KTTV Hopes for Big Payoff From King Trial Coverage : Television: Executives at Fox want ‘gavel-to-gavel’ telecast to be the ‘watershed’ event that helps low-rated news operation stand out from the pack.

In 1949, KTLA Channel 5 decided to stay on the air live with 27 consecutive hours of the attempted rescue of a little girl who had fallen down an abandoned well. Forty-three years later, the station still touts that tragic day as one of the seminal events that propelled it to the forefront of local news here.

Executives at Fox-owned KTTV Channel 11 are hoping that their all-day, “gavel-to-gavel” telecasts of the trial of four Los Angeles Police Department officers accused of beating Rodney King will be a similar defining moment for their own historically troubled news operation.

“The conventional wisdom in this medium is that there is one watershed moment in every community that one station seizes and covers better than anyone else,” said Frank Gardner, senior vice president for news at Fox Television. “And people in the community fix on that and become truly aware of that station and then reward it with a higher level of allegiance. People at Channel 5 will always tell you about Kathy Fiscus and the day she fell down the well, even though most television viewers weren’t even alive then.

“I’m not promising that this trial will be one of those moments. It does not have the sensationalism or the emotional range of a little girl trapped in a well. But it’s an investment. If you have this big a commitment to presenting an aggressive, serious newscast and you don’t let people know what you’re doing, then you’ll just flail away in obscurity forever.”

The theory is that some of those who watch all or part of the station’s 9 a.m.-to-5 p.m. coverage of the testimony inside the Simi Valley courtroom, quarterbacked by the station’s 10 p.m. anchor, Chris Harris, will recognize the station’s commitment to news, perhaps become aware of it for the first time, and will sample the centerpiece of the station’s news operation: “Fox News at 10.”

Despite myriad changes in news management and philosophy and a large financial investment from Fox over the past few years, KTTV has failed to attain much of a news presence. The station has consistently trailed KTLA’s 10 p.m. broadcast by a wide margin, and for much of that time has struggled to keep up with KCAL Channel 9 and KCOP Channel 13.

KTTV’s effort to turn that around with the King beating trial carries a steep price. Unlike CNN’s coverage of the William Kennedy Smith rape trial, which broke away from testimony for commercials, KTTV is not airing commercials except during recesses in the courtroom.

KTTV would not reveal how much revenue it is relinquishing to cover the trial, but competitors guessed that it was somewhere in the vicinity of $40,000 a day.

“Fox has a general umbrella of being bold and innovative and willing to take some chances, and this coverage reinforces that image,” said Jose Rios, KTTV’s managing editor. “And aside from giving our newscast and our news people a platform, a visibility they never had before, I also think this is tremendous public service. This was one of those watershed events in the life of any city, and here we’re giving the public a front-row seat at the trial.”

And even though several of those closest to the all-day coverage concede that the trial is often filled with lulls and tedium, a seemingly grateful public has nonetheless responded in a manner that Gardner characterizes as “overwhelming and intoxicating.”

Arbitron ratings have been strong, with an average of about 205,000 households tuning in for each of the seven or eight hours of coverage the first 11 days of the trial. Last Thursday, KTTV averaged nearly 300,000 homes for the entire day’s coverage. A. C. Nielsen ratings have been, on average, about 15% less.

KTTV’s coverage has been the most-watched show in the market on most mornings, and from 4-5 p.m., the trial viewership on occasion has surpassed that of the newscasts on the network-owned stations. Last Thursday, for example, when Sgt. Stacey C. Koon testified in his own defense, KTTV grabbed about 400,000 homes and 19% of all those watching television that hour, as measured by Arbitron, compared with about 240,000 homes for news on KABC Channel 7 and KNBC Channel 4 and about 100,000 for “Geraldo” on KCBS Channel 2. (As for the impact on KTTV’s 10 p.m. news: Nielsen ratings are up slightly, Arbitron is flat.)

“I think this is a great idea,” said Vicki Podberesky, a criminal defense attorney who has served as one of KTTV’s rotating analysts during the coverage. “It gives the public an opportunity to see how a trial is really run, to see all the things that attorneys argue over, to see that the opening statements are not two minutes long like on ‘L.A. Law.’ It shows people the huge buildup of testimony that finally comes to the jury for their decision. It’s a real education.”

In addition, Channel 11 officials said that the station has received hundreds of calls and letters from viewers each day. They “are watching like hawks,” Rios said. “We have calls ranging from the very insightful and specific, such as ‘They quoted this section of the Penal Code and it’s really this section,’ to ‘I don’t like (one of the policemen) and he shouldn’t be allowed to talk.’ I got a call from someone who said, ‘I have people coming over and I have to clean the house, but this is too interesting.’ ”

Nevertheless, Gardner will not guarantee that full-time coverage will continue for the duration of the trial, which could last for several more weeks. Though no one at KTTV foresees an abrupt end, he said the decision to continue is made daily.

“It will be hard not to do the whole thing, but economically this has been a great sacrifice just to take it this far,” Rios said. “No other station was willing to do it.”