Nicholas Johnson "All things considered" segment about the Democratic National Convention, New York City, New York, July 12, 1976

Bob Edwards: Sitting in the back rows now at Madison square garden in New York with Nicholas Johnson, former FCC commissioner and NPR television commentator. Nick, what do you make of this scene in front of us right now? Nick Johnson: Well, what they've really done here is to create television stations. They've spent, I gather, something like 10 to 30 million dollars, depending on how much you count. And since the nomination itself is a well known, long in advance, the real competition here, the real battle is between NBC and CBS rather than for the presidency. It's for the ratings and the delegates are ... and this whole convention is really sort of incidental to that. You know, they could be fighting over a rodeo coverage or an auto race or a Superbowl or a bullfight. It just happens to be politics that they've chosen to square off against each other and determine who goes into the fall with the ratings edge. Bob Edwards: You've mentioned the expense, and of course it's a great commitment and time and personnel as well. What does all this mean to the network? Nick Johnson: Well, what's really going on here, as viewers watch and listened to the coverage throughout this convention, is quite seriously a contest between the networks, principally CBS and NBC. ABC is essentially opted out of the gavel to gavel coverage, and has decided to go ahead with business as usual. They've got a ballgame to cover Tuesday night. They're going up to Montreal for the Olympics. There's a limit to how many places you can send 100% of your camera, crews and that's essentially what CBS and NBC have done. They've virtually emptied out their news bureaus and brought them all here. They brought some people in from overseas. ABC, it's more business as usual. They're running a summary each evening with a little bit of live coverage. So NBC and CBS are squaring off here really to determine who can get the edge on the ratings, who can get the largest audience to watch them and their coverage of this convention. And the lower within the broadcasting circles is that the network that gets the highest ratings in the convention coverage is the network that will go into the fall with a leading edge on the ratings and their news coverage. And this in turn gets spilled over into the flow through audience throughout the evening as people watch the evening news on either CBS or NBC and then stick with that network throughout the rest of the night. So what's really going on here as I indicate is not very much competition in terms of who the Democrats are going to nominate for president. The real competition is who the American people are going to nominate as the ratings leader in the fall with all that that means for the networks of roughly a million dollars per rating point. Bob Edwards: NPR, TV commentator, Nicholas Johnson. He will be with us all this week at the 1976 democratic convention in Madison square garden. Our TV commentator, Nicholas Johnson is with us once again. Nick, I understand you've been around to the various network headquarters around convention hall and what have you found? Nick Johnson: Well, first of all that this is a convention of TV journalists and other kinds of journalists. 10,000 of them here, far more than there are delegates to the convention in the conventional sense. This is a media event. One named commentator, whose name I will protect and whose reputation I will protect, suggested they thought it really was a nonevent, that they were giving an entirely too much coverage. Said if we were to spend $200,000 uncovering what's going on in Africa right now, the American people will be much better off than what we're giving them from this convention hall. And notice the way that Carter participated in the campaign. He watched television, and watched all three television sets. That's exactly what I did last night. While you were sitting here, I was off watching television and we have a little different view of the convention as a result of that. Bob Edwards: Did it seem to you to be a made for TV agenda or what? Nick Johnson: Well, very much so. I think there was speculation amongst them, very professional public relations people watching in New York this morning, that perhaps the contrast between Glenn and Jordan was something that in fact had been orchestrated by that great TV producer in the Americana named Jimmy Carter. That this ... every moment, every hour of this prime time coverage that is being accorded to the democratic parties is designed to achieve some purpose, and the purpose last evening was to nail down the black vote. And certainly the response to Barbara Jordan was overpowering. The question was the extent to which it was orchestrated. We know it also that each of the mechanist, Jerry Brown, has a trailer here. Jimmy Carter of course has three trailers, that they are located right in the heart of the television command centers for the three networks. Again, it seems to me a significant, a little touch. The attitude of the people covering the convention treats this very much as if it were a TV production studio, which of course it is. The producer leaning out of the CBS booth yesterday shouting to the delegates to please sit down cause they're in the way of the picture. That sounded very much like the sort of thing I would hear out in Hollywood and a production set. Bob Edwards: About the ratings and that, who won? Nick Johnson: Well, that's really what this story is all about. As we said before, Bob, it's a competition between the networks, not the competition between the candidates that counts here. And that competition is fierce. Each of the networks has a press office. I've been working with those press offices. They've been very helpful. But it's interesting that they do care about their clippings. They do care about the coverage of this. They are concerned about who's coming out on top. I think the big question is going to come tonight when ABC has the all star baseball game on. Incidentally, the ABC reporters are all out doing rain dances and praying that it's going to rain, that they will get some time on television. They don't like the idea that they're being cut back in their professional careers and the coverage accorded to ABC. I got the overnights for last night, as they're called, the ratings. CBS came in on top in terms of the three network coverage throughout the night, and the CBS is very happy about that. They're high-level executive meetings all up and down at the network headquarters this morning talking about this, but the real winner was ABC. ABC came in with a 29 to a 34 share of audience in the 8 to 9:30 period, when they were running a movie called, "The Future Cop." The Future Cop absolutely swamped CBS and NBC from 9:30 to 10:30. There were ... Casa Blanca was showing on an independent channel here, channel 11 in New York, and did much better even in The Future Cop. It came in with a 31 share, and again just absolutely swamped the networks. ABC came in strong at 9:30 with a 6.6 rating and an 11 share, dropped off from 10 to 10:30 with a 3.2 rating and a six share ... far behind CBS and NBC. Now, whether that's a flow through from the movie, the audience sticking with the channel and then switching, or whether it's a feature of the summary that ABC provided between 9:30 and 10, there's no way of knowing exactly when that audience did switch over. There's a lot of debate about that amongst the networks right now. This morning I happened to be of the view that the ABC coverage between 9:30 and 10 was very good, and that those watching during that time got about as much as anybody watching from 8 to 10 got. But later on in the evening they were not doing so well when they were trying to provide the same kind of live coverage. So the big test comes tonight on that, Bob, and everybody's watching with a lot of excitement. What will happen when ABC puts the all star game up against the democratic all stars here at Madison square garden. Bob Edwards: I was just thinking, you know, Humphrey Bogart is pretty stiff competition to John Glenn, but about your vote, Nick. Who gets your vote for last night's coverage? Nick Johnson: Well, I gave different votes to different networks. I thought NBC did the best job on the visuals. I thought CBS did the best job on the commentary. I though ABC did the best job on the editing, on the production. This is after all a media show. It ought to be produced. ABC does produce it. They've got Goldwater to provide some entertainment as well as some balance. I talked with Senator George McGovern this morning who's going to be doing the same job for ABC out of Kansas city, the Republican convention, as you may know. It raises a big question whether you ought to cover the thing from start to finish. But after all, if you watch CBS and NBC, you don't see it from start to finish either. You see what that fellow in the control booth wants you to see. So they're all producing a show for us, and ABC is trying to put it into a little shorter compass and is clearly the one that's carrying the money to the bank this week. Bob Edwards: TV commentator, Nicholas Johnson. Thank you. This is Bob Edwards at Madison square garden. TV commentator, Nicholas Johnson, is with us once again. Nick, how's the ratings battle going with the nightly convention coverage? Nick Johnson: Well tonight of course the big question is going to be whether Let's Make a Deal and Bionic Woman on ABC are going to do well against the 5 or 6 million dollar man, whatever Jimmy Carter is by now in terms of his campaign expenditures. ABC will be leading with that at 7/7:30, and coming in with the convention coverage at 9. NBC will be starting at 7, CBS 7:30. Those are all Eastern times. You know, one of the aspects of this whole business that we haven't talked about so far is when you get this very close, intertwining between a political party, whether it's Democrats or Republicans and the networks, what happens to the media issues in a platform. Now the Democrats considered a platform last night. It's very significant, it seems to me, that there's no discussion in there of children's television, of violence in television, of how we appoint FCC commissioners, of cable television. In fact, the only reference whatsoever is at least an agreement that they're not going to abolish public broadcasting, for which I suppose we should be grateful. Now, this is not because these issues were not presented to them. The national citizens communications lobby has a platform on communications issues, which was endorsed by the Iowa democratic party. It's been endorsed by numerous candidates across the United States. Jimmy Carter's staff has been presented this platform on two occasions, has never responded to it. The democratic national committee, platform committee, did not respond to it, did not offer an opportunity to testify. Bob Edwards: Back here on the convention floor, everyone still seems to be very much aware of the television coverage. Hubert Humphrey mentioned it right off last night, alluding to thanking Bob Strauss for putting him up against the all star game. Nick Johnson: Well, that was the big story last night in terms of the media was ABC's walking away with the ratings with the all star game up against the convention. The Democrats would've done well to have played out their role in the athletic arena in Philadelphia instead of the one here in New York city. President Ford that was in Philadelphia got very good television exposure on ABC, much better than the Democrats here. Between 8 and 11:00 PM in New York city last night, we just have received the overnights, CBS and NBC combined had a mere 15% of that audience. Bob Edwards: Who's in that 15%, by the way? Nick Johnson: Well, that's an interesting factor because what's happening is that there are more sets in use. Just like during the Watergate hearings, people thought the viewing was going to fall off because they lose a soap opera audience. In fact, they picked up people who weren't watching before. And you know what network executives fail to realize, they're constantly competing for that 100 million people who are watching television. What they don't recognize is that at any given moment, there are 100 million people who aren't watching television, who selected "off" as their favorite channel. What's happening during this convention is that people are coming to television who weren't watching television at all before. Total sets in use are up. And this accounts, I think, for the ratings of those who are watching the convention coverage. CBS has been coming in ahead of NBC each evening by a significant margin, and as I watch the coverage, it seems to me that ABC and NBC are going for that 100 million who've been watching television. CBS is providing a coverage, which at least in my judgment, is more designed for people who are tuning in just to watch a convention. And that may account for the fact that they are getting a bigger share of that convention. Bob Edwards: Meanwhile, ABC is walking off with the commercial money. Nick Johnson: Well, that raises some very real problems in my mind, Bob. I think that it's appropriate that the American people have a choice of what they watch. I don't think they ought to be forced fed on all three networks, a president or a convention nominating a president. But I also think that these networks have to share equally the economic burdens of political coverage and they are not now doing so. ABC is taking gross economic advantage of this situation. It pays absolutely no penalty for it whatsoever. CBS and NBC are out an enormous amount of money, and they're getting no credit for it. What I'd like to see as a result of this experience, and talking with some of the network representatives today, is a system where the FCC would provide that each one of the three networks would have to provide a minimum number of hours of coverage per year in an election year in prime time of political coverage. That could be primaries, election eve coverage, conventions, talk shows, inauguration, whatever. But a total, say, of 70 hours. That's about what CBS and NBC are providing now. To be programmed as the network chooses, no direction from the FCC whatsoever as to who gets on the air, when it's scheduled, what's covered, how it's covered. That's up to the networks. Bob Edwards: TV commentator, Nicholas Johnson. This is Bob Edwards at Madison square garden.