ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 11, 1995 TAG: 9512120006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: SCOTT WILLIAMS ASSOCIATED PRESS
It just plain galls Dan Rather to finish third.
It grates on him that ``CBS Evening News,'' the flagship of the news division, trails ABC and NBC's evening newscasts.
``I'm not the vice president in charge of excuses, but fortunately I don't really need any, because the broadcast day in and day out is very competitive with the other two,'' Rather said.
``You can put a cigarette paper between the three evening newscast when it comes to ratings,'' he groused. ``In ratings, we trail; in quality, we lead.''
Give him a moment and he will elaborate on CBS coverage of the Rabin assassination. ``We moved quickly,'' he said. ``We got the story fast, and we got the story right. We had by far, I think, the best combination of straight reporting, analysis and background.
``There was one big interview to have following that weekend - his successor, Shimon Peres - and we had it on the air that Monday night.''
Rather reels off the contributions of distinguished correspondents like Bob Simon in Israel, Tom Fenton in Moscow, Alan Pizzey in Bosnia and David Martin anywhere at all. ``We've long been a writer's network,'' he said.
Granted. So why is once-dominant CBS in third place?
``That's a little like trying to determine exactly when a war started,'' Rather replied. ``I think several things happened.''
He likened TV news' growth to a glacier: In the '50s and '60s, CBS and NBC were American TV's only international news organizations; most cities had only three channels, and the glacier barely moved.
``In the '70s, ABC emerged and you could hear [the glacier] creak,'' Rather said. ``In the '80s, there was a rush of competition brought on by broadcast deregulation and cable. In the '80s, it was an avalanche.''
The avalanche also brought networks the budget-slashing, layoffs and takeovers that marked the recessionary 1980s.
All three networks changed hands in 1986, but CBS changed hands again last month, bought for $5.4 billion by Westinghouse Electric Corp.
``I hope we get people with an understanding of and a passion for news, who know how important news is for the network '' Rather said. ``And I hope they have at least a little money to invest. Wouldn't take a lot.''
The late '80s were not kind to CBS. In June 1986, NBC's ``Nightly News'' snapped the CBS newscast's 213-week winning streak; ``Nightly'' then beat CBS in the last quarter for the first time in 19 years.
Newscast parity was a fact. CNN's evening newscast arrived in 1989, and ABC's ``World News Tonight'' began the ratings dominance it enjoys today, with little more than half the TV audience watching the network newscasts.
``As the competition widened, ratings - always important - became even more important,'' Rather said.
He nevertheless declined to discuss the ratings-driven decision that led to his ill-fated, two-year pairing with co-anchor Connie Chung. Neither her arrival nor her departure has lifted CBS from third place.
Still, with all the competition vying for a slice of a diminishing pie, Rather said, ``somebody's evening newscast could fall by the wayside.''
``My job is to help CBS be in position so that if there's going to be one survivor, ours is the one that survives,'' he said. ``To do that, our delivery system has to get better.''
Part of the newscast's ratings trouble derives from a series of station affiliate switches in major markets which, in many cases, moved the network off the low-numbered channels and cost CBS a strong, local news lead-in.
Rather is sanguine that CBS will climb back to the top by keeping up the quality of its report and by improving its distribution system.
``My hope is that once Westinghouse gets aboard, we'll have a great rush of new thinking - including an overall strategy - that will allow us to improve steadily. It won't come back overnight.''
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines ILLUSTRATION: CARICATURE: Dan Ratherby CNB