ABC News Chief Looks to Boost TV’s Serious Side

ABC News President Roone Arledge on Thursday proposed major changes in the way the networks make time for serious news shows--including documentaries, presidential debates and national political party conventions.

Arledge, who spoke after receiving a lifetime achievement award from the Center for Communication, suggested that the networks occasionally replace entertainment shows that are suffering in the ratings with serious news documentaries. The ratings for those documentaries then would not be counted against the networks’ ratings averages.

He also promised that if the political parties pare their conventions back from four nights to two, “and if they will discuss serious issues and have political people on and not actors,” he would guarantee them two hours of air time each night.

Arledge also proposed that the next presidential debate should be a one-on-one, with the Democratic and Republican nominees asking each other questions and a moderator doing no more than introducing the program.

“If it was good enough for Lincoln and Douglas, it ought to be good enough for us,” he said, noting that the offer was made this year but was judged by the White House to be anti-incumbent.

“I suggest that the next time around, when there are two new candidates . . . the argument that the incumbent is somehow at a disadvantage and is giving a forum to his competitor will no longer be valid,” he said.

The presidents of NBC and CBS said after the luncheon that they believe Arledge is on the right track with proposals for changing political coverage. His suggestion that networks swap entertainment shows for documentaries, however, was greeted somewhat less enthusiastically.

“That one’s more difficult,” said Peter Lund, president of CBS Inc. “He is addressing a clear issue for broadcasters. There are decent documentaries on the air, and they are becoming more and more of an endangered species. But the economics behind this and the issues of viewer popularity are more complicated.”

Lund said that because broadcasters try to serve broader audiences, they do fewer documentaries that are costly and “have vertically challenged ratings.” However, he added, even with the costs and possible ratings losses, “certain documentaries are important to do, and we will continue to do them.”

But Lund and a spokesperson for NBC President Bob Wright said that they would be willing to begin talking about Arledge’s proposal on documentaries as soon as next month.

Speaking before an audience that included network executives and news superstars, Arledge said that “obviously, there is something wrong” with election coverage that this year earned the networks some of the lowest ratings in the history of political coverage.

He noted that this year’s Republican and Democratic conventions drew less than 30% of the viewers to the three broadcast networks. Arledge said he would propose that convention coverage be removed from the rating system, “because the idea that we’re all sitting there fighting over who got no audience is kind of crazy.”

As for the plan to switch struggling entertainment shows for documentaries, Arledge argued that “the audience has been so diffused with cable and with other networks that . . . a lot of programs are just dying.”

He proposed that instead of continuing to run low-rated shows, the networks agree to “put on a serious documentary that would teach the American people something.” He further suggested that the ratings of those programs be eliminated from the networks’ weekly and yearly averages.