Fox-Backed KTTV News Aims High : Channel 11 to Take On Independents--and the 3 Network Affiliates

After more than a year of struggling to put on a respectable prime-time lineup of weekend television, playing around with a late-night talk show and riding a roller coaster of personnel and format changes in its KTTV Channel 11 newsroom, officials at Fox Inc. say they are now determined to whip the Los Angeles station into network-style shape.

“We are not willing to take second position,” says Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive officer of Fox. “Our ambition here is not to be the No. 1 independent, but to be the No. 1 station in Los Angeles.”

One of L.A.’s four independent television stations, KTTV traditionally has aired mostly old movies and syndicated sitcoms and has trailed KTLA Channel 5 in the independents’ news ratings. Now, with the blessing of Fox owner Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born media mogul who purchased KTTV and six other stations from Metromedia in May, 1986, Fox has begun pouring money into Channel 11’s news department, bolstering what Diller calls the company’s commitment not only to surpass KTLA in ratings and credibility, but also to compete equally with the city’s three much richer network affiliates.

While some viewers may routinely tune in KTTV for Fox programs such as “The Tracey Ullman Show” or to watch syndicated reruns of “The Brady Bunch,” Diller and Channel 11’s new general manager insist that no local television station can develop a credible image and reputation, and hence a large, loyal audience, unless it’s committed to local news.

“This station was never even in the game before,” says Bob Morse, formerly general manager of the CBS affiliate in Louisville and KTTV’s boss since June 29. “Now we’re in the game for keeps.”

Playing the game on Morse’s terms includes leasing a full-time helicopter, buying a high-tech satellite news truck with the capability of originating live programming anywhere it goes, purchasing a new microwave-linked news van and refurbishing the station’s two old vans to increase KTTV’s capacity to offer live reports from anywhere in the city. It means computerizing and interlinking the news operations of all seven Fox-owned stations in New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston, Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles.

It means hiring two polished network correspondents, Andrea Naversen and Bill Redeker, to anchor Channel 11’s 10 p.m. newscast and jettisoning some of the station’s most recognizable on-air personalities, including Marcia Brandwynne, Tony Cox, Larry Attebery and Bill Smith.

And when Fox moves its revamped late-night show to 11:30 p.m. beginning Nov. 30, rather than slipping in an extra half-hour of “MASH” at 11, which would undoubtedly reap a larger audience and earn the station more money, Morse’s master plan includes instituting another half-hour newscast at 11 p.m. in direct competition with the network-owned stations. Eventually, he intends to broadcast a supper-time newscast against them as well.

(Morse refused to reveal the station’s total news budget. He said it would be about 50% more than he spent at the CBS affiliate in Louisville--the country’s 49th market--and much more than KTTV has ever spent before, but less than what network-owned KABC-TV Channel 7, KCBS-TV Channel 2 and KNBC Channel 4 routinely invest in news.)

“Fox wants to be seen as the fourth network,” says Erik Sorenson, the news director at KCBS-TV who held the same position at KTTV for three months earlier this year. “We still consider them an independent. There’s the three O&O;’s (network owned-and-operated stations) and the four independents. They want that perception to change, and one way to do that is to have their station compete head to head with the affiliates.”

While Morse concedes that competing directly with the affiliates may increase the station’s prestige and force people to take KTTV and Fox more seriously, he says that adding the 11 p.m. newscast to the half-hour at 10 against independents KTLA Channel 5 and KCOP Channel 13 is simply smart business. His research indicates that while there is a modest news audience at 10 p.m. (the traditional hour for independent news), the bulk of television viewers want their news at 11. Fox is convinced that the surest way to No. 1 is to grab a large chunk of both those audiences.

Despite this new attitude and Fox’s heavy investment in hardware and anchors, however, none of the other local stations seem threatened.

“We are not turning our back on them,” says Jeff Wald, news director at KTLA, which, with longtime anchor Hal Fishman, holds a commanding lead in the independents’ 10 p.m. ratings. “But we are not fearful of them at all. We’re sitting in the No. 1 position and people have come to depend on us. I don’t think they can make a dent.”

As for challenging the network-owned stations, KCBS’ Sorenson, whose station currently airs the lowest-rated news show at 11, points out that KTTV tried an 11 p.m. newscast with Marcia Brandwynne for most of 1986 and it failed to capture a consistent audience.

“I don’t think they can do much better this time,” Sorenson says, “because habit is such a big part of drawing viewers. Their moving to 11 doesn’t provide any additional threat.”

Diller is sensitive to questions about KTTV’s current standing in the ratings race, turning defensive when reminded of the station’s poor performance so far against Channel 5. Ratings for the hourlong 10 p.m. newscast that premiered in September with Naversen and Redeker were so low that KTTV recently killed the last half-hour of the program.

Morse recognizes the steep climb ahead of him, and he is by no means gun-shy.

“It won’t be easy to change the public’s viewing habits, but I relish the competition in the news area,” Morse says. “I’m as excited as can be. I’m confident that if we have the right product, we’ll win.”

Everyone at Fox insists their news product will be serious and straightforward, presented by a credible news team that emphasizes the local angle.

But KTTV has gone through so many respectable news people and programs over the last year that many in the local news business are skeptical about this professed “renewed commitment” to serious journalism.

First, Joe Saitta, the news director who created the old news team at Channel 11 that included Brandwynne and Cox, departed for Fox’s station in Washington.

Sorenson, who left KCBS after the station’s “revolving wheel” newscast debacle last fall, was then hired as news director at KTTV last February. He immediately canceled the station’s midday news show and apparently laid the groundwork for many of the station’s current plans. Two-and-a-half months later, KCBS offered him his old job back, and Sorenson left.

Then KTTV general manager Bill White resigned. Morse replaced him in July. Brandwynne, Cox and the station’s executive producer for news, Dana Millikan, were fired. Steve Blue, the station’s executive editor and a man who came to Los Angeles only last April with a great deal of experience as the executive producer of newscasts all over the country but with no prior experience as news director of a major-market station, was promoted to run the newsroom. In September, KTTV canceled its 8 p.m. and midnight newscasts. And just this week, longtime reporter-anchors Larry Attebery and Bill Smith were let go because, Blue said, “we’re going in a different direction.”

No one involved with KTTV over the past year would say why Fox dumped Brandwynne and Cox, who, by most accounts, presented a credible local news broadcast and helped Channel 11 win the L.A. Press Club award in 1986 for the best hour and half-hour newscasts in Los Angeles. Both Morse and Blue say those decisions were made before either of them assumed their current positions, and Brandwynne, a longtime local news personality who is now executive vice president of Carol Burnett’s production company, said she would prefer not to dredge up the events of last summer.

Some former KTTV employees speculate that Fox, which had decided to increase its investment in KTTV’s news department, simply did not want to carry Brandwynne’s hefty salary any longer. Others contend that Fox decided Brandwynne and Cox did not fit their image of what a network affiliate’s anchor team should look like.

While he expresses admiration for the people who were at KTTV when Fox took over, Diller says, “We did believe that we needed to invigorate our news operation. We weren’t satisfied with where we were.”

Other questions about where KTTV is going concern Murdoch’s reputation for turning sensationalistic newspapers, such as the New York Post, into huge profits. But Morse insists that Murdoch has expressed nothing but support for a serious approach to news at his television stations. Morse says that while there may be room for a product that takes “liberties” in the world of newspapers, it would be suicide to try that in the world of television.

“There is no personal relationship between a newspaper and a reader like there is between a television station and the viewer,” Morse says. “It then behooves us that when we go into a den or bedroom, we consider what that person wants. And when it comes to news, they want it presented in a serious, forthright, interesting style. We will be serious, but we don’t want to be boring.”

So far, even officials at KTTV agree that the new news team of Naversen, formerly a correspondent at ABC News, and Redeker, a longtime CBS correspondent, has been rather stiff and impersonal. And some of KTTV’s competitors have ridiculed the station for choosing two network correspondents with little recognizability in this market and with little experience anchoring local news.

News director Blue says Fox opted for network correspondents in an effort to jump-start the credibility of the newscast.

“I like the credibility their network past brings to our newscast,” Blue says. “We’ll put them in position and we’ll let them find their niche. We’re not kidding about this. This is not some minor commitment on the part of Fox.”

Morse and Diller continually echo those sentiments. And they say the revolving door that led in and out of the KTTV newsroom this past year is finally shut tight.

The question is, do they have the right news people left inside to carry them to the top of L.A.’s television ratings and help Fox achieve its goal of becoming a worthy competitor with the three major networks?

“Judge us by what we do,” Diller concludes. “We are ambitious and younger at it and less stuck in history than everyone else. We really are embarked on a new experiment, a new station. And Fox Broadcasting is in it for the long haul.”