news."

Newsmagazines have indeed come a long way in a fairly short period of time. As recently as 1990, NBC offered no newsmagazine programming at all. The Big Three networks' current nine hours of newsmagazine programming per week is triple the figure of a decade ago. Put this network presence alongside syndicated mainstays Hard Copy and Inside Edition, public television newsmagazines such as Frontline (which reaches an estimated 4.8 million viewers weekly) and CNN's launch of Newsstand, and suddenly the spotlight glares on a genre that has assumed an essential role in the television landscape.

In attempting to create its own "appointment viewing," CNN has shown that it is no longer ignoring its competition's sterling numbers. In the last year, both Dateline and 60 Minutes have taken their turn at the No. 1 spot in the Nielsens, As of mid-August, 60 Minutes had clocked in as the year's seventh-highest-rated show. Datelines Monday and Tuesday editions checked in at numbers 14 and 12, respectively, while 20/20 and Prime Time Live shared the 18th position. In syndication, Inside Edition continues to average a sturdy 4.0 rating on 155 stations.

The costs, meanwhile, are manageable: a show like Dateline is roughly one-third less expensive to produce than the average one-hour drama; it seems a positive steal next to the $13 million-an-episode price tag of NBC's other juggernaut, ER. Newsmagazine programming is clearly satisfying a need. Pat Mitchell, president of CNN Productions in Time Inc., affirmed, "In a lot of our research, it's amazing how high news-magazines rate."

With audiences responding strongly to nonfiction narratives and to newsmen with first names like Stone and Morley, the questions begin to mount. How does one tell these shows apart? With so many competitors, how does a program find new news? And, in an increasingly international marketplace, will these shows translate? Bobbee Carson Gabelmman, executive vp of Current Programming at Paramount (Hard Copy), said: "I know the viewer doesn't distinguish between syndication or network. The quality is not different. The information is very much the same." Marc Rosenweig, who as King World's vp of Programming and Production on the East Coast oversees Inside Edition, also maintains that the lines separating news-magazine programs have blurred. While acknowledging the need to establish and improve upon the Inside Edition brand, he said: "The differences have diminished. Early on, there was a substantial amount of difference. But now, in the types of stories, in the promos that are run, you see very little difference between 20/20, Dateline and Inside Edition."

U.S. NEWSMAGAZINE PROGRAMS

NETWORK/                          HOURS/WEEK
PROGRAM

Network (Primetime)

ABC
20/20                                 3

CBS
60 Minutes                            1
48 Hours                              1

NBC
Dateline NBC                          5

PBS
Frontline                             1+
Healthweek                            1
The Merrow Report 1 (per month)
Religion and
Ethics Newsweekly                     1

Syndicated

King World
Inside Edition                        3.5

Paramount
Entertainment Tonight                 3.5
Hard Copy                             3.5

Warner Bros.
Extra                                 3.5
Twentieth Television
Access Hollywood                      3.5

Cable

Newsstand: CNN and Time               2
Newsstand: CNN and Fortune            1
Newsstand: CNN and
Entertainment Weekly                  1
The Sci-Fi Channel
The Anti-Gravity Room                 0.5

Eileen Murphy, ABC's director of Communications, fiercely disagrees, pointing to 20/20's decades-long history and to the interrelationship between the show and its news-gathering brethren World News Tonight and Nightline. CNN's Mitchell emphasized the news network's print affiliations and stressed the appeal of "two huge news organizations working together." She added, "We starr with an identity because of the magazines' identity."

All, however, agree on one thing: when it comes to snaring viewers, the stories themselves - more than brand identification or million-dollar anchors - are the stars. And as more programs circle the same stories, the competition becomes, in the words of Karys Keller, director of Sales at ABC International, "fierce beyond belief." While Rosenweig admits to hustling for "a fresh angle" at Inside Edition, ABC's Murphy said: "You don't think about marketing. Yes,

there is more competition for stories, but it doesn't affect our approach to news. We're not doing anything different."

But today things are different: news travels faster and farther than ever before. Keller commented: "The nature of news is changing. The idea of the global village might be trite, hut it is becoming true. More people have access to media outlets than ever." With audiences tuning in from around the globe, newsmagazines are forced to weigh export possibilities. At ABC, Keller explained, shows are sold abroad in one of two ways: as part of larger deals, in which foreign broadcasters take segments and incorporate them into their own programs, or as whole programs, directed principally at American expatriates. Keller added that even the term "20/20" doesn't translate in many countries; though the producers are aware that they have an international audience, foreign viewers do not influence the direction of the content. "It's a domestic network, and the primary purpose is to drive the network," Keller said. And marquee names like Peter Jennings and Barbara Walters mean nothing to foreign audiences, who respond more readily to Princess Diana or Monica Lewinsky.

Regarding Inside Edition, Rosenweig said, "There's no question - we find ourselves forming relationships with international broadcasters." These include Japan's NHK and Germany's Pro Sieben. "They want to exchange material, look at our library," Rosenweig added. CNN's Mitchell noted: "News does travel. We are very interested in going global." At present, Newsstand.' CNN and Time runs in its entirety overseas, while segments of the other two Newsstands appear in foreign broadcasts. In the future, Mitchell thinks an international viewership will result in an even greater emphasis on celebrities, who are recognizable everywhere.

The marketplace might be getting too crowded for its own good. Some casualties have already appeared: CBS recently purged itself of The Public Eye With Bryant Gumbel, and King World nixed American JournaL. Hard Copy had to change identities. There are still a few too many shows," Rosenweig said. "It's normal that some go away. But if a show is quality then it'll survive." Which shouldn't be news to anyone.