MIX OF ENTERTAINMENT WITH RETURNS WINS VIEWER VOTE : CBS’ ‘Wall-to-Wall’ Election Coverage Runs 3rd to ABC’s New-Look Format

Except for Los Angeles, preliminary returns for Election Night viewer voting in 13 major cities held no surprises Wednesday. CBS’ political coverage in prime time proved no match for what some say is less serious fare.

As was expected, the network’s traditional Election Night coverage proved to be a distant third in Nielsen overnight averages. Its rivals prospered, having eschewed tradition for a new-look mix of political reportage and such ratings-getting diversions as “Moonlighting” and “Matlock.”

National audience estimates were not available at press time. But the 13-city Nielsen tally provided by CBS showed ABC easily winning Tuesday night, with “Growing Pains” and its hit “Moonlighting” surrounding its Election Night reports.

ABC averaged an 18.9 rating. NBC, whose “Matlock’ and “Crime Story” preceded its one-hour prime-time election broadcast, was second with a 12.3. CBS’ all-news broadcast got an 8.8.

Each rating point represents about 307,000 homes.

Despite the low viewer turnout for CBS and its “wall-to-wall” election-night coverage in prime time, that broadcast did comparatively well against NBC’s competition in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest television market.

According to Nielsen figures, the CBS telecast, coupled with state and local coverage on CBS-owned KCBS-TV, tied with NBC-owned KNBC-TV in share-of-audience estimates. Each got 16%

However, ABC’s prime-time mix of entertainment and politics won the night, getting an estimated 22% of the audience watching television in the City of Angels.

Shortly after CBS’ prime-time election coverage began at Studio 42 in the network’s Broadcast Center here, CBS founder and now acting Chairman William S. Paley dropped in to say hello to the troops, as is his longtime custom on election nights.

(CBS acting chief executive officer, Laurence A. Tisch, wasn’t with him, though. Tisch was on a separate Election Night tour of the center conducted by Broadcast Group President Gene F. Jankowski.)

During a commercial break, the 85-year-old Paley, escorted by the new CBS News president, Howard Stringer, chatted with anchorman Dan Rather and the rest of CBS’ Election-Night ensemble, including Bill Moyers.

Moyers, the recipient of a hearty pat on the back from Paley, had said before the September CBS shakeup that he planned to leave CBS News and return to public TV. He already has formed a production company at his old PBS home here, WNET-TV, a spokeswoman says.

News chief Stringer advised against writing that Moyers’ Election Night appearance signaled his prime-time last hurrah at CBS News. Stringer said he hopes to keep Moyers at CBS and added, in a deadpan parody of corporate spokesmanship: “Discussions are continuing.”

The three networks agreed in 1984 not to project winners in any state before that state’s polls closed. But in two cases, correspondents seemed to be trying to get an early jump on suggesting that the Democrats would regain control of the Senate.

Reporting for NBC from Burbank about a half-hour before California’s polls closed, Washington-based Tom Pettit said that “a Republican strategist who is known nationally has looked at the returns of the East Coast and the Midwest and said, ‘As far as the race for the Senate is concerned, it’s over.’ ”

Pettit, who didn’t identify the strategist, said that the man meant that “the Republican Party will lose control of the Senate.” He then added that the forecast was made “without any results yet from Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Washington or California, where all the races are considered to be close.”

At approximately the same time Pettit was speaking, ABC co-anchor David Brinkley said ABC can “project” which party would control the Senate. Then he stopped, a spokeswoman for the network said, and rephrased his report to say that “it now appears to us that the Democrats will now control the Senate.”

All three networks conducted exit polls, buttonholing voters as they left the places where they had cast ballots. A list of prepared questions was used, with the poller putting a check mark next to the most accurate response.

In California, for example, NBC’s exit-poll questionnaire, in addition to asking for whom the respondents voted, also sought their attitudes on various subjects, including whether their opinions of politicos like Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) or New York Gov. Mario Cuomo were “favorable,” “unfavorable” or “not sure.”

Some voters may have scratched their heads at some NBC questions on their backgrounds. The one on race inquired if the voter was white, black, Hispanic, Oriental or “Something else.” One question asked the respondent what sort of work he or she did. The list of possible answers to that included the multiple-choice “Never worked/not sure.”

The final question appeared tailor-made for those souls for whom money or at least the memory of it means nothing. NBC asked the pollee to add together the yearly income of all members of his or her family who lived at home last year.

Now, the pollee was asked, would the combined family income add up to less than $10,000? Between $10,000 and $19,999? Between $20,000 and $29,999? Up the sum went until it hit the category of “$75,000 or more.”

But that was not the last possible answer. The last possible answer was: “Not sure.”