KNBC Is Changing Its News Diet : Channel 4’s Goal: ‘A Good, Solid, Meat-and-Potatoes Newscast.’

Los Angeles has changed from “a lifestyle town to a news town.” And local TV newsrooms that don’t change with the city are doomed to lose in the only game that really matters: “recruiting and holding viewers.”

So believes Mark Hoffman, KNBC-TV Channel 4 news director since March, who has been charged with rejuvenating the station’s news fortunes following a long run at the top and then a precipitous fall in early 1992.

He is aiming to do so with more news, as opposed to feature or “feel-good” stories, and by changing the newsroom’s attitude in order to get to breaking stories first, and with more reporters than its competitors.

That philosophy seemed to provoke immediate results as the station’s ratings stabilized and, in some time periods, grew dramatically during the last major ratings period in May. But during the less significant July sweeps, which concluded last week, KNBC’s numbers fell off a bit, indicating that the station still has a ways to go to overcome its top-rated chief rival, KABC-TV Channel 7.

Hoffman dismissed the July numbers as inconsequential, pointing out that KNBC won the ratings on the day of the most important news story of the month: the sentencing last week of Los Angeles policemen Stacey C. Koon and Laurence M. Powell. He insisted that he is committed to his strategy no matter the results last month.

Many in KNBC’s newsroom applaud Hoffman for improving the station’s coverage and competitiveness in just four months. But several have complained quietly that his definition of a TV newscast neglects some of the vital issues of government and other institutions that television news once seemed obliged to cover.

Hoffman said that even if it takes a while for viewers to recommit themselves to news on Channel 4, the station had no choice but to change to a bolder, newsier style. With the bad economy in California, rising crime rates and last year’s civil unrest, “the appetite of the audience,” he explained, “is for news--a good, solid, meat-and-potatoes newscast.”

KNBC’s previous news deficiencies were most conspicuously exposed, according to several news staffers who asked not to be identified, when the riots started after the verdict in the first Rodney G. King beating trial in April, 1992. The station’s helicopter was grounded with mechanical problems, there weren’t enough reporters and camera crews in the field and, according to one source, KNBC news vans had to return to Burbank every time they needed gas because the company didn’t allow them to use credit cards.

The result, these employees say, was that KABC outperformed KNBC, achieving a ratings boost that in the following months propelled it past KNBC into first place in news.

To counter the audience decline, KNBC hired anchor Paul Moyer away from KABC with a baseball-player-sized contract, but his arrival did not magically stem the ratings’ hemorrhaging. So, after a dismal November ratings sweeps, KNBC let go news director Nancy Valenta and hired Hoffman, a native of Encino who has served as a news director in Atlanta and most recently at the CBS-owned station in Chicago.

Concurrent with the personnel moves, the station also underwent a thorough review of editorial policy and procedures, covering everything from buying fuel for the news vehicles to KNBC’s image in minority communities.

When the verdict in the second King trial came in last April, KNBC was far more prepared. The helicopter had been fitted with a $350,000 camera that provided better pictures from a greater distance than the previous mount, and a second helicopter was standing by in case of mechanical trouble. Many more crews were deployed. And KNBC wound up grabbing more viewers on that big news day than any of its competitors.

What will win and hold viewers over time on the average day, Hoffman said, is cramming more stories into each newscast, covering what he deems important stories from multiple angles and using bolder, clearer graphics.

Those who work for him say most of the changes Hoffman has instituted are positive, although some believe he intentionally provokes a frantic atmosphere to create energy on screen. One trick, an employee said, is to change stories and coverage assignments late in the day to generate a sense of urgency and breathlessness for the reporter going on the air live after arriving just a few moments before.

Hoffman denies any such intention, noting that it’s simply basic journalism to switch gears as the day wears on and the world changes.

“The audience wins if we in our newsroom continue to push,” he said, “if every day we pick the best stories no matter what time they happen and cover them better than anyone else.”

The problem a TV station in such a vast and diverse area as Los Angeles faces is picking stories that relate to everyone within reach of the signal, which includes Orange, Riverside and Ventura counties. Stories on politics and county and state government take a back seat to “the things that people are talking about,” one staffer said--things like shootings, a baby drowned in a swimming pool, killer bees, what house Burt Reynolds just rented.

“The (Los Angeles) mayor’s race is an interesting thing,” Hoffman said. “I think we covered it pretty well, but here is the dilemma: Only half of those who are eligible to vote are even registered, and only half of them bother to vote. This is a TV market that extends far beyond the boundaries that the mayor serves, and those are factors that you have to consider when you decide how much weight to give any story.”

Hoffman’s boss, KNBC General Manager Reed Manville, agrees. Viewers gravitate toward crime stories and family catastrophes, he said, because they are concerned with crime and safety and because “it makes them feel better about their own situation, that it’s not their family.”

But is it right for a news organization to neglect significant issues in favor of human dramas simply because the average viewer relates to those more closely than they do stories about the county budget problems?

“ Relate is the key word,” Manville said. “It’s almost that they like them better. People don’t like politics these days. It’s a hard subject to talk about, to make exciting. Even if you put your best efforts forward, there is so much alienation to that, and you will damage your ratings by focusing unduly and trying to lead the audience into a subject that they really have no interest in. . . . Absolutely we feel an obligation to present some of it. And we do, and that is the challenge: to try to personalize it and make it as interesting as we can. But as an institution, it’s boring. People turn it off. The big things will get told whether they are interesting or not. But there is a whole other section of content that better be interesting, or you’re out of business. You won’t get ratings.”