MEDIA : Station’s Success or Failure Hinges on News Anchors

News anchors, television news experts will tell you, are the key to ratings.

Sure, the reporters’ looks, the sets’ color and the opening graphics are important. Content makes a difference, too.

More than anything else, though, the ability of anchor men and women to win over the audience, to earn their trust, is the essential ingredient to beating the competition.

“Anchors can be a reason not to watch a newscast,” a local television executive said. “No matter how straight or honest, or how good a newscast is, if people don’t like the anchors, they won’t watch.”

Viewers seem to like anchors who display some journalistic skill, but it is not essential. Far more important is the anchor’s ability to communicate--in other words, that they speak clearly and forcefully and act like they can think and talk at the same time.

Stations love to portray their anchors as hard-working journalists, in the field, press card in fedora, seeking truth and justice. They know they’re not fooling anybody. Yet it is imperative to build respect, to have the audience believe that news readers have a real idea of what is going on in the world.

Viewers tune in to anchors who make them feel warm and comfortable. After all, they’re inviting these people into their homes.

Locally, television news departments are entering an unusually stable period. Except for KGTV’s (Channel 10) Michael Tuck, who is headed for Los Angeles, the anchors are set.

The race is on. This month is a ratings sweep period, and beyond the sea of special reports and in-depth features, San Diego audiences will be passing judgment on the anchors. The team that woos the hearts and viewing habits of San Diegans stands to win big bucks for themselves, as well as their stations.

The lineups:

* KGTV (Channel 10): The current champions have been buoyed by one of the city’s most consistent lineups. Viewers like consistency. Tuck is headed for Los Angeles, but the station has signed Kimberly Hunt to a new deal, and Carol LeBeau doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Hunt and LeBeau are the glamour queens of local news. They dress for each 11 p.m. newscast as if they just came from a high society cocktail party.

LeBeau comes across like the stern aunt who always brings the kids a present, but makes them listen to a lecture about the evils of overeating as payment. Aunt Carol is a familiar face to San Diegans. That’s a plus.

Hunt is saddled with a blond baby-doll image, but her on-air demeanor is cool and formal. Certainly some tune in simply to see her hair style of the day. The station has been making efforts to portray her as a Serious Journalist, sending her out on more stories.

* KFMB-TV (Channel 8): Allison Ross is long gone. Long live Susan Roesgen. At least that’s what the station is hoping. The ratings slipped after Ross left last year, but it always takes viewers a while to grow accustomed to new faces.

Roesgen is cool and reserved, moving dangerously close to being cold and distant. She blinks quite a bit, to the point of being unnerving. She seems offended by the banter of jokers Larry Mendte and Ted Leitner. Yet she has a certain alluring look.

Sidekick Stan Miller is apparently her male equivalent. The pairing of two high sex-appeal anchors has to be more strategy than accident.

Miller has a folksy, lets-sit-down-and-chew-the-fat style. He has an uncanny ability to look earnest one moment, jovial the next. He should be forbidden from making small talk on the air. Typical witty Miller ad lib: “Yeah, you can say that again.”

* KNSD-TV (Channel 39): The Marty and Denise Show is developing into a long-running act. For more than two years, Marty Levin and Denise Yamada have been the key anchors at the perennial third-place station. It has yet to be proven that large numbers of San Diegans will tune in to see the duo deliver the news “straight,” despite a recent minor ratings increase at 11 p.m.

Levin manages to project his no-nonsense personality on the air. Other than (perhaps) Tuck, he is the only local anchor who appears able to converse on local topics and sound intelligent. His skills are abundantly clear during special shows, such as election coverage or the monthly “Third Thursday.”

Yamada has stopped giggling on the air. That’s a plus. She seems to be straining to be a serious news reader. But, in general, she seems to have grown more comfortable in the co-anchor role.

The bottom line: Will San Diegans let Levin and Yamada into their homes?

In a move that can be seen as a major coup in terms of exposing its newscast to more people, Channel 10 has reached an agreement with Cox and Southwestern cable systems to air short local news segments throughout the day on CNN’s “Headline News” channel. The service is tentatively scheduled to begin in April. . . .

Larry Himmel has signed to work on a pilot for Fox Television. On the show, described as an “updated Real People,” Himmel will provide interviews and commentaries. It is scheduled to air on KTTV (Channel 11) in March. . . .

KVSD-AM (1000), unable to make much of a dent in the news-talk competition, is switching its call letters to KCEO, pending FCC approval, and emphasizing a new business and financial news format. Perry Allen and Ron Fortner are out in the mornings. Stockbroker George Chamberlin, who left KVSD to go to XTRA-AM (690), only to be dumped a few months later, will return to handle the morning slot. Fortner has been hired by XTRA to be a general assignment anchor. . . .

Send a press release and they will come. There was no real news value in the opening of an Aventine Center health club last week. Sure, it seems to be a large and trendy place. And maybe that’s why channels 8 and 10 did features on it, and the San Diego Tribune ran a big picture. Or maybe it was simply because they received a press release. . . .

Recently deposed Channel 39 weatherman Dave Bender says the station didn’t pick up the option on his contract last September. When he turned down their offer, he was told to pack his belongings. He wasn’t that upset. He has a new agent, Conrad Shadlin--who also handles Greg Hurst and Larry Mendte, among others--and has already made contact with stations in Cleveland, Dallas and Los Angeles. He’d prefer Los Angeles, where he could pursue his real dream--to someday be the host of a television game show. . . .

This Thursday’s edition of Channel 39’s “Third Thursday,” focusing on the death penalty, is scheduled to include a live interview from Houston with Clarence Brandley, who was a few days from being executed when a court reversed his murder conviction. Also due to appear: Doris Tate, mother of actress Sharon Tate, who was murdered by the Manson clan. . . .

Channel 39 has picked up “A Current Affair,” now airing on Channel 10, effective in September.