NBC to Give News Magazine a Trial Run

NBC, the only network without a prime-time news series, may have “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” as a January contender, a top NBC executive said Wednesday.

Three editions of the program will get a test run in late summer as part of 10 hours of prime-time news programs that the network will air over an eight-week period, starting Aug. 2, NBC Entertainment President Brandon Tartikoff said.

Among the other programs are two two-part specials: one on racism in America, to be anchored by “Today” show host Bryant Gumbel, the other on guns and drugs, to be anchored by “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw.

Those specials will air on consecutive Tuesday and Wednesday nights, with the other programs, including the three “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” chapters, airing at 10 p.m. on Wednesdays, he said.

If the new NBC magazine is successful in that time period, Tartikoff said, “we’ll consider it for January.”

NBC previously has said that the project will be co-anchored by Mary Alice Williams, who earlier this year left CNN, and Maria Shriver, who recently signed a new four-year contract with the network.

Tartikoff, speaking in a brief interview Wednesday after outlining NBC’s fall schedule at a breakfast here for more than 1,000 advertising agency executives, emphasized that the magazine series never was a contender for this fall, despite some reports to the contrary.

“I’d like to have ‘Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow’ on the air beginning in June,” he said. “But the earliest they (NBC News) could get it ready was in late July.

“It never was intended to automatically be on the fall schedule. We always said we would have it as a summer series, and (would) provide money to bring it on the air without a lot of competition and try to nurture it.”

On another matter, Tartikoff denied charges by two stars of the drama series “Nightingales” that NBC canceled the show Monday because of pressure from advertisers and advocacy groups who had criticized it.

Even though “Nightingales” frequently had won its Wednesday night time slot, Tartikoff described its ratings as “marginal” and said that NBC had decided another midseason replacement, “Quantum Leap,” had a better chance of blossoming into “the kind of show that we’ve been looking for: a triple-crown winner that the advertisers love, that the critics adore and that the audience will eventually come to the dance for.”

As for “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow,” the pilot is now being prepared in Burbank, but whether the show would continue to be based there should it get the go-ahead as a series has not been decided, an NBC News spokeswoman said.

If the show does make NBC’s mid-season schedule, it would be the network’s first prime-time news series since the quickly axed “1986” that Connie Chung and Roger Mudd co-anchored.

CBS has three prime-time news series on the air, and all are expected to return next fall--”60 Minutes,” “48 Hours” and the revamped “West 57th.” The latter will have as its sole anchor Connie Chung, who recently returned to CBS from NBC.

ABC News has one magazine show in “20/20” and plans to add another with an as-yet untitled weekly series that will be co-anchored by Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer. Their new series taped a test show on Wednesday and is under consideration for a Thursday night time slot, possibly starting Aug. 3.

There has been speculation that the NBC project with Williams and Shriver might get a third anchor, possibly Keith Morrison, the co-anchor of the 6 p.m. newscast of NBC-owned KNBC-TV Channel 4 in Burbank. Sid Feders, the executive producer of “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow,” declined to be interviewed about the project.