Word: nbc
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Republican Convention. Shannon had flung a custard pie at the screen: "On CBS the ordinary viewer trying to watch a political convention sees so much of the anchor man and his star reporters that the program might well be called Walter Cronkite and His Friends...Likewise, the NBC coverage might be better known as the David Brinkley Show...I think the time has come to ban the media mob from the floor...Then the viewers could enjoy the game-excuse me, the convention-as it is actually played in all its sweet, boring interludes...
...executives acted like high priests struck at the altar. William Sheehan, Leonard's opposite number at ABC, found the Shannon piece "terribly wrongheaded." Richard Wald, executive vice president of NBC News, said, "I'd like to see the New York Times cover the podium and nothing else." Douglas Kiker, an NBC floor man, generously included William Shannon as "one of my respected friends. And the piece is fulla crap. Absolutely fulla crap...
...sourly, "At Democratic Conventions we've seen Mayor Daley of Chicago pack the halls with members of the Sixth Ward sewer workers. What we've seen tonight seems to be the Republican equivalent." The G.O.P. delegates did not fancy themselves as stand-ins for Art Carney, and NBC's switchboard was flooded with complaints. Chancellor later harrumphed an apology, and the next day a huge poster was displayed on the floor: ENTHUSIASTIC SEWER WORKERS FOR NIXON...
...pointiest elbow that often gets the prize. At the convention's end, when the preliminary rating report showed ABC with the greatest gain, Bill Sheehan beamed like a cheerleader. "We're going to be No. 2 by the end of the year. We're breathing down NBC's neck. We're basking in momentum." At NBC there was private worry: "Does the Chancellor-Brinkley team have enough-I don't know -enough sex, enough viewer appeal?" asked an executive. "We just don't know...
...rivalry between Cavett and the man who gave him his first job in TV (as a writer on Paar's late-night talk show) could be mutually damaging. Moreover, ABC seems to be violating a basic tenet of TV-that viewers are creatures of habit. The competition from NBC's Johnny Carson and CBS's late movies promises to be at least as formidable for the network's round robin as it was for Cavett alone...