University of Southern California
Vol. LXVI, No. 83
TV news ratings called essential
Los Angeles, California
Wednesday, March 6, 1974
Ratings are what television is all about, four local newspeople agreed Tuesday during a panel discussion on “What’s New in Television News.”
Joseph Benti, anchorman for the KNXT Newsroom; Clete Roberts, anchorman for KTLA news; Christine Lund of KABC Eyewitness News and Charles Riley, KTTV news director, all expressed the importance ratings have on their work.
The discussion, held in the Student Activities Center, was attended by 200 persons.
The pressure of keeping an audience and making the ratings was on all the speakers’ minds.
“If you don’t get ratings, you’re canned,” said Roberts.
Dancing bears “I have often said that I would put dancing bears on my show if it would get an audience,” said Riley. “You can have the best news product in town but if you don’t have an audience, it’s going down the drain.”
Lund said that people watch television instead of reading newspapers or magazines because it is painless.
“It’s very important that we be entertaining,” she said.
Benti agreed by using Eyewitness News as an example: “If you’re warm and human you’re going to be successful. Endless rapport between the newsman and the audience is the key.” Because of the rating pressure, television news is being padded with extras. These extras are what is making the news programs longer.
“I think you can get more garbage in a 10-pound bag than a five-pound bag. It’s the same thing with the news,” Benti said.
“Why do we continually have more garbage in an hour’s news?” asked Benti. “As professional newspeople we should be able to give the audience more news.”
Roberts likes features Roberts answered him: “I like to have time enough to put in features which lengthen the news. It's nice to be able to indulge in more colorful news.”
Lund closed the discussion of whether the extras are garbage or not.
“All this makes you look more human. We’re just people talking about what people are doing. Numbers are what matters and happy news gets the numbers.” The intense competition between stations in the Los Angeles area has been noticeably growing.
“Competition has raised the level of the ballgame,” Benti said.
Producers don’t change
Lund disagreed. “I don’t think it has improved news much at all. Reporters change but producers don’t change and stories that you’re likely to do don’t change and the quality of the writing doesn’t change.”
The members of the panel voiced their observations for the future of television news. They generally felt that there would be an increased amount of news and that there will not be an increased amount of entertainment at the expense of information. They also foresee new forms of technology that will improve journalism.
The panel discussion was sponsored by the USC chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi.
STREAKER SEEKERS—Henry Alfaro and the Channel 7 news film crew waited fruitlessly Tuesday for participants in the new university fad, streaking, to race through the center of campus. No streakers appeared,
but plans were announced for a record breaking streak on the Row for Thursday. (See story, page 8.) DT photo by Bob Chavez.
Nominations due Friday for advisory board
Nominations for posirion» on the President’s Advisory Council are due Friday.
There will be 13 positions for undergraduate students on the council—three from residence halls, three from the sororities and fraternities. six from the independent students and one from the School of Business.
Requirements are a 2.0 grade-point average and membership within the constituency.
Voting will be by mail: ballots will be due April 8.
New LAS interdivisional major program to be discussion topic
RAP ON RATINGS—Joseph Benti of KNXT's Newsroom and Christine Lund of KABC's Eyewitness News discussed the importance of news show ratings at yesterday's panel discussion at the Student Activities
Center. They said poor ratings are an indication of a lack of on-the-air entertainment. DT photos by Audrey Chan.
A gathering for students interested in the Interdivisional Majors Program ofthe College of Letters, Arts and Sciences will be held Monday at 5:30 p.m. in Town and Gown Foyer.
Students are invited to attend the nonstructured session to clear up any questions they have about the program and to meet the faculty members involved.
The program, which was proposed in Target 1980, the general plan for LAS, will offer students the opportunity to cross departmental and divisional lines to create their own majors.
Applications received Thirteen applications for the program have already been received from students, and about
40 other students are in the process of preparing their applications, said Preston L. Dent, associate dean for curriculum and instruction and coordinator of the program.
The program will create a close interactive relationship between faculty and students, said Dent.
“It will offer interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary activity with a wide range of intellectual experience of great depth,” said Dent.
Dent said that the first students will begin the program in either the fall or spring semester of the 1974-75 academic year.
Contract with university
Students who are accepted to the program will make a contract between themselves and the university to complete their self-planned program of courses.
A faculty fellow will help each student to plan his courses. The student will be excused from the normal general education requirement.
The faculty fellows are faculty members from all fields of study in the university. Each submitted a proposal area of interdisciplinary study for the program which, along with other materials, were considered by the LAS administrators who chose the fellows.
$1,000 honorarium
The fellows will each receive a $1,000 honorarium in addition to
their regular salary. They will be released from all normal departmental and university committee duties.
The LAS Fellowship Lecture Series, which will be open to the public, will be put on by the faculty fellows. They will also have the option of teaching a course in any of the LAS departments.
The list of faculty fellows has been slightly revised. It now includes:
Rosario P. Armato. an associate professor of comparative literature;
Eugene J. Briere, an associate professor of linguistics;
John E. Elliott, a professor of economics;
James P. Kahan, an assistant professor of psychology;
Doyce B. Nunis, a professor of history;
Joel H. Parks, an assistant professor of physics;
Raymond A. Prier. an assistant professor;
Franca Schettino, an associate professor of Italian;
Otto Schnepp, a professor of chemistry;
William G. Spitzer. a professor of physics, electrical engineering, and material sciences;
Dallas A. Willard, an associate professor of philosophy.
Spitzer has been added to the list of faculty fellows and Sally Moore of the anthropology department and W. Ross Win-terowd of the English department left the program.