Shaking Up the Networks

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President was unhurt. In El Salvador, where CNN was outstaffed four or five to one by each of the Big Three networks, it was CNN Correspondent James Allen Miklaszewski who caused worldwide furor by photographing an American military "adviser" carrying an M-16 rifle in violation of U.S. Government policy. Satisfying as those coups were, perhaps most significant was a victory CNN won by taking the networks and the White House to court: it now has a full share in providing and receiving pool coverage of day-to-day Administration events.

CNN has won the grudging respect of senior news executives at all three major networks. Says Van Gordon Sauter, president of CBS News: "We see CNN as a very good service . . . but not of network quality." Adds Richard Wald, senior vice president for news at ABC: "CNN does a nice, straightforward, basic rendition of the news very competently." Outside analysts are more generous. Anthony Hoffmann, a cable analyst for Warburg Paribas Becker Securities, observes, "People talking to a CNN reporter do not seem to think they are talking to the whole world and so they say things they will not say to the networks. You hear more of the words of the people and less prepackaged editorializing. I think the American public is getting suspicious of prepackaged news."

Turner has benefited in part from the general advance of cable. ABC, NBC and CBS combined still draw 80% of total TV viewing. But CBS Broadcast Group President Gene Jankowski predicted to TIME Correspondent Janice C. Simpson that by 1990 the three networks' share in households with cable will drop to 57%. Turner claims CBS sought to counter that slippage by once trying to buy CNN; Jankowski sidesteps making any answer to that suggestion. But industry sources say there may be a continuing interest at CBS in breaking into cable news.

Eager to solidify his position against a host of potential competitors, including the networks, Turner revved up his competitive pace in January with CNN2. The programs use the same raw material as CNN but reshape it into a 24-hr, hard-news "headline service," similar to network news shows or all-news radio. In contrast to CNN, which is structured for extended viewing, CNN2 is meant to provide a quick catch-up on the news whenever the audience tunes in. The service is supplied via satellite to cable systems that are wired into 1.5 million homes, and to some 78 broadcast TV stations. Sixty-six of them are affiliates of the Big Three networks. Cable operators who buy CNN can get the second channel free. Broadcasters use CNN2 as part of their normal over-the-air programming; they pay a cash fee and share the commercial time with Turner.

When affiliates started buying CNN2, the networks were galvanized into action. CBS, which had been considering an overnight news offering for years, decided to hurtle ahead: in October it will launch weeknight news shows from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m. E.T. Also in October, ABC will follow Nightline with a midnight-to-1-a.m. show featuring Interviewer Phil Donahue. NBC last month premiered a featurish hour of news from 1:30 to 2:30 a.m. four nights a week, and from 2 to 3 a.m. on Friday, and a morning program preceding Today, from 6:30 to 7 a.m., and using Today's personnel. ABC countered with a 6-to-7-a.m. headline news show in repeating 15-min. cycles. Says NBC News President