TV's $30 Million Question

By Thomas Griffith

Democracy fares very poorly in the ratings this year. Obviously the public is trying to tell politicians and networks something--about conventions as well as about the choice of candidates. If a political convention were a sitcom, it would be canceled by now. If it were a miniseries, as in some respects it is, any producer would be devising more ways to skip the boring parts and speed it up. Conventions, however, are the work of four different and uncoordinated producers--the party chairman and the three networks--all vying for an audience that gets smaller and smaller. Almost as many viewers in the New York City area watched an old Marilyn Monroe movie as saw Mo Udall's keynote address.

The party itself has little to say about how much of its programming gets broadcast The Democrats video-taped the Republicans in Detroit, in a futile effort to learn what makes broadcasters so often turn their cameras away from the podium. Networks generally acknowledge a duty to broadcast at least the keynote, the nominations, the roll calls and the acceptance--but, while carrying the words, feel free to eye gabbling or dozing delegates. So, to get the anchorman's attention, politicians--including last week the Secretaries of State and Defense, as well as Rosalynn and Lillian Carter--found themselves climbing up to those glassy network booths. So much for those who think the podium is where the convention takes place. Arriving at Walter Cronkite's aerie, Vice President Walter Mondale was welcomed on the air and asked to wait a moment while CBS--following its higher priorities--rolled some commercials. After a jovial exchange of banalities, the visitor usually has a self-serving point to make. This can be risky, as Gerald Ford learned in Detroit, where his appearance irritated a watching Reagan. But it was Cronkite, not Ford, who in the words of the New Republic's John Osborne, had "gratuitously and disastrously" characterized Ford's terms as "something like a co-presidency." Such verbal overkill is uncharacteristic of Cronkite, an anchorman as gifted as any at noting profoundly that we now have "an interesting situation."

Ted Kennedy, withdrawing his name the first night, took away some of the suspense broadcasters had counted upon. So a wild skittering of network crickets ensued on the convention floor, as TV reporters with spaceman headsets whomped up the next suspenseful question: But will Kennedy stand beside Carter on the final night? Stay tuned! Flashy whip-arounds by floor reporters ("Come in, Dan") give the appearance of aggressive enterprise, but Bob Schieffer of CBS discovered that those Carter White House people so casually encountered and interviewed had been primed with "talking points" so their stories would agree.

The $30 million question for networks is whether they would again be willing to spend so much for so little. Even convention junkies have their doubts. Previously, convention coverage meant a great deal in the commercial competition between networks. If it still does, NBC this time had an edge over the long dominant CBS. ABC, the flashy one, sent in the director of its Monday Night Football to liven its coverage. But under convention pressure, when the experience, preparedness, savvy and alertness of Cronkite, Chancellor and Brinkley are so evident, ABC'S team of Frank Reynolds and Ted Koppel simply lacked authority.

And next time? Richard Salant, who presided over CBS News' best years, and is now vice chairman for news at NBC, has been a purist about gavel-to-gavel coverage. But, he says, if presidential nominations continue to be determined months ahead in the primaries, "conventions will be no more newsworthy than the Electoral College." In that case, networks should go into convention coverage only when something is really happening. But to interrupt regular programming like Dallas, he says, "you'd be driving the viewer crazy, confusing him on the story line." Salant has thought of renting a theater during convention week to put on an Ed Sullivan kind of show, so that the acts would be easy to break in on. But is that much different from ABC's practice, deplored by Salant, of deserting its convention coverage to put on those irrelevant 20/20 specials?

Television--this intrusive, indispensable medium that makes or breaks political reputations, and creates its own network stars with reputations to nourish or sustain--is now itself dissatisfied. It dominates every stage of the way we now choose our political leaders, but finds itself on the side of the many who think that the process must change.

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