The New Face of TV News

(2 of 9)

By choosing Rather, CBS is gambling that the time has come for an electrifying anchorman rather than an avuncular one, a younger, more dynamic personality to replace an old familiar face. But also, the network really did not dare let him go; Rather is the one man in television who, working for a competitor, could conceivably demolish the house that Cronkite built. Ambitious and energetic, Rather is blessed with commanding presence and down-home charm. He has also turned out to be a man of abiding loyalties: "I know so many people at CBS, and I just could not bring myself to walk out that door and say, 'Goodbye. I've helped you. You've helped me. That's the way it goes.' "

Rather's dazzling contract, which took effect last week, makes him one of the two highest-paid broadcast journalists in the country, along with Cronkite. It also puts Rather in the rarefied company of TV entertainers like Johnny Carson ($3 million a year). That narrowing of the money gap between TV's news stars and its entertainment stars is perhaps only fitting. News is suddenly the hot act on TV. Information programs are beginning to rival sitcoms, shoot-'em-ups and other fictive fare for viewers and advertising dollars. The top-rated show on television this season is CBS's 60 Minutes: the investigatory escapades of Rather and fellow Correspondents Wallace, Safer and Harry Reasoner are seen by some 40 million Americans each Sunday evening. A celebrity-studded version of 60 Minutes, ABC's 20-month-old magazine show 20/20, has outdrawn its Thursday-night entertainment competition.

The networks' regular newscasts are playing to record audiences. At the end of 1979, the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and ABC's World News Tonight were seen by a total of 56.3 million people each evening, an increase of 13% over the year before. Public television's MacNeil-Lehrer Report, an intelligent if placid interview show that follows the network news in most cities, now attracts 4 million viewers, up 20% from last year.

Not only are more people watching news, but there seems to be more news to watch these days: the earlier-than-ever presidential campaign, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and, most riveting of all, the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. That event inspired the first major expansion of nightly network news since CBS and NBC extended their evening reports from 15 minutes to half an hour in 1963. Shortly after the takeover, ABC launched an excellent nightly news special, The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage, that has continued ever since. ABC will soon convert it to a regular 11:30 p.m. (E.S.T.) newscast; CBS and NBC are said to be considering late-night news programs of their own. Says PBS's Robert MacNeil: "TV has created a nation of news junkies who tune in every night to get their fix on the world."