Reporting live from the altar

During her 15 years at ABC News, Diane Sawyer has interviewed presidents and reported stories about biological warfare, terrorist attacks and life under the Taliban. But starting tonight, she’ll train her investigative eye on a far different topic: America’s funniest nuptials.

In an unusual programming move, at 10 tonight ABC will premiere “Weddings Gone Wacky, Wonderful & Wild: Anything for Love,” which it calls a “funny and sometimes poignant” five-episode series cohosted by Sawyer and produced by the news division. Although ABC News has produced limited-run prime-time series before -- for example, “ICU,” a sober four-part documentary about life in a hospital, ran in summer 2002 -- the division has rarely, if ever, devoted so much airtime to such lightweight material.

In fact, on-air promotions for “Weddings Gone Wacky,” focusing on attractive young couples dishing about their connubial bloopers, might even be mistaken for the network’s next reality show, with its title echoing the popular and risque “Girls Gone Wild” videos.

ABC News spokesman Jeff Schneider emphasized that “Weddings Gone Wacky” adheres to the standards of ABC News and has nothing to do with reality programming. According to the network, the series grew out of a “Primetime” news special, “My Big, Wild, You’re-Not-Gonna-Believe-This Wedding,” last summer.

Tonight’s first episode of “Weddings Gone Wacky” was still being edited last week and was not available for advance review. But it’s expected to include a story about a woman who turned her life around after she was left at the altar, as well as an interview with Laker basketball star Shaquille O’Neal and his wife, Shaunie. “All of the couples demonstrate incredible determination to make their dream day a reality,” the network says in promotional materials for the series.

Schneider said it was “extremely unfair” to judge the series based on promotions and descriptions. “While certainly not addressing the great issues of the day, [‘Weddings Gone Wacky’] will address what is certainly a big day in a lot of people’s lives in this country, the day they get married,” Schneider said.

The network declined to make Sawyer, ABC News President David Westin or other executives available to comment for this article.

“I can’t imagine Diane would be proud of such a thing,” said Lawrence Grossman, former head of NBC News and PBS and a frequent media critic. “She considers herself to be, and she is, a serious newsperson.”

Grossman, who had not seen “Weddings Gone Wacky,” said that if the program matches its description, it fits a pattern of news divisions increasingly borrowing ideas from, or devoting coverage to, reality television. NBC’s “Dateline,” for instance, was criticized earlier this year for lavishing attention on the network’s reality hit “The Apprentice.” “It’s an embarrassment to a network news division,” Grossman said of the trend.

But as Sawyer might say on “Primetime,” there’s more to the story. ABC remains under intense pressure to boost poor ratings and is facing a particularly heavy competitive threat from Fox and NBC, which are trumpeting numerous original entertainment shows this summer.

ABC, which will lose an estimated $300 million this year, has meager funds for splashy premieres during the warm months and has thus turned to the news division to contribute relatively cheap programming ideas, according to two executives familiar with the situation.

A one-hour program like “Weddings Gone Wacky” can be produced for $500,000 or less, compared with $1 million for a reality series and $2 million or more for a scripted hourlong series.

ABC also has more holes in its summer schedule than it originally expected. Shortly after being tapped as the new ABC Entertainment president in April, Steve McPherson opted to save two summer reality series -- “The Benefactor” and “Wife Swap” -- for the fall lineup because he believed the programs would find bigger audiences there, according to an ABC spokesman. But that left the network scrambling to find replacement programs.

“You may be looking at what you could call the summer problems of a troubled network,” says one ABC News insider.

According to an ABC spokesman, the network asked the news division to produce more wedding-related shows after the original special aired last summer. ABC originally hoped to air the programs late last fall, the spokesman said, but Sawyer’s schedule delayed those plans.

In the meantime, ratings for newsmagazines like “Primetime” have been fading, putting pressure on the news divisions to maintain their relevance in prime time, when more viewers are watching than at any other period of the day and the most lucrative ad time is purchased.

ABC News is producing two other summer series that promise more substance than “Weddings Gone Wacky.” “NYPD 24/7,” which premieres June 22 for seven episodes, received “unprecedented” access to New York cops trying to crack murder cases. And in August, “In the Jury Room” -- an update of “State v.,” a critically acclaimed documentary series that ran on ABC two summers ago -- offers a glimpse inside jury deliberations during criminal trials.

“Weddings Gone Wacky” could point to the shape of things to come for ABC News. The network recently tapped former “Good Morning America” boss Shelley Ross, who is credited as the executive producer of “Weddings Gone Wacky,” to overhaul its long-running newsmagazine “Primetime.”

Ross has sharply criticized newsmagazines as boring and predictable, telling Associated Press earlier this month, “The whole genre is tired.”A call to Ross for further comment was returned by an ABC News spokesman.

ABC is also using “Weddings Gone Wacky” to give more exposure to its highest-profile female news personalities. Besides Sawyer, the co-hosts are Elizabeth Vargas, recently picked to replace Barbara Walters as co-anchor on “20/20,” as well as “20/20” correspondents Cynthia McFadden and Deborah Roberts.

Media watchdogs say it’s inevitable that news producers are borrowing ideas from popular reality shows. Walters recently apologized after viewers complained about sensational promos for a “20/20” segment on adoption that made the couples involved appear to be competing for a baby.

“The prime-time newsmagazine is in descent, supplanted by reality shows,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research organization that is part of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. “The idea that a news division would chase reality shows, on a network that is having prime-time problems, is not a shock.”