Word: nbc
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...breakfast meeting with network affiliates in Los Angeles when Senior Executive Producer Burton Benjamin tapped him on the shoulder. Rather raced to the nearby CBS bureau, where a satellite link with New York was hastily arranged so that he could anchor the day's reporting from Los Angeles. NBC'S John Chancellor delivered a series of news bulletins throughout the day from his New York anchor desk...
...assassination attempt struck like a hammer. Once again, routines of everyday life were ruptured as millions of U.S. radio listeners, and an estimated 400 million TV viewers around the world, strained for further news from Rome. In the minutes that followed the first bulletin, CBS-TV, then ABC and NBC interrupted soap operas and game shows with special reports that echoed painfully in the memory. Journalists were dismayed by the similarity with the shooting of President Reagan just six weeks earlier. Said ABC-TV Anchorman Ted Koppel: "We have all too much experience with this kind of story...
...story that was unfolding in Rome while most of their foreign crews were concentrated in Northern Ireland and the Middle East. Early medical bulletins on the Pontiff swung wildly between Vatican reports that he was "serene and conscious" and hospital characterizations of his condition as "grave." Says NBC News Senior Executive Producer Les Crystal: "There was the problem of getting accurate and complete information. It's hard enough in your own country, but it was compounded by the language barrier...
...result was that ABC and CBS did not shift to continuous coverage until some two hours after the shooting; NBC kept airing soap operas, which it interrupted with news updates and longer accounts. Rather and Reynolds bracketed every report with cautionary qualifiers and apologetic explanations to viewers about the difficulties in getting the story. Said Rather: "There will be some conflicting information. We do our best to sort it out." By midafternoon, as John Paul underwent 5½ hr. of surgery, medical information grew sparse and anchormen were often hard-pressed for something useful to say. Soon even Rather...
...screen with the films of Albert Brooks (the mime), Steve Martin (funny balloon animals), Murray Langston (the paper-bagged Unknown Comic), Martin Mull (the Fernwood 2-Night talk-show host), Andy Kaufman (heterosexual wrestling), Lily Tomlin (Wayne Newton) and the now-ready-for-prime-time cutups of NBC's Saturday Night Live. It took over TV years ago-in 1975, when S.N.L. hit the air and became a focal point for the new comedy. With success came healthy midnight ratings for NBC, and with the ratings came the inevitable imitation, ABC's Fridays. S.N.L. Alumnus Harry Shearer calls...