NBC to Drop News Show Re-Creations : Television: ‘Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow’ without Maria Shriver will be transferred to the entertainment division.

NBC News will stop using re-creations of news events and will transfer to the entertainment division its one show that uses the technique, the magazine series “Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow,” NBC executives declared Monday.

“Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow” will continue to use re-creations under its new guise, but no news division employees will be involved, the network said. The show has aired three times this year. A fourth installment, which is being produced by the news division and will include a re-creation, is set to air Nov. 28.

No new plans were announced for the program’s three co-anchors, Maria Shriver, Mary Alice Williams and Chuck Scarborough.

The use of re-creations by network news divisions has come under heavy fire, particularly from former TV news executives who complain that dramatizing news events distorts the truth and jeopardizes journalistic credibility.

In addition to its use on “YTT,” the practice is a regular feature of CBS’ “Saturday Night With Connie Chung.” CBS has not said whether it will change its policy regarding re-creations.

Officials at NBC News portrayed “YTT” Monday as a noble experiment that did not work. “We did these re-creations responsibly and accurately and I am proud of the programs we aired,” NBC News President Michael Gartner said in a prepared statement. “But after a thorough evaluation, we have decided to discontinue them as a format for news.”

The decision to transfer the show to the entertainment division apparently came after research showed that re-creations were confusing viewers.

“Our primary responsibility at NBC News is to convey information clearly,” Gartner said. “If viewers are confused, the answer is simple--abandon re-creations in news programming.”

Tom Ross, a senior vice president at NBC News, said the network’s research included viewer reactions to re-creations throughout the television industry, not just on “YTT.” He conceded that widespread criticism played a role in the decision to drop the technique. “I guess any criticism from people you respect in the business has got to heighten your concern,” he said.

While the news division is losing one prime-time program, it is gaining another. The network announced last month it had committed to airing a prime-time series in 1990 with Jane Pauley as co-host.

The original concept for “YTT” had come out of the NBC Program Development Group, which is headed by Entertainment President Brandon Tartikoff.

“While there has been some controversy over the use of re-creations in news programming, dramatic re-enactments have been done successfully for years in entertainment programs, including one of our most popular current series, ‘Unsolved Mysteries,’ ” Tartikoff said in a prepared statement.

“Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow” will now be overseen by Rick Ludwin, NBC’s senior vice president of specials, variety programs and late night. It was not clear whether NBC would continue to make the show itself, through its NBC Productions unit, or turn the program over to outside producers, such as Cosgrove-Meurer Productions, the company that makes “Unsolved Mysteries.”