Networks Shopping Their News

When CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips went on a recent trip to cover elections in Zimbabwe and other stories in Africa, the network got its money’s worth out of him, airing his reports on “The Early Show” and “CBS Evening News” as well as an upcoming segment for “Sunday Morning.”

Still, Phillips’ work didn’t stop there. He also reported for “BET Nightly News,” the newscast CBS just began co-producing with African American-targeted cable channel BET, which was acquired last year by CBS owner Viacom.

Media consolidation has fueled serious concerns that television news is becoming less of a priority in ever-larger conglomerates more focused on profits than public service. The Walt Disney Co.’s recent willingness to displace “Nightline” if it was able to lure comedian David Letterman from CBS provoked a new round of worries that network news faces an uncertain future.

Increasingly, however, network news divisions are also finding hidden opportunities in consolidation, eyeing sister outlets as potential homes for programming that can help defray costs and support the infrastructure needed for shows such as “CBS Evening News.” For a network such as CBS--which, unlike NBC, doesn’t have a related cable news channel--such productions can be particularly important, media analysts say.

BET already had a newscast before Viacom acquired it, but both sides saw benefits from a co-production. The program, anchored by Jacque Reid, has its own correspondents and producers; still, as of last month, it began originating from a set at CBS in New York, with CBS News and local TV reporters appearing regularly and providing the program a stronger national presence.

In addition to BET, CBS is also hoping to produce news for UPN, another Viacom network, whose management was recently consolidated under CBS. “They know we’re very interested in doing something if we can,” CBS News President Andrew Heyward said. There have also been limited joint productions with Viacom’s MTV and VH1 channels, both of which have news units, and MTV piggybacked on CBS for production services at the 2000 national political conventions.

These latest outside productions represent an extension of divisions the three elder networks put in place during the last decade, originally to squeeze extra money out of their archives by repackaging them for cable, which desperately needs inexpensive programming. But with entities like the Travel Channel having only so much money for old episodes of Charles Kuralt’s “On the Road” series, the networks soon realized there was more money to be made in more or less original productions.

Cable Channels Become Frequent Customers

A&E;’s “Biography” series, for example, has a large appetite for episodes produced by ABC, NBC and CBS, which often use existing footage augmented by new material. The History Channel, Court TV, Lifetime, the Food Network, TLC and Discovery Health are also frequent customers. The list gets longer all the time, with ABC developing a series for movie channel AMC and talking about another with women’s network WE.

In addition, these productions have become increasingly elaborate, expanding on footage broadcast on the network. ABC News’ six-hour summer documentary “Hopkins 24/7,” about Johns Hopkins Medical Center, was reworked into a 10-hour series for Discovery Health. Similarly, Steve Kroft’s 13-minute report on the 1970 Tucson Pioneer Hotel fire in early March for CBS’ “60 Minutes” was accompanied by a one-hour version for Court TV.

With news divisions watching every penny, the jockeying for such deals has become highly competitive--especially with other players, such as New York Times Television, aggressively entering the business. NBC News, for example, replaced ABC News as the producer of a since-canceled science newscast for Discovery but won’t discuss other productions, citing competitive concerns. “In general, one is always looking over one’s shoulder,” said Lisa Zeff, executive producer and general manager of ABC Productions.

As a result, arrangements with sister networks have become all the more important. CBS News has also branched out by producing specials for the entertainment division, including three related to the series “Survivor” in addition to helping two French filmmakers edit their Sept. 11 terrorist attack footage into the high-rated two-hour presentation “9/11.” That project didn’t carry a CBS News label because it raised money for scholarships, which is against news division policy.

“It’s a small business for now, but we’re hoping it will become much larger,” NBC News President Neal Shapiro said. “I don’t think these outside productions save ‘Nightly News,’ which is profitable on its own, but all news divisions are stretched covering a war they never thought they’d have to cover and the extra millions of dollars [these shows contribute] to the budget are of course valuable.”

In fact, executives at ABC News’ “Nightline” have viewed outside co-production deals with places such as PBS’ “Frontline” as crucial to the show’s bottom line, allowing it to produce series that it couldn’t afford otherwise.

Despite the financial incentives, news executives also say the benefits can extend beyond the bottom line. “Even though [the newscast] is branded BET and not CBS, it’s a way for us to reach out to a critical part of the audience that sometimes feels underserved by mainstream news,” Heyward said.

“And at the same time, it will allow us to tap into stories and sources we sometimes don’t have access to.”