By NOLA. L. SARKISIAN
Staff Reporter
What if Katie and Matt really were waking up with you in Los Angeles, rather than three hours earlier at Rockefeller Plaza?
It ain’t gonna happen, say industry observers.
The “Today Show” on NBC is only one example of the “live” news shows produced in New York that are anything but live by the time they arrive, tape-delayed, in Los Angeles.
Even though the role of Hollywood in network television is gaining preeminence as more and more studios take control over networks, New York remains ground zero when it comes to network news.
Sure, renegade Ted Turner set up CNN, his 24-hour cable news channel, in Atlanta, and NBC offshoot MSNBC is in New Jersey. But they are still very much East Coast entities. And the major networks all base their news shows in Manhattan.
“History is part of it,” said Reuven Frank, a now-retired, 38-year NBC veteran and one-time president of NBC News. “There are very few national publications and media entities not based in New York. They’re afraid to leave each other. The news business doesn’t care about the audience it cares about the competition.”
Added Deborah Potter, a former White House correspondent for CBS and CNN: “It’s all entrenched in New York. There’s this sense of being near corporate. There’s a fear that network news would be marginalized in terms of power and clout if they moved from where the company’s main heartbeat is.”
Despite the advent of technological advances that make it possible to beam news broadcasts from Des Moines or Kosovo, the fact remains that news personnel prefer to be based back East. With the East Coast time zone being a full three hours ahead of West Coast time, reporters might miss out on important breaking news taking place during the early-morning hours if they were based in Los Angeles.
“Something as simple as a time zone makes a world of difference here,” said Marcy McGinnis, vice president of news coverage for CBS News. “You’re getting up three hours later in L.A. than in the East Coast so would we move to L.A. and work East Coast hours? That would seem strange. Dan (Rather) is on the phone the minute he wakes up.”
Not that Rather is above making occasional visits to L.A.; he’ll be in town this week, in fact, to promote the time change of “CBS Evening News” from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Aside from an earlier time zone, the East Coast puts news executives in the heart of all things federal and financial. “The seat of power is the East Coast, right by Washington, and financial power is in New York City,” said Bill Croasdale, media buyer for Western Initiative Media.
As a result, Los Angeles news bureaus of the major networks are the third biggest in the country after New York and Washington.
ABC News employs about 1,800 people worldwide, of which more than 1,000 are in New York overseeing dozens of newscasts, including “Good Morning America,” “20/20,” “This Week,” “Nightline” and “World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.”
It has 425 employees in the Washington, D.C. bureau, and about 60 staffers in its Los Angeles bureau which has grown in size over the years, said Eileen Murphy, spokeswoman for ABC News. Key correspondents in L.A. are Judy Muller and Brian Rooney.
Industry observers say it doesn’t pencil out for the networks to set up full news outlets in Los Angeles.
“Both (New York and L.A.) are union cities, so there are no cost savings (from relocating news personnel to L.A.). From a purely practical standard, it doesn’t make sense,” McGinnis said. “Many of the (physical production) facilities were set up years ago. To start over would bear an enormous cost burden.”
Besides, L.A. is certainly not the heart of corporate America. With merger mania having swept away many L.A.-area corporate headquarters in such key industries as aerospace and banking, there is now even less incentive for network news operations to relocate here where Fortune 500 companies aren’t.
“In New York, there is a critical mass of business that’s not here,” said one industry observer, who wished to remain anonymous.
Despite all that, some say the geographic center of network news might change as a generational shift occurs among top brass.
“The old news guys think New York is the hub of the world, but everyone under 40 doesn’t subscribe to that,” said Joe Saltzman, associate dean of the USC Annenberg School of Journalism. “The younger people think L.A. is the city of the future with people of color, the center of media and technological developments.”
