Fort Lauderdale News from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 73

5S Fort Lauderdale News, Friday, June 16, 1978 I Program Continued From Preceding Page I Sunday I'll come back with something that a woman will wntch and that won't foist too Ions. com springs 11 HOLIDAY SPRINGS AT TWIN CINEMA sl 1 ,000 SEATS NO WAITING 1 Tel. I JILL CLAYBUF1GH AS "ERICA" ALL LAST WEEK IN I WALTER MATTHAU AN I imiVr UNMARRIED I WOMAN UIMESl CALLS CHILDREN'S MATINEE fJSL (The 0, A Every Afternoon 1 p.m. SlULlfcrl Boy And His Dog) (Gj it goes into the production of the news to a great degree, and how you promote it. Then you go to Renick, who has a completely different skew.

He's gigantic, one of the largest (audience) shares of early, news in tlie country, but his appeal is in that very old total men and women area," WCKT's main strengths are late-night and access pogramming. The Tonight Show is a ratings winner, and the station 3oes well in 7-8 p.m. competition. "Access, for us," Leider says, "delivers more homes in many cases than prime time does. We're happy with our access shows.

That isn't our problem area. "Hollywood Squares keeps going on and on; we like "For an 11:30 start, I'm not going to do much (editing) to a movie, even the bad ones. I'll do some discreet editing if just super-gore is coming out and really vile language is coming out, but at 11:30 I'm pretty liberal when it comes to our programming." WCKT (Channel 7) Bob Leider Thsy novcr met cn cduSi hoy couldn't drive crazy. 1 Iff' to be connected with shows of that nature. Tlie other thing we've found is the animal-type shows.

I hear complaints about what's going on in access but to some degree, the people control what's on their television station, because it's done through ratings. Animal shows have consistently performed, and give an image to this station that we. like to be associated with." Of the three Miami affiliates, only WTVJ has a weekday movie slot. "WCIX and ourselves are really in the movie to a great degree," Leider says. His films are aimed primarily at the women 1849 demographic, but adds that "there's such a large number of plus-SOs that view television, that you have to program for them." The station's 4 p.m.

movies, Leider claims, are under-commercialized, loaded with less advertising slots than the National Association of Broadcasters' early fringe (4-6 p.m.) ruling allows. "We remember the point that if you put too many commercials in to get more spots on tlie air, you alienate the viewer; without the viewer, you don't have any ratings; without ratings, you don't have a show. WPLG-TV (Channel 100) Dick A'Hearn Dick A'Hearn, program director, is enjoying the wave of ABC's popularity with the younger set, and coping simultaneously with an allegiance to the large elderly audience in South Florida. During the interview, he also had to cope with the unexpected appearance of vice president and general manager Bill Ryan, who announced months ago his decision to leave Post-Newsweek's WPLG-TV for a post at a northern TV station. Ryan popped in midway through the interview to say hello, and stayed to offer comments the first of which was, "I'm the one that tells you the truth.

These programming guys gotta protect their butt." i A'Hearn is quick to point out tlie difference between WTVJ's total households ratings dominance and WPLG-TV's demographic dominance. "When we see the overall ratings result," he says, "we have a very good demographic story to tell. The 18-49 group, partic-, ularly in women but also in men that's our story That's where tlie selling power, the buying poower, is. Ryan claims the station's youth-oriented stand? the ratings for its news broadcasts, "tlie 18-49-year-olds watch us. The older folks well, percent of WCKT's audience is over SO years of age; 80 't percent of Renick's audience Is over WPLG-TV like the otheY affiliated stations; is proud of Its newscast.

Ryan sees WPIXJ's news as the mos innovative in, tlie market, and supports that claim abouf the multi-part news scriep that are now i conimon.compbnents of South' Florida newscasts. ''We started that in this market," Ryan were trying to do '26 (scries) a year, which was impossible, to do and do well, so we started cutting back. But. the minute we. started doing Ihem, tlie competition started doing Like we started doing cut-ins and teasers from the newsroom three or font years ago; all of a sudden, three weeks, later, you savi.

Channel 4 doing them and Channel 7 doing them. f'We try now, in addition to Just our news programs, 'to do cut-ins 1- you know, at 7:25 in tlie morning, 10 o'clock, 2,4 we're trying to Identify ourselves so if there's something breaking, something happening, where's that viewer going to turn for Information? We're trying to create that kind of image, even If it means taking It out of commercial time." Bob Leider, station manager, is like his counterparts at the other affiliated stations duly concerned with ratings performances of access and news shows. Tlie Sunbeam-owned NBC station must cope with NBC's poor showing in the national ratio this year, and therefore pre-empts network programming more than any other Miami network affiliate. "To some degree it's unfortunate, the pre-empting we have to do," Leider says. "We don't like to do it, but sometimes you feel you have stronger shows that you can put on over your network spots.

That's what it really boils down to in a lot of cases. "If we were an ABC affiliate and having the strength that they're having now, it would be very difficuult to sit down and say 'Today I'm going to pre-empt two hours of one night to put in Ryan's The network doesn't give us the greatest feed right now." Whenever me station clears (pre-empts) a network show, Leider says "We hardly get any reaction at all" from NBC regardless of the reason. "We aired TJie Chock Barris Rah Rah Show once and were overcome with phone calls complaining about its poor taste. It seemed like there was just an inordinate amount; you really didn't have to subject your viewers to this type of program. "But WPLG has bought The Cong Show (another Barris production) in strip variety for next year, and I'll tell you, you look at access and Gong is one of the best (age) 18-49 deliverers in this market.

So you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, but your station has a certain Image, and somewhere along tlie line you just say tilt." Other pre-emptions, Leider explains, are made be- cause of poor national ratings. When asked if James at 15 is an example of such a case, Lcider's reply hints at WCKT's sensitivity regarding viewer reaction. "James? Yeah, but now there's a show that we receive a lot of phone calls about every time we preempt it, a lot of them from younger viewers that wanted to see this. If you mention that, I'll be Inundated with phone calls saying that they wanted that show to air. It's something I'm finding out rapidly in my new job." One thing that Leider learned a long time ago is no secret to the area's other programming executives the competitiveness of tlie South Florida market.

1 "All of the stations In this market with news operations are excellent. I'll tell you, it's really competitive. Everybody's got Instacams, everybody's got a sufficient number of, and probably extra, news people to i cover breaking stories, everybody's got a dedicated commitment to Broward County, "There's a number of independent stations across the country that don't run news," he'polnfs Out. "Don't even get involved in it. But here's Channel 6, an independent, running a news.

It's because of the nature of this market: This is a news market. Look at some of tlie news HUT (Homes Using Television), levels in cases, they're as high as prime time." Adding Vic Mason to WCKT's newscast was an effort to attract more of those high HUT levels entice," Ix-ider audience flint we've never been able to attract before, an 18-49-type audience. We figure we've got the Fariss following, and now we need to bring in a younger audience, because that's the au-diuncc that we can pitch, so to speak." Masori's Instructions, according to Leider, arc to "pick up the tempo on tlie last 'people' half of the news," but leider is aware that "you don't necessarily get young viewers from young people. "It's more tlie style and the pace. If you look at (WPLG-TV's) Ann Bishop and Glenn Rlnker, they are not contemporary-looking 'they're not very young, but they npcal to.aoiuig i think "A "if IT'S FOR EVERYOtlp! Prmount Piclurat Prtsanti A Michael Ritchie Production THE BAD NEWS BEARS GO TO JAPA 8iXnSTony Curtis wmteobyBilt Lancaster product by Micrlael Ritchie Directed by JohD Berry Mullc Adapted By Paul Chi Iwa Rfftd lh Doll Book A Pmmvowt Pictuw Iwiii ttPABAMO0NtCTUM8COWTrOI AuniOHTkmURveO 9nH Rift wipFlf I i i I 1 WPLCr'S nws commitment obvious from the faql i.

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