Word: almanacs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Network executives still lie awake at night dreaming of ways to duplicate that glorious feat. This month two of those visions are having their debuts: NBC's American Almanac premieres this week and CBS's West 57th next week.[*] Both magazine shows last an hour, but they have little else in common. In style and approach, the programs are as different as, say, a hip teenager and his slightly stolid...
...West 57th is quick paced and flashy, American Almanac is loping and folksy. As Host Roger Mudd says in the first episode, "We'd like this to be the sort of show you might hang on a nail by the kitchen door." Executive Producer Ed Fouhy sees his mandate as exploring the quotidian: how Americans worship, rear their families, spend their money, relax. "We will not try to dazzle anybody with our technical footwork," he says...
...episode in the first show that best illustrates the philosophy behind American Almanac deals with long-term changes in the country's weather (outlook over the next few decades: a temperature rise between 3° and 7°). In another segment, Connie Chung explores how some prospective parents try to select the sex of their babies through laboratory tinkering. Yet an episode about Bijan, whose snooty clothing stores in Beverly Hills and New York City are open to clients by appointment only, is a puff job that Mudd gamely but unsuccessfully tries to tie in to Americans' desire to be distinct...
...count, American Almanac is NBC's eleventh try at a newsmagazine since First Tuesday made its debut in 1969. NBC Chairman Grant Tinker has promised that he will give American Almanac enough time to find its viewers, a strategy wisely used by CBS for one of its news shows. That program spent its early years in the ratings cellar. At one point, the show was preempted to make room for football games. Only in 1975, seven years after its debut, did perseverance (and a regular Sunday time slot) pay off and the program begin to blossom in the ratings...
...them—Edward C. Mussey and William H. Cowan—were students who drowned in the Charles River, according to the Boston Almanac For The Year...