TV Arms for the Assault on Atlanta : TV Networks, Cable Gird for First of the Political Conventions

When TV first covered a political convention, H. L. Mencken, writing of the GOP keynote speaker, worried that “under the television superglare, he may faint or even catch fire.”

Forty years later, NBC’s Joe Angotti has a new worry: collisions of network, cable and local TV reporters in the small aisles of Atlanta’s Omni Coliseum, site of the July 18-21 Democratic National Convention.

“There’s a real possibility that there’ll be gridlock on the floor,” says the head of NBC’s convention coverage. “I’m serious.”

Such is the reality of the new electronic era, of changing times in conventioneering. The quadrennial get-togethers of the Democratic and Republican faithful used to be primarily a network event. But no more.

Thanks to satellite technology, the ranks of local broadcast journalists and crew members at this Democratic convention will be the largest in history. More than 4,000 of them have been accredited, compared to 3,000 in 1984.

Conversely, CBS, NBC and ABC, under pressure to keep costs down, are dispatching only 350 to 400 full-and part-time staffers per network, sources say. That’s half the size of their convention armies of 1984.

In the halcyon days of large-scale, spare-no-expense coverage, the networks often were accused of overkill. Now, one veteran of those days wryly observes, network newsies “are worried about underkill.”

Gavel-to-gavel network convention coverage is only a memory. The networks aired only two prime-time hours each convention night in 1984. CBS and NBC will again do that next month, starting at 6 p.m. PDT.

ABC, in charge of the television “pool” coverage at the Democratic convention, hasn’t yet disclosed its plans, but probably also will go the two-hour-a-night route.

Some may lament this dwindling of network coverage, despite dwindling convention ratings and frequent assertions that conventions largely have become party commercials, that the grand fights, uproar and color of yesteryear have been done in by the primaries and caucuses that tend to pick the presidential contenders well in advance.

But there are no laments from Reuven Frank, the two-time NBC News president who helped shape the way TV covers political conventions (his innovations include floor reporters and booths that let anchormen look directly onto the convention floor).

“Conventions have become less journalism and more process,” says Frank, who has worked at seven of them, five as NBC’s executive producer of convention coverage.

In his opinion, “there hasn’t been any argument for gavel-to-gavel (coverage) since 1972,” when, after a stormy Democratic convention, Sen. George McGovern emerged as his party’s standard bearer--and didn’t make his acceptance speech until shortly before 3 a.m. Eastern time.

Gavel-to-gavel coverage continues, though, but now on cable TV. It’s available on C-SPAN, which next month basically will broadcast each day’s session without reportage or commentary, as it first did in 1984.

Gavel-to-gavel, with reportage, also will be offered by the Atlanta-based Cable News Network, which has a home-court advantage of sorts in that it is located only a short walk from the arena in which the Democratic Convention will be held. CNN, which will have a staff of up to 300 at the conventions, says it now is seen in more than half the nation’s 88.6 million TV households.

The main convention events next month in Atlanta and in August in New Orleans will be the selection of running mates for Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis of the Democrats and Vice President George Bush of the Republicans--if the choices aren’t made before the conventions themselves.

Given that, is it still worthwhile to go gavel-to-gavel?

“Oh, sure it is,” says Bob Furnad, CNN’s convention coverage chief. “It’s worth it for a couple of reasons. No. 1, unlike NBC, CBS and ABC, we’re not an entertainment network that makes room for news. News is what we do . . . so the convention is a natural for us.”

When there is a major news event, such as the conventions, “the audience turns to us,” he adds, asserting that this was proved in 1984 when, at convention time, “we had a considerable increase in our ratings over what there were in normal weeknights in prime time.”

The conventions have increasingly become tailored for TV. Indeed, the Democrats have hired Gary Smith and Dwight Hemion, producers of Emmy-winning TV musical specials, to help produce next month’s gathering. The idea, a Democratic spokeswoman says, is to “make it interesting, keeping it fast-paced and getting our message out.”

That is a far cry from 1948, when it was considered a feat just to televise convention interviews with such participants as Interior Secretary Julius A. Krug or a delegate with the wonderful name of Leslie Biffle.

By 1952 the technology had markedly improved. However, in contrast to the sophistication of today, there still was a certain innocence then that made TV coverage of political conventions refreshing.

“The Democrats just thought they were having their picture taken,” recalls Perry Wolff, who co-produced CBS’ coverage then.

With 50 stationary TV cameras to be set up in and around the Omni next month, it is safe to say the Democrats once again will have their picture taken.

But just to make sure, the Democrats will help television’s picture-takers with a convention first--a Convention Satellite News Service (CBNS).

At no cost to stations that use the service, CBNS will provide, via satellite, 46 hours of coverage, including 10 hours a day during the convention, and will arrange for stay-at-home local anchors and reporters to interview delegates, legislators and party officials at the convention.

It also will tape three interview “packages” about various aspects of the convention, says Paul Byers, who is heading the service. The interviews are done by former CBS News correspondent Ike Pappas.

Democratic leaders didn’t create the service because they were worried about the networks’ reduced convention coverage, says Byers, a former coordinating producer on NBC’s short-lived “1986” newsmagazine series. “Not at all,” he says. “Our primary purpose is to supplement the efforts made by the media in Atlanta, to help those stations who aren’t able to be in Atlanta, and to put out the material and give them a chance to utilize it.

“We aren’t seeking to supplant, control or modify what already is being done by the news organizations who are there, but to provide a service to those who couldn’t be there.”

Network news executives say they don’t regard as rivals the local TV reporters who will be there en masse.

“Lord, no,” says Lane Venardos, executive producer of CBS’ convention coverage. “They’re not doing it in prime time. That’s when we’re doing our number. They’re there to do whatever they need to do for their local newscast, which is primarily in the early evening hours. I don’t see them as a competition at all.”

Still, the size of the local-station army bemuses some network veterans, such as Les Crystal, a former NBC News president and executive producer of its convention coverage in 1976 and 1980.

“I expected four years ago that it (the number of local broadcasters) would diminish because we knew who were the candidates going in,” says Crystal, now executive producer of public TV’s “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.”

“But that didn’t make any difference,” adds Crystal, whose one-hour weeknight program, plus a staff of 50, will be at the coming conventions. “They want to do their own thing, and want the image of being there. And the technology allows them to do it as never before.”

As in 1984, a number of TV stations have formed ad hoc broadcast consortiums to help defray costs and transmit their live and taped reports from Atlanta to the folks back home.

Broadcast service companies also are involved, such as Washington-based Potomac Communications. It says it is serving 75 local stations, the public TV networks of New Jersey and Alabama, the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Spanish-language Univision network and “Entertainment Tonight.”

The company arranges satellite feeds, editorial support, places for local TV reporters to work and, if a station wants coverage of something or someone, “our crews and reporters can string for them,” says Dick Snyder, Potomac director of convention services.

As in past years, the focal point of the three networks’ effort will be their convention anchors. NBC will go with Tom Brokaw and John Chancellor, ABC with Peter Jennings and David Brinkley, CBS with Dan Rather and Bruce Morton (Morton is billed as senior political analyst, a role previously occupied by Bill Moyers).

The new kids, so to speak, on the convention anchor block are CNN’s Bernard Shaw and Mary Alice Williams. They are about to co-anchor their fifth convention for the 24-hour cable news service.

Their first was the Republican gathering of 1980 in Detroit, recalls Williams, who did double duty then, serving as both a co-anchor and convention floor reporter.

It was a memorable time, says the New York-based Williams, whose employer was a mere six weeks old at the time of the convention and served only 1.7 million homes. It had 50 staffers at the convention, she says, most of them young: “They were still calling us the Children’s Crusade.”

CNN had a small broadcast booth. But there was no money to soundproof it with glass like the established networks, she recalls, “So every time the band struck up, we had to go to commercial--and we didn’t have an awful lot of those.”