Broadcasting Magazine, September 9, 1991

The mainstreaming of Tabloid TV: crowded magazine field forces shows to track tales less sordid.
By Stephan McClellan

Could it be that America's love affair with tabloid television is waning? Or perhaps there are simply too many television shows chasing a finite number of tales of blood and lust.

The answers are not clear. However, there has been some season-to-season viewer erosion among shows perceived as tabloid," including A Current Affair, Hard Copy and inside Edition.

A new magazine will join the fray this week-Now It Can be Told from Geraldo Rivera and Tribune Entertainment. The increased competition is forcing both A Current Affair and Hard Copy to broaden their story mixes, while Inside Edition and Now It Can Be Told appear headed for a daily duel to outdo each other for more mainstream investigative stories.

Some program executives feel that viewers have been barraged, perhaps to the point of saturation, with stories about brutal rapes and other crimes that are the grist of the purest of the tabloid shows, including Hard Copy and A Current Affair.

Observers point to the cancellation earlier this year of two tabloid magazines, MCA's Inside Report and Group W's This Evening, as evidence that viewer appetite for murder and mayhem may be shrinking,

"By necessity, these shows have to get more mainstream over time," said Dick Kurlander, vice president, director of programing, Petry Television. "Shock value can only go so far. And advertiser resistance is a problem, especially with a television economy in recession."

As a result, both new and returning news magazine shows are offering broader story content for the coming season to give themselves greater latitude to break news and otherwise be different.

Anthea Disney, executive producer, A Current Affair, told BROADCASTING she believes society has become numbed by violent news stories on the tube. "Five years ago, people seemed to have a much greater appetite for blood and gore than they have today," said Disney. "We have to reflect society."

Local newscasts frequently take a tabloid approach to covering the news, providing even more competition for syndicated magazines. " 'If it bleeds, it leads' is the credo of more than one local news director," said one station source.

Frank Kelly, executive vice president, programing, Paramount Domestic Television, said Hard Copy would strive this season to be more mainstream by serving up more general interest stories to appeal to a larger audience base. "The show has to evolve," said Kelly. "We just can't sit still, offering the same thing year in and year out."

The biggest challenge, said Kelly, will be to draw more viewers without alienating the audience base from the past two seasons. Kelly offered the analogy of Entertainment Tonight, which he said has thrived by evolving from a show that focused solely on TV and movie stars to a program covering all facets of the entertainment industry.

When King World launched Inside Edition in 1989, it positioned the show as a pure tabloid vehicle. "The Kings made no bones about it," said a station programer. "They said they were going to out-Current Affair A Current Affair."

Despite spending record promotion dollars to launch the show, Inside Edition failed to outdo Affair, or even come close to its performance. To save the show, the company reversed its strategy, taking a more mainstream investigative approach used by network magazines such as 20120. The company hired 20120 executive producer Av Westin to fill the mandate and develop other reality shows.

The strategy reversal has worked as the show prepares to enter its fourth season. This season, Westin said, the company is beefing up its investigative unit, specifically to fend off the challenge from Now It Can Be Told.

The new magazine debuts today (Sept. 9) and will air several stories during the first two weeks, that the producers hope will earn the show widespread recognition. One is a well-documented story called The Challenger Coverup that describes efforts by NASA to cover up the likelihood that several of the astronauts killed in the space shuttle explosion may not have died until crashing back to earth and drowning in the ocean.

Westin credits Rivera, the host of Now It Can Be Told, with being "one of America's leading TV personalities. " But he also contends the new show will live or die by the stories its reporters come up with, not by Rivera's in-studio presence.

To a large degree, Rivera agrees. He believes his reporting team has roughly the fourth quarter to prove itself. But if it does, having himself as anchor gives the show visibility that Inside Edition does not have. "Nobody knows their team," Rivera said. But what Westin and others say remains to be seen is just how many Challenger stories Now It Can Be Told can come up with, because one won't be enough.