By Lisa de Moraes
Thursday, July 13, 2006; C01
PASADENA, Calif., July 12
"March of the Former TV News Titans" continues to play to big crowds at Summer TV Press Tour 2006 here. Episode 2 got a warm reception Wednesday morning; it starred former ABC News Titan Ted Koppel waxing pessimistic about the future of broadcast TV news while hawking the Sept. 11 launch of his newsmag series on the Discovery Channel.
The day before, a rock-'em-sock-'em Episode 1 wowed the Reporters Who Cover Television with a multilayered performance by former CBS News Titan Dan Rather. He simultaneously cracked skulls of CBS News suits, plugged his new "Dan Rather Reports" newsmag for Mark Cuban's HDNet and shed tears while talking about his legacy, being shown the door at CBS after 44 years and being unfit to be in the same room as the late Edward R. Murrow.
As the second episode opened, Koppel, who knows a tough act to follow when he sees one, appeared via satellite from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he's working on a three-hour prime-time special. "Security and Liberty" will kick off his "Koppel on Discovery" series for the cable network.
Going for drama, Koppel told his cameraman to pull back, revealing members of the U.S. military helping the news crew with what appeared to be the poles holding up the tent-thingy under which he was standing in strong winds in front of Camp Delta.
"Even though . . . television critics know an awful lot about this business, sometimes even those of us who are in it have to marvel at how much . . . combined effort it takes to put a live shot like this on the air.
"We literally have members of the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, a couple of satellite technicians from Discovery, our own camera crew and a couple of producers just so that I can stand here in the 15-knot wind with Camp Delta directly behind me and answer whatever questions you may have," Koppel told the reporters, who are swanking it up at the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel.
Hmmmm, isn't the U.S. military part of the story Koppel's covering?
The reporters, still marveling at Rather's performance the afternoon before, wanted to know where Koppel stood on the Rather Situation.
The longtime anchor left CBS News last month after he and management could not agree on his future role there. His last year at the network had been marred by the controversy over an unverified report about President Bush's National Guard service.
"Let me just say as an old friend of his that I feel that CBS News and its parent organization did not act with the greatest heroism in terms of supporting him. Clearly a mistake was made on the broadcast . . . and it took him a while to acknowledge that because Dan is very, very loyal to the people who work with him and for him. Should that have cost him his career at CBS? I don't think so."
But Koppel wanted to make it absolutely clear that his leaving ABC News bears no comparison to Rather leaving CBS News.
"I am really where I am truly by choice. Nobody forced me out of ABC. Indeed, they were very generous in offering to keep me on in a variety of different roles there, and I have nothing but good feelings about my association with ABC over the years. But I truly do feel Discovery is a better place to be right now," he told the TV critics.
Asked if he thought, as Rather had suggested the day before, that political timidity on the part of the large corporations that now own the broadcast networks affects decisions about news programming, Koppel said, "I don't think politics has as much to do with it, quite frankly, as the marketplace does.
"The marketplace is exerting a far more dangerous influence on what gets on and what doesn't get on television news programming these days than any . . . fear of political repercussions or consequences."
Getting down to brass tacks, Koppel explained that ABC is entirely dependent for its income on the commercials it can sell in the programs that it airs.
"As all of you know far better than I, the cost of a commercial on a program that reaches an audience over 45 or 50 is a fraction of what a . . . sponsor is willing to pay for a commercial on a broadcast that reaches the 18-to-29-year-olds."
Discovery, meanwhile, also sells ads but gets a significant portion of its income from "cable feeds," Koppel said, and the price is the same whether the subscriber is 18 or 85.
"So the pressure to reach a particular demographic is simply not as great at Discovery as it is at one of the commercial networks. That's just a fact. And while I have grown to be very fond of [Discovery Network President Billy Campbell] and all the people I am working for at Discovery, fondness, friendship has nothing to do with it. This is simply a reality of the business world in which we live."
Cut to ABC News staffers Wednesday e-mailing a news release to the same reporters about the next "Primetime" newsmag story -- a report on a boy ABC News identifies only as Adam the Healer:
"Can a 19-year-old from Canada heal people of incurable conditions such as cancer and multiple sclerosis?" the release said.
" 'Primetime's' John Quiñones investigates the phenomenon, following stories of the desperate people who have come hoping for miracles, sitting down with the healer himself, and interviewing some experts who weigh in as well."
The news report airs Thursday night. Coincidentally, "Adam's" new book, "The Path of the Dreamhealer," comes out in the United States this week -- what are the odds?