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Brokaw objects to judging the broadcast by the numbers. NBC did fewer stories from last year's Republican National Convention, he acknowledges, but it went around the country instead, "taking the themes of the day and looking at their impact on people." Asserts Brokaw: "Washington has become disconnected from the rest of the nation. There are profound changes going on in this country. We have to stay relevant to people." And entertain them too. Says executive producer David Doss, a former producer of ABC's PrimeTime Live: "Who says the news has to be boring to watch?"
Network rivals can't afford not to take notice. ABC News executives gripe that NBC has copied many of their ideas: ABC's "Your Money, Your Choice" has become NBC's "Fleecing of America"; "Person of the Week" has transmuted into NBC's "The American Dream." But ABC has returned the favor by launching a new, NBC-style segment called "Solutions," an anecdotal look at good-news solutions to problems, like a story on "relationship-based" day care. "They've been very clever about packaging their show," says ABC News executive vice president Paul Friedman. "And that pays dividends. Good for them."
The CBS evening news has stuck closest to the old-fashioned, sober-minded approach. A Bob Simon report three weeks ago on crime, unemployment and housing problems in South Africa looked like an antique--informative, gracefully written and of virtually no relevance to soccer moms in Atlanta. Executive producer Jeffrey Fager vows to stay on the high road, "covering the day's news with the most substance, the most depth, the best writing in the business." But CBS too seems to be jumping more aggressively on the high-profile crime and disaster stories; it devoted the most time of all three networks, for example, to the crash of TWA Flight 800.
The success of NBC's new approach has pointed up the problem facing every news organization: how to attract an audience that seems less and less interested in news and yet, at the same time, is bombarded with it from a multitude of reputable and disreputable sources. The mantra among network executives is that the evening news must find a way of standing out in this crowd, offering something viewers can't get elsewhere. Yet if that were really the goal, the nightly news would be steering away from O.J. and JonBenet Ramsey (the very stories that are covered ad nauseam on every local newscast and magazine show in creation) and doing more on budget negotiations and the Middle East.
In fact, the real pressure is to follow the crowd and do news that sells, and NBC has carried that approach further than any other network. Brokaw pleads that the evening news' very survival is at stake. "I don't want to commit suicide," he says. Nor does anyone else. The question facing all three networks is whether NBC's form of life support is the only way to keep the patient alive.
--With reporting by William Tynan/New York