Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 26, 1993 TAG: 9311250109
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GAIL SHISTER KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I'm not selling pantyhose or adult diapers," says Williams, public pitchwoman for NYNEX, the New York-New England regional telephone firm. "I'm furthering the cause of a company because of a higher purpose.
"This is the technology that's going to fix a lot of what's broke in our country - with our families, with our health-care system and with the way information needs to be disseminated."
NYNEX is the first client for Williams' marketing-and-communications firm, Ice Blue Productions. Her mission: to develop a marketing plan for the company as it expands into a full-service telecommunications network. Part of the deal is that she will appear in ads.
Williams, 44, resigned from NBC last month after four years as an anchor-correspondent. Before NBC, she was at CNN for 10 years, helping Ted Turner launch the network in '80 and rising to vice president in '82. Pitching the public now is no different from what she did before, she says.
At CNN, for example, Williams did scads of personal appearances before advertisers, cable types and municipalities awarding franchises "because back then we had to succeed as a business." The P.R. stops didn't hurt her anchor credibility, she says.
At NYNEX, Williams says she's selling technology, not telephones. She wants to be on the cutting edge of the "information superhighway" and "right now, this is where they're playing. If I didn't believe in it, I wouldn't do it. I'm not acting. I'm still me. These are my own words and my own beliefs.
"Times have changed. People are going back and forth between news and politics all the time. As long as I am fronting for 80,000 people who are doing a job I believe in and that I think is crucial to our lives, then I'm proud of it."
Williams will make her first official NYNEX appearance at a media conference Dec. 2. As for publicly promoting future clients, she says she will, provided they don't compete with NYNEX and she believes in their products. As for ever returning to news, she says, "The decision is up to me."
By the way, Williams' husband, independent producer Mark Haefeli, came up with the name for her company. Based on the color of her eyes, it stems from a Williams anecdote that's now legend in broadcast circles.
In 1979, Williams was fired from her anchor job at New York's WNBC "because the general manager told me that the color of my eyes made me more suited to horror films than to TV," she says.
"Nightline" anchor Ted Koppel, a 30-year ABC veteran, reportedly doesn't want a raise or even a new deal when his contract expires next week.
In a highly unorthodox approach that reportedly has ABC News boss Roone Arledge sweating bullets, Koppel told Knight-Ridder's Marc Gunther last week that he wanted to be a permanent free agent, meaning he can cut loose on a few weeks' notice. The leverage, he said, would force ABC to treat him "like a grown-up."
Koppel, 53, who said in the interview that he had no plans to leave ABC, declined comment Monday. Ditto for ABC execs.
CBS News boss Eric Ober labels Koppel's proposal "bizarre" and "an interesting negotiating ploy" but says it wouldn't fly with most managers because they'd be uncomfortable "with a highly paid, extremely valuable, long-term employee not having some legal obligation to the organization."
A longtime Koppel colleague, speaking on condition of anonymity, says Koppel is pitching the deal as an intellectual exercise "to drive Roone nuts. Ted loves the game. He loves to negotiate. Ted wants to be Henry Kissinger. They're good friends."
Whoopi Goldberg and "In Living Color's" Tommy Davidson, among others, will lend their pipes to "A `Cool Like That' Christmas," an animated hip-hop special Dec. 23 on Fox.
"Cool" centers on Orlando Shelby (Davidson), an inner-city African American teen hot for a "cool yule" despite such obstacles as his bratty kid brother (Dawnn Lewis of "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper") and the antics of his "homeboys."
Also, Boyz II Men will do original and traditional holiday tunes. Quincy Jones is co-executive-producer.
by CNB