‘Nightline’ Turns 10, but Skip Candles and Cake

Anniversaries always are big deals in TV. But don’t expect a gala edition of ABC’s “Nightline” tonight to note that it will be 10 years old on Saturday.

In fact, don’t even expect Ted Koppel to anchor it.

“As a matter of fact, I’m taking the day off,” said Koppel, the show’s anchor ever since it premiered as a 20-minute, Monday-through-Thursday late-night news interview program on March 24, 1980.

The celebration of a decade will occur in late April with a prime-time edition of “Nightline,” featuring suitable highlights of its existence.

The show’s honors include two Peabody Awards and general acclaim for Koppel’s crisp, to-the-point interviews of a wide variety of guests: world leaders, sports executives, diplomats, AIDS victims, Arabs and Israelis together, generals, and even ex-Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.), a two-time visitor.

But his most-watched show concerned what some might call light entertainment, a chat with the since-fallen TV preacher Jim Bakker and his wife, Tammy, in May, 1987. It got a 41% share of the audience, and viewers in more than 12.3 million homes tuned in.

True, more cosmic matters tend to draw smaller audiences. The show averages 5 million to 6 million homes each night, ABC said. Sometimes it’s even lower--only about 3.9 million homes in the week ending March 9.

But “Nightline,” the brainchild of ABC News President Roone Arledge, has proved there is room in late-night TV for news interviews as an alternative to amusement, and it can get ratings even on those nights when Johnny Carson fills in for his guest hosts.

What has become “Nightline” began on Nov. 8, 1979, with a different title and as a single-subject effort anchored by the late Frank Reynolds. Aired four days after 65 Americans were seized at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the show was called “The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage.”

A week later, through Arledge’s efforts, ABC began “America Held Hostage,” a late-night series on the crisis. The show initially was anchored by Reynolds.