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Though Dateline has done some hard-hitting investigative reporting, it can stray as close to local TV news as anything the networks have yet come up with. Among its stories last Monday, for instance, was a reprise of the day's juiciest car chase on the California freeways. But Dateline has led the network magazine show closer to the news of the day. "The rule used to be that when there was a big, breaking news story," says Shapiro, "if you didn't see it on the evening news, the next place to catch it was your local news, and then maybe Nightline. We said, 'No. If it's a great story, we'll have it that night.'"
Another important lesson that Dateline has imparted is that a single brand name can be an efficient way of building a franchise. At ABC, Westin thinks consolidating PrimeTime Live and 20/20 would end some of the internal battles over big stories and interviews, and give the network more flexibility. One idea, he says, is to divide the show between hard-news stories in the first half and back-of-the-book features in the second. Anchors could be mixed and matched from night to night. But making such a change (a decision will come before May 19, when ABC announces its fall schedule) is fraught with difficulties. Would merging the newsier PrimeTime Live with the softer, consumer-oriented 20/20 destroy the distinctiveness of each? Which of the shows' executive producers--20/20's Victor Neufeld or PrimeTime's Phyllis McGrady--would be in charge? (Insiders doubt the two could work well together.) And how would the star anchors--Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs of 20/20, Diane Sawyer and Sam Donaldson of PrimeTime--be parceled out? Walters and Sawyer have reportedly balked at the plan. But Sawyer told TIME she would welcome the move if it kept the distinctiveness of the two shows. "No one wants to lose the thing you love most," she says. "But if we can get to do more because we're not duplicating effort, then it's hard to argue with."
The danger for all three networks, of course, is that the rush toward more news hours could lead to a glut, driving viewers away to entertainment fare on other networks or cable. Some news executives, moreover, are worried that expansion is diluting the product. "If history is any guide, people will get tired of newsmagazines," says Arledge, the longtime president (now chairman) of ABC News, who reportedly plans to step aside from day-to-day management in June. "The good ones will survive, and the bad ones won't. We have to be careful we don't compromise quality just to get more hours on the air." Hewitt points out that newsmagazines have multiplied not because viewers want them but because the networks can't find new entertainment hits. "If NBC found five more Seinfelds, there would be two or three fewer Datelines on the air," he says. "That's not news. That's filler." A 10 o'clock newscast, though, might fill a need.
--With reporting by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles and William Tynan/New York