NBC BUTTONS ITS LIP ON THE BUDGET

NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw and his boss readily explained NBC News’ decision to give less prime air time to election-night reports next month. NBC’s prime-time election-night coverage plans call for four short news reports, then a 10 p.m.-11 p.m. wrap-up (PST).

But neither Brokaw nor NBC News President Lawrence K. Grossman wanted to discuss a reported budget-cutting proposal by NBC’s new president, Robert C. Wright. If the proposal becomes reality, it could mean 5% less money for the NBC News budget next year.

“I shall be sure to try my best not to answer any questions about our budget process,” Grossman jokingly said as he began a Wednesday press conference for TV critics and writers.

He kept his word both then and after the press powwow, when he declined to comment on a report that he recently had balked at preparing a reduced 1987 budget. Grossman reportedly had argued that the news division, which has about 1,300 employees, already had streamlined its operations.

Wright had asked all NBC divisions to plan a 5% budget reduction for 1987, but only as “an exercise.” NBC News’ budget for 1987 is estimated by company sources as about $250 million.

NBC’s new owner, General Electric, has been taking stock of the company, Brokaw said, “and that’s the exercise that we’ve been going through.”

He declined to say anything about Grossman’s talks with Wright about NBC News’ 1987 budget, other than to characterize the talks as “more a dialogue than . . . a confrontation” between the two executives, an assessment with which Grossman agreed.

Pressed for more on the reported budget flap, Brokaw continued to play the matter low key. “Any operation this size can always undergo a review,” he said, “and that’s what we’re (NBC News) undergoing at this time.”

However, he added, “These are private matters, and I think that’s where they’re best left.”

NBC News proposed the prime-time election coverage plans, Grossman said, and “the (NBC) Entertainment Division was not heard from in that sense.” There was no corporate pressure on the news division, he added, to leave the night to more lucrative entertainment offerings. (Of the three networks, only CBS is devoting the entire night to election coverage).

Were it up to NBC News staffers, Brokaw said, NBC News would stay on the air with the reruns until 2 a.m., as in olden days, “but it’s not just realistic. We live in a real world and we understand that. . . . “

There is no question that financial considerations played a part in NBC News’ decision to abbreviate its prime-time election-night coverage, he said. However, Brokaw added, there were other major factors--including apparent lack of public interest in the non-presidential election year.

Another factor, Brokaw said, is that NBC discovered--in the presidential elections of 1984 and in the off-year elections of 1982--that affiliates increasingly were taking network election-night time for their own local reports.

What happened, the anchor said, is “that we didn’t have any kind of coherent election-night coverage anymore, because it was so broken up by local stations” cutting away to their own coverage “at unpredictable times.”

It is not at all certain that there will be nightlong network coverage in the 1988 presidential election, Brokaw said: “I really think we’ll have to wait and see what kind of a presidential year that we have (then).”

The old “blank check” days when a news division could count on having the network to itself on election night are over, Brokaw said. “Those days are gone. There’s no question about that.”