'60 Minutes II' enters crowded prime time

HARTFORD (AP) - Does America need another prime-time newsmagazine?

At CBS News, positive thinkers will tell you: "If it's called '60 Minutes,' the answer is yes."

No one, however, is making any bold predictions about "60 Minutes II," which begins Wednesday.

Not even Jeff Fager, the show's executive producer.

Courtesy of ABC News Dan Rather will host the new "60 Minutes II," ABC's newest attempt in the newsmagazine genre.

"I think there's room for another '60 Minutes,'" says Fager, former executive producer of the "CBS Evening News" and a producer for "60 Minutes" from 1989 to 1994. "I don't know if there's room for another 'Dateline.'"

There's no getting away from it - prime time is crowded with newsmagazines, and even a "60 Minutes" logo outside of Sunday nights could get lost in the competitive shuffle.

Besides five nights a week of "Dateline NBC" on the peacock network, ABC News is about to go to three nights a week of "20/20" (adding Mondays beginning Feb. 1 to Wednesdays and Fridays). ABC is also about to launch a news hour called "ABC News Thursday Night" (Jan. 14), and, of course, there's CBS's "48 Hours," Fox Broadcasting's "Fox Files" ...

If that's not enough pressure, Fager also has the weight of the "60 Minutes" mantle to contend with - the challenge of creating a new program while remaining true to the revered original.

No wonder "60 Minutes" creator and executive producer Don Hewitt, whose top-rated groundbreaking TV newsmagazine has lasted more than 30 years, told CBS's top brass that he thought "60 Minutes II" was "a lousy idea."

Unfortunately, admits Hewitt, "I had no choice. You know, they said, 'We're gonna do it.'"

Hewitt says he has since changed his mind, calling the news spinoff "a genuine journal and not a time-filler masquerading as a newsmagazine - which is what most of the (other shows) are."

The show will have the substantial talents of "Evening News" anchor Dan Rather, Middle East correspondent Bob Simon, PBS talk-show host Charlie Rose as well as former CBS London correspondent Vicki Mabrey to draw on, with updates on classic "60 Minutes" originals from Mike Wallace and the gang.

But will it be enough?

"I think they'll do very well," says "Dateline" executive producer Neal Shapiro. "It's a great time period." Other offerings that night at 9: "Party of Five" on Fox, "3rd Rock From the Sun" on NBC and "Drew Carey" on ABC.

"We can carve out our own identity while carrying on a great name," says Rather, who was co-editor of "60 Minutes" from 1975 to 1981 and calls the new show "60 Minutes Plus."

"I have no illusions," he says. "This program may not do well right out of the box." On the other hand, "given time, if we can increase the value for our stockholders by making this a program that does well in prime time ... at a cost which is far below what any entertainment program would cost, you know, that's a factor," Rather says.

That, in fact, is the heart of the matter, in the minds of many industry watchers.

With the entertainment side of network television failing miserably by most standards, and audience levels continuing to erode, the Big Four are plugging holes with news.

"Behind almost every television newsmagazine, there's a failed sitcom," says Hewitt. "The sad fact of life is that in no small measure, television has gone out of the entertainment business - which they used to be very serious about, and they did very well - and into the news business, which they're not very serious about and they don't do very well."

Shapiro, perhaps the greatest beneficiary of that trend in news, concurs, though only to a degree.

"I think there's some truth to that," he says. "But I'm not alarmed by it at all. In all due respect to my colleague Don Hewitt, there's no shortage of places for new entertainment shows to start. There are 500 channels. If the networks feel like they want to devote more hours to news and information and one less hour to 'America's Stupidest Videos,' I don't think that's anything to be upset about."

Even Fager parts company with Hewitt on the idea that newsmagazines are on the rise because entertainment is in decline.

"I don't buy that at all," says Fager. "That argument - and Don has made it - makes it sound like television 20 years ago was brilliant all the time. I happen to think there's more good television on now than there was 20 years ago. But I also happen to think that there's an appetite in America for news. What's wrong with that? You don't have to find a cynical reason."

Based on the ratings and mostly negative assessments of this television season, however, there wouldn't seem to be much support for Fager's theory.

At Fox, Catherine Crier, host with Jon Scott of "Fox Files," says, "I must admit I don't watch much entertainment television because there's nothing there to watch.

"I think there's a real tussle between entertainment and news in terms of getting ahold of air time," she says. "And certainly entertainment programming will snatch it back if they have successful programming."

Right now, she says, they don't.

Says Hewitt: "It gets back to the fact that the networks are bankrupt. Not as much for money as for talent. They don't know where to find another Jackie Gleason, another Lucille Ball, another Milton Berle. So what they say is, 'Well, let's do it on the cheap and dirty. We'll keep throwing all these newsmagazines on.' "

01-12-99