donn@sdchema.UUCP (11/18/83)
This interview with Linda Ellerbee is brutally ripped off with few credits
and no written or other permission from the LA Times San Diego Edition,
Friday Nov. 11 1983, Part VI p. 1:
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NBC NEWS ITEM -- OVER... AND OUT
by Jay Sharbutt, Times Staff Writer
And so it goes, as Linda Ellerbee likes to say. Her 'NBC News Over-
night' goes off the air for keeps Dec. 2. Cause of death: Not enough
advertising revenue. It's the first of the three networks' night-owl news-
casts to get the ax.
'Yes, I was surprised. I had no inkling it was going to happen,' said
Ellerbee, who's been on the late-hour news program since it began July 5,
1982, co-anchoring it at first with Lloyd Dobyns, and now with William
Schechner.
She got the bad news Wednesday afternoon from NBC News President Reu-
ven Frank. 'He broke it to me. He feels awful about it, and so do I.'
NBC declines to make public how much 'Overnight' cost and how much --
or how little -- it earned. But one network source says the one-hour pro-
gram, which airs on KNBC-TV [in Los Angeles] at 1:30 a.m. on weeknights,
cost $5 million annually, but had taken in only $1.2 million so far.
In announcing the cancellation of 'Overnight,' Frank hailed the show
Wednesday as 'our finest hour of news' and said it 'remains the model for
an hour news program.
'But merely being the best is not enough when the cost is so much
greater than the income.'
NBC's dropping of 'Overnight' may signal the end of a brief era in
which the three networks, seeking to meet the round-the-clock competition
of cable-TV news, established their own newscasts for viewers still up
after midnight.
The remaining night-owl network survivors are ABC's 'Nightline' and
CBS's 'Nightwatch,' and the future of those shows is uncertain. 'Night-
line' may be cut from an hour to 30 minutes by the end of the year, and
'Nightwatch' already has suffered cutbacks in time and staff.
The ratings of 'Overnight' hadn't slumped, which usually is the pri-
mary cause of a show's death. When it began, it was seen by 1.4% of the
nation's TV audience -- nearly 1.2 million homes. NBC said it still was
getting those numbers when the ax fell Wednesday. But advertisers simply
weren't buying enough time on the show.
'NBC made it very clear that the show was very good, but that it did
not matter how good the show is,' Ellerbee said. 'What matters is money.
Frankly, that says worse things about the business than about my show.'
But the Texas-born anchorwoman, in chipper spirits despite the impend-
ing demise of her program, indicated she wasn't quite ready to impale her-
self on a Nielsen point.
'It's only television,' she said.
NBC says the 20-member 'Overnight' staff will be reassigned to other
jobs in the network when the show leaves the air. Ellerbee, who joined NBC
News in 1975 and whose three-year contract with the network ends next May,
always has said she'd rather be a correspondent and not an anchor.
She said she didn't know what would be her next assignment. 'NBC sug-
gested several things and I'm considering them. But I gave Reuven (Frank)
my word I won't talk about that until we decide on something.'
She laughed. 'And so it goes,' she explained.
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Why does NBC even bother with quality programs if it can't keep them on
the air?
Donn Seeley UCSD Chemistry Dept. RRCF ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn