TV news director says he is "burnt out on using news time to promote entertainment."

POSTED FEBRUARY 5, 2001--The following is a partial transcript of an online chat session with WCCO-TV's news director Ted Canova. It was held on January 30, 2001 on the WCCO.com Web site. WCCO is a CBS owned and operated station in Minneapolis. Throughout the summer and fall of 2000, WCCO was criticized and ridiculed, as was CBS and its network-owned stations and affiliates, for incessantly promoting reality shows Survivor and Big Brother as part of its newscasts. 

At the time, Canova defended the practice to Pioneer Press media columnist Brian Lambert: "I don't think we're hammering on Survivor now. It's news. We've covered it like any other entertainment news story.''

But now that Survivor II has premiered, and the phenomenon is bigger than ever, it is no longer in need of the newscast promotion that CBS strategically employed to launch the show. Having helped the network accomplish its goal of making Survivor a success, by whatever means necessary, Canova is recasting himself as a true journalist, more interested in reporting "real news" than entertainment fluff. Time will tell, but so far it doesn't look promising.

Screenage: Ted, I noticed that you're not doing as many features on Survivor II as you did last summer on Survivor I. Now that the show is successful, it must make you happy to no longer have to use the news to promote the network's entertainment programming. I was wondering if it also makes Don Shelby [lead anchor] happy, since he often winces and sometimes says Ka-ching when he reads stories about Survivor and Big Brother?

TedCanova: Don is a big Survivor viewer. But as he stands over me right now he says he's not as into it this time. Honestly, and more to your point, I think I am burnt out on using news time to promote entertainment. There are plenty of commercials on the air and plenty of "free" ads that Survivor is getting. I'm glad to say the phenomenon has passed, so it doesn't deserve news attention.

[editor's note: Canova makes it sound as if he was obligated to cover Survivor the first time around because it was a "phenomenon." In fact, WCCO' news was running stories about both Survivor and Big Brother before either of the series even aired.]

Kare11Boy: If the Survivor show was still struggling, would you be running stories about it more?

TedCanova: I would point to Big Brother. As it started to tank we pulled back. I think there's a case to cover the phenomenon when it is one and when it takes root. But especially when the show doesn't connect with viewers, that wave of curiosity and limited news value is gone.

Kare11Boy: When you do a network infotainment story like that, what happens to the real news that gets pushed out?

TedCanova: The decision is made that in a half-hour news cast, that infotainment, or as I refer to as pop culture news, gets blended into the newscast. When we've done it in the past, I hoped that it came out of discretionary news time, time we may have used for human interest or pop culture anyway. But as it stands now, we are using more and more of our news time for hard news and staying away from the tonnage we've given it in the past.

ryyter: I saw earlier that you were going to talk about entertainment vs. news. Do you as a news director consider the line to be blurry or clear?

TedCanova: I think it's too blurry. I met with my news staff earlier this month to say we will try and make the line more clear. That we will spend less time pitching entertainment shows and more time on real news. There are enough commercials on the air...we need to spend our limited time on raising our bar, our standard.

Screenage: Or non-existent?

TedCanova: There are countless examples of it being non-existent. I'm committed to my role in changing that. I do think we need to try new subject matter on the air because today's news viewer is not the same as a viewer 5, 10, 25 years ago.

TedCanova: Unless there are more questions, I'd like to wrap up today's chat. I look forward to returning in a few weeks...I'm sure the news will provide us with plenty to discuss. Thanks.

Screenage: Thanks Ted, glad to see you've become a "hard news" guy!

TedCanova: The transformation wasn't that painful!

Screenage: No, but it took awhile!

TedCanova: Touche'