Grabbing Slices of the Big Apple TV Pie

A groan goes up from the teenagers clinging to a dusty traffic island in the middle of Times Square: Apparently MTV, whose glass-walled studio they’ve been peering up toward in hopes of waving to their friends at home, isn’t shooting outdoors this afternoon. “We risked our lives just to get here and be on MTV,” wails Cynthia Hempel, 16, of Connecticut, as cars and smelly buses stream past, inches from her toes.

Happily for New York visitors, however, the prospects of getting onscreen for a millisecond to wish Grandma a happy birthday or declare one’s love for a TV host are about to improve.

In addition to the MTV facility at Broadway and 44th, the Fox News studios on 6th Avenue and the “Today” show’s popular Rockefeller Center location, “Good Morning America” will begin broadcasting Sept. 13 from its brand-new, indoor-outdoor Times Square studio.

When Bryant Gumbel returns to morning television Nov. 1 with CBS’ “The Early Show,” he’ll have an almost $30-million new home with glass walls at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, next to FAO Schwarz and across from Central Park and the Plaza Hotel. Expect to see still more people in funny hats, holding up hand-lettered signs.

One could view this as democratization. “It’s an empowering thing--people in suits and makeup aren’t the only people on television,” says Steve Friedman, who launched the trend five years ago as “Today’s” executive producer. He got the idea in the 1980s when the “Today” gang made a train excursion through the heartland and saw fans waving “Hi, Bryant!” and “Welcome, Willard!” signs in the wee hours--in tiny towns where the train didn’t even stop.

“People want to reach out and touch those people who are part of their lives,” concluded Friedman, now senior executive producer of the new Gumbelcast. These days, Rockefeller Center is a tourist destination at an hour that used to belong to street sweepers.

But, of course, one could also chalk up TV’s new passion for Manhattan streetscapes to competitive pressures. Shortly after “Today” moved into its glassy new studio in 1994, drawing everyone from lovers proposing marriage to folks dressed as hot dogs, it passed once-dominant “GMA” and has remained No. 1 in the Nielsens since the end of 1995.

In addition to the hundreds of folks who show up on any pleasant weekday, “Today’s” outdoor concerts on summer Fridays regularly attract 1,500 to 2,000; Ricky Martin’s June appearance drew 6,000 shrieking fans and shut down traffic. A 20,000-square-foot retail store called the NBC Experience opened across the street last spring.

It helped that a rejuvenated midtown Manhattan offered a shinier, happier backdrop. Times Square in particular is more bustling and neon-blanketed and has fewer porn-flick marquees.

MTV had been there for several years before it started shooting news shows in what had been office space. “We went down and saw this spectacular view and said, ‘This is the place!,’ and kicked this poor guy right out of his office,” MTV News chief Dave Sirulnick says.

News Studios With a View--and Passersby

The corner of 1515 Broadway became MTV’s primary studio two years ago; now kids regularly camp outside, hoping that dreamboat veejay Carson Daly, host of the afternoon show “Total Request Live,” will let them request a video on-camera or invite them into the studio to chat. When popular musicians like Limp Bizkit or the Backstreet Boys appear, the crowds swell so alarmingly that uniformed off-duty cops are on hand.

By now, TV executives say, living-room-style studios seem somewhat static.

“You can feel very isolated in a studio which has no windows,” says Phyllis McGrady, the executive in charge of “GMA.” When the show moves to 7 Times Square next month, the huge glass panels on the street level will swing open for cooking and exercise segments and weather forecasts. Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer will descend from their second-story anchor desks to mingle with the masses now and again.

“Maybe we’ll use [passersby] as our instant poll, have them react to the news,” McGrady speculates. “We have a political year coming up.”

Enter CBS, determined to break its long streak in the No. 3 spot.

“If you’re going to rip yourself off, you’ve gotta do it bigger and better,” Friedman says of the new studio in a skyscraper once known as the GM Building. It’s now the General Motors Building at Trump International Plaza, with large brassy letters spelling T-R-U-M-P in honor of its new owner. Donald Trump sold the Plaza Hotel years ago, sparing CBS the potential sight of T-R-U-M-P dominating the horizon above its zillion-dollar anchors’ heads.

The new digs will cost nearly twice what “Today” spent for its indoor-outdoor studio, but Friedman now considers such facilities “the price of admission” in the morning sweepstakes. “If one show is in Rockefeller Center and one is in Times Square, you can’t be on 11th Avenue,” he says. “Our hope is we win the real estate wars.”

CBS has negotiated to plant cameras on surrounding buildings to offer “bumper shots” (leading into and out of commercial breaks) of horse-drawn cabs pulling up to the Plaza, twirling skaters in Central Park and other atmospheric scenes.

“ ‘Today’ is a small outdoor corner of Rockefeller Center,” Friedman says, dismissing his own past creation. “We have a neighborhood. . . . We’re trying to make our show as big as possible. Big, in television terms, is beautiful.”

Friedman’s even willing to claim that the success of street-level studios contributed to the city’s current renaissance, as much as the other way around. When “Today” took to the streets, he says, “People at home said, ‘Hey, I don’t see anybody getting killed there. I see people like me, having a good time.’ ”