ABC Snaps Up Another News Pro

TV or not TV. . . .

INSIDE MOVES: It was a quiet announcement, but it spoke volumes.

When Tom Bettag, Dan Rather’s former executive producer on the “CBS Evening News,” was hired the other day by ABC to head up Ted Koppel’s “Nightline,” it was another significant example of the changing balance of power at the networks.

CBS News, once the crown jewel of TV, continues to lose top talent through staff cuts and other management bloodletting. And ABC News continues to snap up experienced hands--David Brinkley is another prominent example--who have helped make it the network leader.

Bettag was replaced at CBS in February as the network’s coverage of the Persian Gulf War got off to a slow start. But ABC News President Roone Arledge, upon naming Bettag as executive producer of “Nightline,” said pointedly that he “is regarded as an excellent journalist. We think he’ll be a tremendous addition to ‘Nightline.’ ”

Rather and the “CBS Evening News” had plunged in the ratings in the weeks before Bettag was replaced. But, since his departure, the program has consistently remained in the basement for most of the last few months.

Bettag has a hard-news reputation, which is ideal for Koppel and “Nightline.” Erik Sorenson, his replacement as executive producer of the Rather broadcast, formerly was news director of KCBS Channel 2 and boss of the feature-oriented “CBS This Morning.”

So many troubling factors are at play these days at CBS News, as a new wave of staff reductions is under way, that it’s probably not fair to blame any single person in the division for the natural results of the ongoing, discomforting turbulence.

The problem increasingly seems to rest with the corporate management headed by CBS Chairman Laurence Tisch. What an extraordinary irony that CBS has even discussed a news-gathering alliance with CNN, whose founder, Ted Turner, was virtually depicted as the devil incarnate by CBS when he tried to buy the network in the 1980s.

Tisch said recently that CBS’ deal for major league baseball, which cost the network a fortune, was a mistake. Well, not entirely. Financially, yes. However, it did succeed in showing that CBS wanted to rebound as a major TV force. But network management didn’t know how to maximize the momentum.

CBS’ best move has been appointing Jeff Sagansky as head of its entertainment division. The network’s prime-time lineup has done well in all three ratings sweeps months this season--November, February and the current May competition--in an impressive comeback.

At CBS News, “60 Minutes” remains solid. But new directions for “48 Hours” seem to have emerged with emphasis--including a report on serial killers that jump-started the show’s ratings two weeks ago. And on Wednesday, “48 Hours” will offer a two-hour special broadcast on “the state of marriage, love and divorce in the ‘90s.”

Does Oprah Winfrey know about this?

AWAKE AND SING: Producer Norman Lear is interviewed Wednesday and Thursday nights on NBC’s “Later With Bob Costas,” after the David Letterman show.

Lear’s new TV comedy, “Sunday Dinner,” about an older man who falls for a young woman, debuts on CBS June 2, starring Robert Loggia.

Costas recently had a memorable interview with Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully, who says he’s reluctant to listen to other sports announcers. Scully says it was former Dodger announcer Red Barber who advised him, “Don’t listen to other broadcasters.”

“I said, ‘Why?’ . . . He said: ‘Because if you listen to other announcers, you will subconsciously or otherwise pick up their expressions. What you will then in essence do is water your wine, because you can bring into the booth the one thing that no one else can bring . . . you.’ That made a lot of sense.”

HORSE RACE: NBC’s “Today” show, making a ratings move since Katie Couric replaced Deborah Norville, pulled to within two-tenths of a point of ABC’s front-running “Good Morning America” in the latest weekly figures.

MOTHER LODE: Fans of the American Movie Classics channel will be delighted to know it has landed nearly 1,000 films in recent studio deals, including W. C. Fields’ “My Little Chickadee,” “The Bank Dick,” “You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man” and “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.” The deals assure AMC of a film supply through the end of the century.

POSTERITY: Dave Tebet, a walking history of show business who handled talent at NBC and now is with Johnny Carson’s company, says his planned book, “Friends and Enemies,” won’t be kiss-and-tell. Aw, gee whiz. But what a refreshing idea.

ENCORE: KCBS Channel 2’s Harvey Levin, whose investigative work made him a local Emmy winner Saturday, is at it again--checking for fraud in the workers’ compensation system all this week on the 5 p.m. news.

GADABOUT: Journalist Joan Agajanian Quinn, who knows everybody, is giving TV a whirl with her own show Saturdays at 5:30 p.m. on public access--Century Cable’s Channel 3 on the West Side and Channel 61 in Beverly Hills.

GETTING EVEN: KCAL Channel 9 never found a sportscaster as good as the one it fired--Scott St. James--so the station can hear what it’s missing when he starts his own talk show on KMPC-AM (710) June 3. You have to root for a guy whose resume lists “hustling” as one of his “special abilities.”

SHIP AHOY: CNN is truly everywhere--now it can be seen on three of the Cunard line’s luxury cruise ships, including the Queen Elizabeth 2.

SPECIAL DELIVERY: CNN vice president Ed Turner assures us that when the 1992 political conventions roll around, the all-news network “will be there, beyond gavel-to-gavel, as usual.” We never doubted it. “We plan on chasing those candidates to ground beginning late this year,” he says.

BEING THERE: According to David Letterman, one of the most frequently heard phrases in New York is: “Don’t worry. It’s just a flesh wound.”

Say good night, Gracie. . . .