‘Today’ Finds Gulf Strategy Paying Off

“Today” show producer Tom Capra has an eye for the quick fix.

In 1988, he was news director of KNBC-TV Channel 4. In a bid for ratings dominance, he sent Kelly Lange, Fred Roggin & Co. to Seoul, South Korea, to do their nightly newscasts from the Summer Olympics.

Despite ridicule for originating Los Angeles news from Seoul, the ploy worked. KNBC shot to the top.

Cut to 1990, the week of Aug. 20-24.

Capra, hired to rejuvenate the ailing “Today” series, pulls a similar move. His star anchor, Bryant Gumbel, broadcasts from Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf crisis.

Similar results.

Beset with problems and way behind ABC’s “Good Morning America” in audience, “Today” suddenly bolts to within two-tenths of a ratings point of the leader.

Like a flashback, there’s criticism again for using a top news event as backdrop for TV’s star wars.

Capra, visiting here several days ago, had no excuses.

“We do news best,” he says. “I think that’s our audience. That’s our strength, and I’m going to play to it.”

But isn’t this the same Capra who, on taking over “Today,” said the show was too serious?

Viewers who defected could have told him that news was the program’s strength.

True, there’s no Persian Gulf crisis every week to lure viewers--but their tune-in delivered a message that “Today” would be stupid to ignore. Nonetheless, it’s still a long road back for the show.

And Capra has to deal with remaining viewer anger over Deborah Norville’s replacing Jane Pauley. He thinks that sore spot is healing. “Well, I hope so. Deborah is who she is, and I hope everyone will get used to that.”

News is a better bet.

THINK TANK: Is it a pipe dream--or is ABC really considering an all-night (or almost all-night) newscast? The idea came from network stations--to bridge the gap between “Nightline” and “Good Morning America.” ABC spokeswoman Sherrie Rollins says the notion is for real and that a decision on whether they’ll proceed may come in a month.

EXPERTISE: Great insights and wit from CBS Middle East analyst Fouad Ajami, a Johns Hopkins professor. He told Charles Kuralt that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein “wants two things: peace and Kuwait.”

JUST THE FACTS: You know what I like about Kuralt--especially during the Persian Gulf showdown? He almost never smiles when breaking for commercials. Just a clenched mouth, like a benign bulldog.

TOP GUNS: The Mideast situation showed again that Ted Koppel and Dan Rather are TV’s top two anchors. The elegant, intellectual Koppel could be alone at the top if he were more of a street fighter. Rather is just that. He’s nowhere near Koppel as an academic, but his old-fashioned, beat-reporter aggressiveness can be awesome. It has saved his erratic career more than once.

AROUND THE CLOCK: Some colleagues used to complain that Walter Cronkite hogged air time when he was CBS’ anchor. Well, maybe it’s CBS’ style, because there’s Rather all over the place also--the Middle East, the nightly news and anchor of the weekly “48 Hours,” where he will turn up Sept. 13 for the series’ two-hour season premiere about murder in America.

THE NIGHT STALKER: NBC’s David Letterman is simply killing the network opposition--he outscored the combined ratings and audience shares of ABC’s Rick Dees and CBS’ action and talk-show entries during the week of Aug. 20-24. Yeah, I know all about Arsenio and his syndicated bag, but don’t mention him in the same breath with Letterman--OK?

FREE-SWINGER: Mickey Mantle told Letterman the other night that when he first joined the Yankees, the team instructed him to say his idol was Joe DiMaggio. But it wasn’t true. Mantle said his real idol was Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox.

MADE FOR EACH OTHER: It’s a natural--Diane Keaton and “China Beach.” She will direct an episode of the series, with production scheduled to start here this week.

ALL THAT JAZZ: Caught a profile of Al Jolson on the Bravo channel, and the guy is still simply thrilling to hear and watch. The only female parallel as an entertainer I can think of is Judy Garland. Difficult people both, it has been said. What does it matter?

NEW GIG: Elinor Donahue, the daughter Princess on “Father Knows Best,” will replace June Lockhart as Chris Elliott’s mother on Fox TV’s new fall sitcom “Get a Life.” Elliott plays a 30-year-old paper boy who still lives with his parents. His real dad--Bob Elliott of Bob and Ray--plays his father.

DOUBLE FAULT: Ivan Lendl’s new, white, Foreign Legion-type hat--to beat the heat--looks ridiculous on the tennis court. Best thing it generated was a TV announcer’s crack that it was Lendl’s “Beau Geste” look.

RERUN HEAVEN: Starting this week, you can catch Monday-through-Friday repeats of “L.A. Law,” “The Tracey Ullman Show” and “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd” on Lifetime cable.

CONFESSION: On NBC’s new sitcom “The Fanelli Boys,” which debuts Saturday, a priest observes, “The church frowns on . . . just about everything you do.”

PREDICTION: If it’s true that hit TV shows peak after about three years on the air, then “Unsolved Mysteries” should be a killer this season. And it will be.

TV GENERATION: So here’s “Babes,” a new Fox sitcom about three fat sisters. In an emotional moment, one of them looks around and asks plaintively, “Have we learned nothing from ‘Growing Pains’?” Not bad.

Say good night, Gracie . . .