Networks blew it by blowing off convention

In the last week the government has opened inquiries into why cable TV bills are so high and whether the V-chip has done anything to cut down on TV violence.

While they’re at it, how about a commission to investigate how ABC, CBS and NBC — which continue to reap the benefits of free broadcast spectrum — were able to weasel out of covering one of the essential moments in a free society?

Their failure to cover a single minute of Tuesday night’s proceedings at the Democratic National Convention made these broadcast giants look small. And because of their indifference, millions of people missed out on what was the biggest political debut of the year, as Illinois state senator Barack Obama delivered an electrifying address to a cable-and-PBS audience.

Obama, a self-described “skinny kid with a funny name,” came into the convention as the presumptive winner of the U.S. Senate race in Illinois. He left the convention as the toast of Boston and the brightest new star in the Democratic Party.

The son of a Kenyan father and Kansan mother, Obama made his remarkable biography the centerpiece of his 15-minute address.

“I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible,” he said as a delighted crowd cheered.

Afterward, the anchors and pundits on those networks that bothered to carry Tuesday’s proceedings couldn’t stop talking about Obama, his charisma, his message and his political future.

“Some political consultants said it was the best keynote address they had heard in years,” the New York Times reported Thursday.

The blogosphere went wild. Rory O’Connor, who was inside the Fleet Center for the address, wrote on his Weblog, “Last night, while the networks slept, the cynics wept and the future revealed itself.” Comedian Will Durst wrote that Obama’s speech had “a strong chance to be remembered years later” and added: “Can we say ‘rising star’?”

The next day ABC, CBS and NBC were left to scramble to cover the story they should have been covering the night before.

How did they not see this coming?

Certainly it wasn’t because their affiliates in Chicago had failed to alert them to Obama’s oratorical skill and his rising profile. All the Windy City stations broke into their networks’ prime-time fare to cover the Obama speech. Since those stations are owned by their networks, the news directors in New York surely knew what a performance they would be passing on.

“They had every advance notice that this guy is going to be a star,” said Robert Feder, the veteran TV-radio columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.

The networks also knew who else would be speaking Tuesday. There was Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of the Democratic nominee, widow of a Republican senator, butt of a thousand Jay Leno jokes … and yet, to most Americans, a relative unknown. Howard Dean, the onetime frontrunner, would speak, as would the iconic Ted Kennedy, butt of a million David Letterman jokes yet rarely allowed to do what he did on Tuesday: energize an audience with a speech.

And yet that wasn’t sufficient bait for the networks. Indeed, their three hours of convention coverage this week marked a new low for commercial broadcasters. If you relied on the networks’ collective judgment, you missed out on the appearances of John Kerry’s two daughters, the Rev. Al Sharpton and former Sen. Max Cleland — all of whom were as riveting as anyone who spoke after 10 p.m.

But, as always, the broadcasters were ready with the same rehearsed defenses they’ve given in years past. The top executive at ABC News, David Westin, tried to blunt some of the criticism with a self-serving op-ed piece in Friday’s Washington Post.

“This year,” he wrote, “the usual condemnations of ABC, CBS and NBC feel oddly out of date. Time and technology are passing the critics by.” Westin then went on to describe the wonderful technology that ABC was using to cover the conventions this year. It’s called ABC News Now, a digital stream of gavel-to-gavel coverage and other features that provide a “much richer smorgasbord” than his network could offer.

Westin’s so-called technological fix gives digital TV a bad name. In the first place, hardly anyone can see it. ABC sprung the service on its affiliates at the last possible moment, and requires stations to jump through several technical hurdles. Most haven’t bothered. Even in a best-case scenario only 30 million homes would’ve gotten the new digital service, making it equivalent to an obscure cable channel.

Among readers of mine who have seen ABC News Now, the most generous opinion of it is “work in progress.”

But forget Westin’s half-baked digital scheme. Let’s go to the heart of his — and every network TV executive’s — argument:

“With the advent and expansion of cable and, more recently, the Internet,” Westin wrote, “there are just too many alternatives available to the audience at all times of the day and night. Now you’ll attract an audience only if what you have to offer is seen to be better than hundreds, indeed thousands, of alternatives.”

Substitute reality TV shows for political conventions and we see Westin’s argument for what it is: pure spin. Yes, there are “many alternatives” to the home fix-it, makeover and relationship TV shows that air on the networks. Indeed, cable developed most of the successful reality ideas before the networks jumped in. But does anyone in the TV business seem to believe there are “too many” reality shows (other than people who write and act in scripted shows)?

More than one network executive has been shown the door, in fact, for failing to anticipate the exploding demand for reality TV shows. By contrast, no network will be punished for not airing Obama’s speech or any of the other talks given on the convention’s second night.

As for the argument that networks have to offer something “better” than what cable offers to justify their coverage … excuse me, but didn’t Westin’s ABC network — along with CBS, NBC and Fox, which doesn’t even have a broadcast news division — televise the funeral of Ronald Reagan in June? In prime time? For two hours?

According to Nielsen, more than 35 million people tuned in to see the Gipper laid to rest. And while it was a public service to air the ceremony, nobody, not even the well-groomed and affable David Westin, could argue that a funeral was more visually compelling than a political convention.

The larger point here is that 35 million people watched the Reagan funeral. It goes without saying that had the broadcast networks not aired it, two things would have happened. First, far fewer than 35 million people would have tuned it to see it. And second, there would have been a congressional investigation the next week.

This isn’t about Republicans being favored over Democrats. This is about making democracy matter to ordinary people. Newspapers do it by analyzing the issues and printing sample ballots. Local TV stations do it by giving free time to candidates and truth-testing political commercials. Compared to their efforts, the big broadcast networks come up short.

The Republicans undoubtedly have their rising stars, too. If I were a political news junkie, I would probably know who they are. But I’m not. Like most Americans, I am not glued to Fox News Channel or CNN during the day. I do take cues from the biggest networks in the land. They wield a lot of clout in determining what courses through the pipelines of popular culture.

There was a time when the big networks thought big, even about news. I’m thinking about the late Roone Arledge, who a quarter century ago took his production wizardry from the sports division of ABC, where he had concocted “Monday Night Football,” to the news division, reinventing the news magazine and creating “Nightline.”

Today’s news executives are grateful to Arledge because he showed that news could make big money. But they don’t have a clue how he did it. Arledge always wanted more airtime, not less. If he were running ABC News today, I imagine he would push for ABC to do as close to gavel-as-gavel coverage as possible. He would also order a lot of those “up close and personal” profiles (which he pioneered with ABC’s Olympic Games coverage) for each of the speakers and major figures in each party and would air them whenever things got dull down on the floor.

He would cut down on the chitchat because, as MSNBC has proved, anybody can do chitchat. He’d kick the graphics up a notch, for sure, because Arledge was always kicking graphics up a notch.

In short, he would be figuring out how to make his convention coverage stand head and shoulders above everybody else’s.

That’s what the commercial networks should be doing, instead of worrying about how much ad revenue they would lose by not airing a repeat of “Judging Amy” or “Law & Order.” They’re fixated on the bottom line, which for them means profits.

Congress needs to step in and remind them that another bottom line exists: public service at a time of national decision.