These Are the Good Old Days

TV news veterans love to talk about the good old days when the big three networks spent real money on news coverage and looked to their news divisions to bring glory and prestige to the brand. It was a terrific time to work in network news. OK, it was rare when an exec in New York would actually say, "Damn the expense. Just hire the jet and get there first!" But it did happen. TV news was a very competitive business, and quality and speed -- rather than profits -- were the metrics by which broadcast journalism was judged.

The business has changed dramatically in the past twenty years as cost-conscious conglomerates have gobbled up the big three networks, and audiences for the evening news shows, diminished by growing competition from cable, have shrunk to a fraction of their former size. Nostalgic news veterans can lament the passing of a bygone era, but the fact is that the news business has always been, well, a business.

Simply put, network television news is in the business of delivering an audience to its advertisers, just like the network's prime time shows. Before cable, when prime time ad revenues were reliably strong, the networks could, perhaps, afford to view their news operations as loss leaders. But those days ended long ago. Today, network news has to pay its own way if it's going to survive.

Which makes what we've seen in the past forty-eight hours remarkable. The Haitian earthquake rang a bell in the newsrooms of the old "big three" broadcast networks and they responded like it was 1980, not 2010. I spent fifteen great years with NBC News, and I couldn't have been prouder of my old network than I was last night. For the second day in a row, NBC expanded its show to a full hour and filled it with moving (e.g., Ann Curry) and informative (e.g., Andrea Mitchell) reports that brought this terrible and complex story home. Brian Williams did a terrific job anchoring the coverage from Port au Prince, and Lester Holt was a solid and reliable mainstay for the network's coverage in New York. I surfed CBS's and ABC's shows and they, too, appeared to have all hands on deck.

It's hard to imagine that advertising dollars will pay for the expensive coverage we're seeing in Haiti this week. The network news audiences may be larger than usual, but the costs are going to be through the roof. One can only hope that these broadcasts will remind viewers of the value the network news shows provide and buoy audiences during future, quieter times. Who knows, they may even help develop an audience for the evening news shows among a new generation of viewers. (It would be nice to see some ads for Ford Mustangs and Apple computers).

Network news divisions have been reading their obituaries for years. This week, at least, it's clear that news of their death is premature.