Tough Economics Create Year of the Blatant Plug : Television: News departments at San Diego stations showed in 1991 that they were willing to compromise some principles to get through hard times.

Forget cute features about the latest newborn at the San Diego Zoo. Or insightful re-enactments of murders. Consumer stories exploring the social nuances of supermarket coupons didn’t even come close.

No, by far, the most popular news story of the past year--the feature that was more common in television news than any other and best defined the year--was the Blatant Plug Feature. From the KNSD-TV (Channel 39) news team offering up interviews with “L.A. Law” stars to CBS affiliate KFMB-TV (Channel 8) treating the demise of “Dallas” with the same time and enthusiasm usually reserved for the marriage of British princes, the television news departments made it very clear that they were available to help the stations make a few extra bucks.

Does the network need a little sweeps period coverage of that “Return to Gilligan’s Island” special? No problem. Local news seemed more than willing to devote a few minutes to a Bob Denver retrospective, maybe giving it a serious title like “Gilligan: Then and Now.”

“News is not so sacrosanct anymore,” KFMB-TV (Channel 8) Jim Holtzman said during an interview in June, several weeks after his department did a weeklong series on selling cars, which made car dealers and the station’s sales department very happy.

The man who reshaped the Channel 8 news team with disastrous ratings results, Holtzman wasn’t right about much this year, but he was right about that.

From linking news reports with advertisers to ignoring stories that weren’t sexy, local television news in 1991 continued its descent into a tacky new world of television.

Instead of fighting to establish their domain with a sweeping card of local programming (what a radical idea), local stations turned their airwaves over to such syndicated mind-expanding programs as “Geraldo,” “Studs,” “Married . . . With Children” and “Hard Copy.” Local news, which, in concept, always seemed to be above the fray, but in 1991, the Blatant Plug Feature proved that news is just another player in the game.

Local news operations managed to do much solid work, and on a day-to-day basis they were proven to be competent disseminators of information. But in a year when media bashing became a national sport, local television news gave more hints that it was willing to do whatever it takes to be loved by the masses.

Asked why they were willing to have news personnel work with advertisers--such as Channel 39 allowing environmental reporter Michael Settonni to do a public service announcement ad sponsored by a controversial waste-management company--or why they practically ignored local politics, local news executives usually chalk it up to the bottom-line reality of their business.

With advertising revenues doing the big spiral, CNN arranging live interviews by phone with world leaders and “Hard Copy” teasing viewers with lengthy exposes about tormented porn queens, what’s a local news director to do?

More than anything, the modern news operation tried to go along, to present the news without offending too many people.

When the Gulf War began in January, the local stations made it clear that they didn’t want their coverage to be criticized the way some people criticized coverage of Vietnam. The local stations tripped over each other trying to appear as the most patriotic station, the most supportive of the troops.

Channel 10 was “Your Homefront Station.” Some Channel 8 anchors were known to occasionally salute at the end of broadcasts.

Coverage of anti-war demonstrations was rare and treated with absolute sensitivity. When they did deign to mention that not every red-blooded American favored the war, the local stations almost always included disclaimer-like coverage of pro-war demonstrations to appease everyone.

Lasting images of war coverage include Channel 10 reporter Adrienne Alpert at an anti-war demonstration, battling with protesters, refusing to allow them to use her camera to send their messages, as if television news isn’t manipulated in the same manner a dozen times a day. Ratings leader Channel 10, trying hard to be nice guys, also told viewers it would no longer actively attempt to interview relatives of Gulf War victims, forgetting for a moment that such blanket announcements could result in the station missing important perspectives.

The war ended in an orgy of photo essays of returning troops. No unit was too small or too removed from the action to deserve a television news feature upon its return.

“You never get tired of seeing that,” news anchors said over and over again at the end of returning troops, which wasn’t quite accurate.

Such was the go-along attitude of local television news. There was plenty of outside pressures to conform in a year in which courts tried to impose more restrictions on what news organizations showed on television, primarily telling stations not to show pictures of suspects until the courts said it was OK. It became so extreme that at one point Channel 39 showed a Polaroid picture of murder suspect Cleophus Prince Jr. and put a gray dot over his face, and, in another case, Channel 8 showed extensive footage of rape suspect Henry Hubbard Jr. from his days in the police academy, all the time obscuring his face.

Some stations joined other media in fighting court-ordered restrictions, but they showed little such inclination to rail against the restrictions imposed within in the industry. Long ago it became accepted that local stations make little effort to cover national news or politics. And, in the last year, it became even more accepted that stations need to be more feature oriented and that people want happy news, and local news stations smiled and did features on topics just a little more weighty than a cat being rescued from a tree (true story, Channel 10 did it).

This year, as for the last three years, Channel 10 was the ratings champion, and it acted like it, producing more documentaries than its competitors and putting together the most aggressive community service group, “10 Friends,” which participated in everything from beach cleanups to senior citizen activities.

Channel 10 also displayed far more of a willingness to cover sensational news and produced more self-serving promotional spots than any station on Earth. Channel 10 even stooped so low as to use the news to do cross promotions with a tabloid show it airs, “Inside Edition.” Channel 10 also was the bastion of warm and fuzzy animal stories and endless health and fitness reports.

Among the stations, the main battles were more about style than substance. Channel 8 tried to revive its ratings with warm and fuzzy community stories and a new lineup of homey anchors. But the team of Hal Clement, perky newcomer Susan Peters and weatherman/environmental reporter Loren Nancarrow--replacing the young fashion model team of Stan Miller, Susan Roesgen and Larry Mendte--may have been genial, but it slid in the ratings.

Except for veteran Sports Guy Ted Leitner, Channel 8 newscasts were completely devoid of perspective and depth. Channel 10 was still the only station willing to turn its news over to commentators--the triad of Marti Emerald, Herb Cawthorne and L.A. commuter Michael Tuck.

Channel 39 added outspoken radio commentator Roger Hedgecock to its lineup, but used him in a schmaltzy talk-show format, the Ross/Hedgecock Report, with former Channel 8 anchorwoman Allison Ross doing news updates. The show started as a half-hour lead-in to the weekday 5 p.m. news, but was expanded to an hour in the fall, although there was little evidence that it had managed to find a consistent audience.

However, the same could not be said of Channel 39’s monthly town-hall show, “Third Thursday,” which consistently drew an impressive audience.

Less impressive was the audience for the KUSI-TV (Channel 51) 10 p.m. newscast, which debuted late in 1990. Cantankerous veteran New York anchorman Roger Grimsby left the station in February, and the station settled into a competent package of national and local news with anchors George Reading and Cathy Clark. But it did little to excite viewers, although Sports Guy Rod Luck provided the most entertaining incident of the year when he got into a fistfight with a book author, while the camera rolled.

Channel 51’s 10 p.m. newscast was a sign of the future, though, evidenced by Channel 8’s decision to do a Cox Cable-only 10 p.m. newscast, which debuted in October, in order to try to address the early-to-bed audience.

Channel 8’s 10 p.m. newscast may have been the most dramatic move of the year, but it was done with such ho-hum style--presenting the same ol’ newscast, just at a different time--that few people took notice. It was seen as more of a marketing move than a news decision.

It was that kind of year.