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Broad Experience For a Tall Job: A Hipper CNBC
The magazine show, a blend of features, profiles and investigative work, will use some NBC reporters and "Dateline" staffers. "The pieces could look very much like '60 Minutes' pieces," says Howard, who is also developing two pilots with lighter themes. "The format works, so why reinvent it?"
Howard, a 14-year veteran of "60 Minutes," took a year off after the debacle over the National Guard story, which led to the departure of two other senior executives and the firing of Dan Rather's producer on the story, Mary Mapes. "It would have been depressing if I really felt my reputation had been ruined by this thing," Howard says.
  Terry Moran interviews the Guantanamo prison commander, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, last week for "Nightline." (Abc News) Save & Share |
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CNBC's ratings are quite modest -- although understated, because many investors watch from their offices -- but the network remains a gold mine, generating an estimated $250 million a year in profit. That's because advertisers are willing to pony up for viewers whose median household net worth is more than $1.5 million.
After a long ratings slump, daytime business programming was up 41 percent in the last three months, to 217,000 viewers, over the same period last year. But Hoffman sounds nonchalant about the numbers, saying he's less concerned than most television executives.
"We're not a populist network," Hoffman says. "This is a niche network that is focused on a fairly narrow content area that appeals to a high-end audience."
Live From Gitmo
When the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Bush administration exceeded its authority in arranging military tribunals for terror suspects, ABC's Terry Moran was at the perfect spot: Guantanamo Bay.
The timing was coincidental -- ABC had been pressing for access to the prison for months -- but the "Nightline" co-anchor did win Pentagon approval to extend his stay by one day after learning that the closely watched case filed by a Gitmo detainee was about to be decided.
Despite the great proximity, Moran had a frustrating week and couldn't get anyone there to comment on the ruling. "It's hard to do anything here because the security situation is so intense -- getting around, getting into the camps, what you can shoot when you're in the camps," he says from the U.S. base in Cuba. In fact, military censors must clear all videotape after ensuring that no detainees can be identified.
While Moran interviewed top officials of the camp, he says the Pentagon refused access to several detainees who had agreed in writing to talk to him. "As I've told our viewers, we can only get one side of the story," he says.
Vanity Fair: Is It a Crime?
Henry Porter, Vanity Fair's London editor, had already gotten under Tony Blair's skin with a piece accusing the prime minister of using the fear of terrorism to wage an assault on civil liberties. Blair responded by conducting an e-mail debate with Porter that was published in London's Observer, where the writer has a column.
Two weeks ago a man carrying a placard with a George Orwell quote was arrested and charged with violating a law banning demonstrations within one kilometer of Parliament.
Steven Jago, who faces up to a year in jail, has said that police confiscated a copy of Porter's Vanity Fair piece, which he was carrying, and told him the article was "politically motivated material."
Says Porter, who has written a letter of complaint to the police: "The idea that a piece of journalism could be used as evidence of someone's criminal intent, when it's a mainstream journalism attack on the prime minister, it's a little step toward tyranny. That's astounding. It's frightening, really."
Falling Star
"They had done a great deal of research, and her negatives were rising.'' -- Barbara Walters to the New York Times, explaining the decision to drop Star Jones Reynolds from ABC's "The View." So politicians aren't the only ones who live and die by opinion polls?