‘60 Minutes’ Finding Renewed Energy as It Battles ‘Dateline’

One month into the matchup between “Dateline NBC” and “60 Minutes,” the old lion of newsmagazines appears to have been reinvigorated by competition with the cub.

“60 Minutes” recently did its first story on the O.J. Simpson case, an investigation into alleged jury-tampering that gave “60 Minutes” its third-highest-rated show of the season. That segment comes in the midst of several very topical profiles--such as one on radio personality Don Imus pegged to Imus’ controversial remarks at a radio and television correspondents’ dinner in Washington in the presence of President and Mrs. Clinton. Executive producer Don Hewitt plans to step up breaking-news stories in the future. At the same time, the newsmagazine has been promoting itself more--through story updates at the end of “60 Minutes” and through excerpts of upcoming “60 Minutes” pieces on the “CBS Evening News.”

“The competitive juices are flowing here,” correspondent Steve Kroft said. “It’s exciting because several months ago, a lot of people in the press were writing that ’60 Minutes’ had lost steam.”

To outsiders, it seems clear that it’s no coincidence the “new” “60 Minutes” arrived just as NBC decided to program its popular “Dateline” against the venerable newsmagazine.

But, while acknowledging their new competition, the stars and producers of “60 Minutes” insist that they are not so much responding to “Dateline” as to the internal dynamics of their own show. They say they’re rebounding from a somewhat stale season last year--and from the blow to CBS’ prestige by not running a “60 Minutes” interview with tobacco whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand for three months.

“When there’s new competition, it’s bound to be stimulating,” correspondent Mike Wallace said. “But what has really changed things at ’60 Minutes’ this season was finally being able to run the tobacco story. Before that, morale here was terrible.”

“The only bad thing that’s ever happened to us was that we weren’t able to keep faith with the American people on the tobacco story,” executive producer Don Hewitt said. “Running that story [on Feb. 4] is what has caused the burst of energy here.

“I’m making some changes in the show because, after 28 years on the air, it’s good to check the tires on the car. But I’m not making changes to respond to ‘Dateline.’ Over here, the last thing anybody thinks about is ‘Dateline.’ ”

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Neal Shapiro, the executive producer of “Dateline,” isn’t so sure. “They’ve just done a 22-minute piece on O.J. Simpson. They’re adding more breaking-news stories, which is something we do a lot. And they’re going to be adding commentators. Maybe it’s entirely coincidental to our coming on the air--but their show is changing.”

Former NBC News President Lawrence Grossman agrees. “There was a great fear at CBS that ’60 Minutes’ was losing its audience,” he said. “The changes Hewitt announced obviously were done in anticipation of ‘Dateline’ coming on.”

In February, after the January “Dateline” announcement and on the heels of a 20% drop in viewers this season, Hewitt announced that he was hiring Texas liberal Molly Ivins as a weekly columnist, with conservative critics Stanley Crouch and P.J. O’Rourke alternating as her sparring partner. Hewitt also said that the show would have a quickly reported, breaking-news story each week, with former “60 Minutes” producer Josh Howard being hired to head the breaking-news unit.

The commentators won’t be starting until April 28, Hewitt said last week. And, while the show plans more breaking-news stories, Hewitt has backed off doing one per week, saying there may not be an important breaking-news story every week. “We don’t want to look like the nightly newscast,” as one “60 Minutes” producer said.

In the meantime, Hewitt is hiring Walt Bogdanich, the award-winning producer of several ABC tobacco exposes, to be an investigative producer for Mike Wallace.

The Simpson story, “60 Minutes” producers noted, was a five-month investigation into alleged jury-tampering that began long before anybody knew NBC was going to decide to challenge “60 Minutes” with “Dateline,” which aired several Simpson stories during the trial. “[The jury tampering] was a great story--but we’re not going to do a bunch of O.J. Simpson stories,” Hewitt said.

The story--which traced the origins of a letter that may have been fabricated to get a Simpson juror dismissed--put a serious dent in “Dateline’s” Sunday rating when it aired. NBC posted its worst rating in three outings against “60 Minutes” that night. (“Dateline” was preempted this past Sunday night by an NBA basketball game.) NBC had a 5.8 rating/10 share of the night of the Simpson story, while “60 Minutes” had a 16.1 rating/28 share of audience.

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But the highest-rated shows this season have been the kinds of pieces “60 Minutes” is known for. The highest ratings came on Feb. 4, when the Jeffrey Wigand interview finally aired, which began “60 Minutes” ascent back into to the Nielsen Top 10. The second-highest show this season included an expose on postal-service fraud.

“Andrew Heyward [the new CBS News president] told me, ‘It’s not broke--don’t fix it,’ ” Wallace said.

But Heyward is keen on publicizing what “60 Minutes” has on the air. It is Heyward, staffers say, who has moved to “cross-promote” “60 Minutes” on the “CBS Evening News”--and vice versa.

Before “Dateline” began airing on Sunday in March, CBS News executives privately acknowledged their concern. “They could knock us out of the Nielsen Top 10,” one news executive said. Instead, one CBS source says, “People here have been reassured by the initial ratings. It looks like we’re not losing our audience to their show.”

The Nielsen numbers so far do seem to bear out that impression. “Dateline” has scored good ratings (9.4, 8.9 and the most recent 5.8) against the ratings (15.6, 13.7 and 16.1) of the entrenched “60 Minutes” for the same period. (ABC’s “Funniest Home Videos” has received 9.7, 10.3 and 9.3 ratings for the same period.) But researchers at both CBS and ABC say it appears that “Dateline”--which appeals to a younger audience--is bringing new viewers to the time period, not taking away from “60 Minutes.”

Producers at “60 Minutes” say there has been no new edict from Hewitt in the face of competition from “Dateline.” “I’m doing what I always do, looking for good stories,” “60 Minutes” investigative reporter Lowell Bergman said. Bergman, who produced the Wigand interview, was on to the current Unabomber story, Hewitt said, before CBS broke the news of the arrest of Theodore Kaczynski. (That very timely story was overtaken by events, with CBS deciding to put the information on the “CBS Evening News.”)

Still, despite “60 Minutes’ ” recent coups, “Dateline’s” Shapiro says his show is not cowed by the competition. “They’ve had a good run recently, but we’re proud of our show, too,” Shapiro said. “We’re in this for the long haul.”