MEDIA : Broadcasters Offer a Few Goodies for the Stocking

On Christmas Day, it seems more than appropriate to step back and appreciate some of the few delights of San Diego’s television and radio industry, the gifts we receive on a regular basis:

Hal Clement: Witty and articulate, Channel 8’s “words and pictures” man is a real person in a business populated by flakes and phonies.

“Third Thursday”: A prime-time monthly special that explores issues with no gimmicks or hidden agendas.

Jim Laslavic: A sports guy who actually makes an effort to cover local sports news for Channel 39 beyond parroting the local newspapers, he shows his love of sports without coming across like a cheerleader.

Berger and Prescott: KGB-FM’s (101.5) morning team displays real wit--a rarity among morning teams that act like loud rip-offs of Abbott and Costello.

Michael Tuck: It’s hard to like someone who looks like Eddie Munster and talks like Jimmy Swaggart--and he does miss the point much of the time--but it’s nice to have someone in town willing to take on the Establishment.

Denise Yamada’s wardrobe adviser: That mysterious person who persuaded the Channel 39 anchorwoman to lose the polka-dot dresses.

Ken Kramer: His “About San Diego” spots are consistently interesting and entertaining.

Neil Derrough: Channel 39’s general manager deserves credit for returning phone calls and firing Bobby Estill.

John Krist: A liberal island in KSDO-AM’s (1130) sea of conservatism.

Artie Ojeda: Like his Channel 8 compatriot Clement, an unpretentious, likable personality.

Traffic reporter Monica Zech showed up drunk for a recent taping of Channel 39’s “San Diego Headliners.” But it was all part of the plan.

In a stunt reminiscent of a “WKRP in Cincinnati” episode, Zech had a few glasses of wine to demonstrate the effects of alcohol for a “Headliners” program on drunk driving scheduled to air Sunday at 9 a.m.

During the first part of the program, taped a week ago, Zech doesn’t say a word, although she looks a little more bleary-eyed than usual. Later in the show, she was put through some simple dexterity tests, and the results were compared to her pre-drinking performance. Not surprisingly, Zech had problems with simple things like repeating the alphabet, as the cameras rolled.

Zech describes herself as a borderline teetotaler. She said she was feeling the effects after only one glass of wine. In a sense, that made her the perfect guinea pig.

“The people being picked up most often are those not used to drinking,” she said. “And that’s me.”

KGTV (Channel 10) general manager Ed Quinn’s editorials are often right on target, even if the message is lost in a mass of shrill rhetoric.

A good example is his recent condemnation of the ludicrous press rules recently established by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. As Channel 10 reporter Mark Matthews discovered, the INS and Border Patrol have a new policy to funnel questions from the media through Washington--even the most basic questions about incidents.

“There were a lot of things being said about policy by people that were not that familiar with it,” said Verne Jervis, a Washington-based spokesman for the INS. “The feeling is that, without gagging or muzzling anybody, we could get much better direction and control over what was being said publicly.”

Of course, talk of “control” sounds eerily Big Brotherlike, the agency telling its own employees what they can and cannot say to the public. From now on, the powers in Washington will decide what is appropriate for people to know.

Even the Christian Science Monitor characterized the move as a “gag order.” Quinn waded in with his own typically understated viewpoint.

“Your rules wouldn’t even work in Moscow these days,” Quinn said, waving a copy of Pravda.

“Syndex,” the new syndicated exclusivity rule, goes into effect Jan. 1. Adopted by the Federal Communications Commission earlier this year and challenged incessantly by the cable industry, the law requires cable systems to black out shows carried by out-of-town stations when a local station owns exclusive rights to the program.

KTTV (Channel 11) and KTLA (Channel 5) are the only stations really affected. Shows such as “A Current Affair” and “Munsters Today” that air on San Diego stations will be blacked out on L.A. stations.

KCOP-TV (Channel 13) and other Los Angeles stations judged to have “significant” audiences are exempt from syndex. Cable systems are not required to honor requests for blackouts from XETV (Channel 6), because its signal comes from Mexico.

The Nielsen ratings released last week told only a slightly different story from the previously released Arbitron numbers. The KGTV (Channel 10) news team was still the easy winner at both 5 and 11 p.m., but the Nielsens showed the race to be a little closer than the Arbitrons. At 11 p.m. in particular the Nielsen numbers showed KFMB-TV (Channel 8) and KNSD-TV (Channel 39) to be in dead heat, while the Arbitrons had Channel 39 making a rare second-place finish. . . .

This ratings period may have signaled the death knell for “Geraldo” in San Diego, which has sunk as low as its host’s reputation. Both Arbitron and Nielsen have the 4 p.m. airing of “Geraldo” on Channel 39 with about a third of the audience of that ratings monster Oprah Winfrey. It was also trounced by reruns of “M*A*S*H.” . . .

A Superior Court judge last week denied motions by Channel 39 to reduce the $300,000 penalty or set a new trial in the case of a woman the station wrongly identified as a prostitute in 1983. The station is expected to appeal the decision. . . .

Channel 39 may try to portray its half-hour newscasts at 5 and 6 p.m. as being the best thing to happen to television news since the invention of the toupee, but the shortcomings of the format are obvious almost every day. During the 5 p.m. newscasts, the station constantly teases stories that will appear only in the 6 p.m. show--not just feature segments but sidebars and additional news stories. Well, most people don’t want to watch two shows to get the news. . . .

Tired of press reports about her future, written by reporters who didn’t bother to call her, Channel 39 reporter Susan Farrell is refusing to make any comment about her contract talks with the station. Although some reports suggest that she might be the next to get the ax, rumor has it she will sign a new contract with the station. Farrell described her future as “rosy,” and said she is very happy with the station. . . .