CNN’s Home-Front Offensive

ATLANTA —  CNN’s weather forecast these days includes the cloud conditions in Belgrade, so there must be a war on.

Nearly a decade after the Gulf War that put it on the map, Cable News Network has the art of covering crises down to a science. The screen shifts smoothly from live pictures of foreign correspondent Christiane Amanpour inside an Albanian refugee camp to a sober press briefing at the Pentagon to a surreal live interview with radical Serb leader Arkan, blaming CNN itself for distorting his image.

Behind the scenes in Atlanta, one week into the Kosovo crisis, the network’s international desk is eerily calm. Maps of the former Yugoslavia lie neatly folded on desks, and Serbian television airs live on tiny TV monitors next to the computers; a CNN interpreter, a continent away in London, provides running audio. The control room has a scrawled sign reminding chyron writers: “Airstrikes” is one word and “under way” is two in CNN’s on-screen style. A producer quietly briefs Eason Jordan, president of international networks and global news gathering, on a reporter in Belgrade who has been dragged off by Serb officials.

The fact is, CNN does war really well. Its international presence helps it get access to world leaders whom other networks can’t reach. Its 35 bureaus--more, Jordan claims, than ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox combined--put it in position to regularly beat the competition in getting equipment and knowledgeable personnel into a crisis region; it’s CNN’s satellite dish, dragged for eight hours down a refugee-clogged path, that ABC and NBC used to send pictures out of one Albanian camp last week. And, its smooth operation reflects the fact that, at 19 years old, cable mogul Ted Turner’s baby now has a team that includes many employees with gray hair, unlike in the early days when a trip to the CNN newsroom revealed a sea of baby faces and enthusiasm, but little experience.

But wars are few and far between; the Monica Lewinsky scandal was, in all likelihood, a domestic aberration, and viewer interest in a possible indictment in the murder of child beauty pageant contestant JonBenet Ramsey, which has many news organizations buzzing, may be fleeting. Since the Belgrade bombing began, CNN’s viewership has spiked up 95%, but if history holds true, those viewers will disappear back into sitcoms and documentaries and confrontational talk shows once the war is over.

As one CNN insider puts it, the network has, hands down, the most recognizable TV network brand in the world; CNN News Group Chairman Tom Johnson (a former publisher of the Los Angeles Times) is fond of pointing out that CNN, in all forms, has the ability to reach more than 1 billion people. But too often that doesn’t translate into U.S. viewers, particularly in the prime-time hours where the real money is made.

When CNN was the only game in town, that didn’t matter so much. But the arrival of MSNBC and Fox News Channel two years ago has changed the game. Fox, in particular, quickly established itself as a competitor with a well-defined voice and attitude that could draw viewers whether a story is breaking or not. CNN is spending an extra $130,000 a day to cover Kosovo, but with more competition than ever, that figure is dwarfed by the millions CNN is pouring into projects to keep viewers tuning in during the down time. What it’s learning so far is that there are no easy solutions.

Rivals Gained Ground as CNN’s Ratings Flagged

Until the war started, CNN, while still highly profitable, was confronting first-quarter ratings that were off 10% in prime time from a year ago, even as rivals Fox, MSNBC and CNBC gained. Ratings for sister station CNN Headline News were off a full 13%, according to Nielsen Media Research. Full-day viewership was up marginally. The disappointing numbers come even as CNN in the last year embarked on a costly program to raise ratings, overseen by Richard Kaplan, a highly regarded executive producer brought in from ABC News in August 1997. “Our greatest strength is our greatest weakness,” Kaplan says, acknowledging the fact that CNN’s brand name is synonymous with breaking news.

The plan put in place by Kaplan, whose title is president of CNN/U.S., and other CNN executives is twofold: improve the network’s day-in, day-out look, and try to lure viewers to regular programs when there isn’t an all-consuming story such as a war, a strategy that seemed logical, given that viewers had already proved susceptible to shows such as “Larry King Live” and “Crossfire.”

On the cosmetic front, there’s little doubt that CNN is looking less dowdy. “Our look was old and tired,” Kaplan concedes. So the number of daytime anchors seen each week has been pared from more than two dozen to about 12, and anchors are being sent out into the field more (Bill Hemmer has been in Aviano, Italy, this week). A few recognizable network correspondents, including ABC’s Judd Rose, Willow Bay and Jeff Greenfield, have been lured to the network. A new newsroom set gives the network the look and feel of election night, every day and night. The lighting is more professional. A consistent red on-screen logo, with a translucent white bar behind it, has replaced a mishmash of logos that were slapped on CNN’s various incarnations.

More fundamentally, Kaplan also revamped responsibilities so that there is now an executive producer accountable for each show, where before there was no clear-cut chain of command. He’s mandated that there be no repeats of stories (with the exception of major breaking news such as Kosovo) in adjacent hours. Kaplan’s guidance in putting together a series of instant special reports, tied to breaking news, has won respect from CNN colleagues.

And the network’s team identified 10 topics to be the subject of regular in-depth reports, up to one dozen per day, from CNN’s bureaus. They range from “Saving the Cities” to “Religion and Spirituality” to the murky “Changing Times,” which will look at subjects such as the impact that technology is having on leisure time. The reports, Kaplan says, must “tell a story rather than the straight news” and must get into the impact on viewers’ lives.

There is more to come. Most notably, CNN Headline News will unveil a major visual overhaul in June, meant to give that channel less of a canned feeling, and be more enticing not just to travelers in hotel rooms looking for quick headlines, but to CNN viewers who want news when the network is airing one of its increasing number of non-breaking news programs, such as the twice-per-afternoon legal show “Burden of Proof.”

No one is complaining about the changes, but some scoff that cosmetics alone aren’t the kind of tough steps needed to change a network with a severe identity crisis. And the second half of the CNN action plan, whose centerpiece is a four-night-a-week “NewsStand” series of 10 p.m. newsmagazines, has been less successful. “NewsStand” debuted June 7 of last year, with a costly annual budget of $27 million. The shows share titles with sister Time Inc. publications Time, Fortune and Entertainment Weekly, whose strong brand names, it was hoped, would entice viewers.

Immediately, it suffered a major setback. The program’s very first outing, a piece that ran concurrently in Time magazine and accused the U.S. military of using nerve gas during Vietnam, set off a disastrous chain of events from which the network is only just recovering.

One casualty: Peter Arnett, who made his name in daring behind-the-battle-lines reporting in Iraq and had become a ubiquitous presence any time CNN headed to a conflict scene in recent years. This time, he is conspicuously absent, a result of the “NewsStand” report on Operation Tailwind, which he anchored. In the face of brutal criticism from the military, CNN retracted the piece three weeks later, amid embarrassing revelations about the lack of news-gathering checks and balances at the network.

A CNN spokeswoman says he isn’t covering the war because he doesn’t have the same Balkans expertise as the other personnel that CNN has sent to the region.

Kaplan says the Tailwind report, which cost CNN credibility by making it appear that it was more interested in ratings than serious journalism, is on his mind “nearly every day.” CNN instituted a vetting procedure following the blowup, which it says will help prevent further problems.

In the wake of the fiasco, relations between Kaplan and Johnson became strained, insiders say, which hurt the network’s momentum. Until recently, rumors were rife that Kaplan was headed out the door.

Kaplan admits that he and Johnson went through a period of friction, which he chalks up to stress over Tailwind. But he says the differences have been ironed out and that he never planned to leave; his contract runs for another 2 1/2 years.

Despite the brouhaha, “NewsStand” persisted. It wasn’t helped by numerous preemptions during the presidential impeachment coverage, however, which did nothing to build familiarity with viewers. Some viewers are still confused when they tune in expecting to see TV versions of the magazines’ stories but more often see reports that are merely similar to stories the magazines might do. The shows, while expertly produced, are still frequently criticized for telling lackluster stories.

Johnson says the programs have improved the journalism on CNN. “The quality is superb,” says Johnson of the newsmagazines, but he concedes he is disappointed in the ratings. “I think the jury’s out,” he says.

Recently, Kaplan and other executives successfully lobbied a reluctant Ted Turner that “NewsStand” would be better airing at 8 p.m. instead of at 10, where it had to face competition from broadcast network shows such as “20/20” and “Dateline NBC.” At 10 p.m., Kaplan is planning a signature newscast, but he declines to go into specifics. The change will take place in May.

In another big move, CNN will soon test whether it can draw viewers with a $15-million ad campaign, which is, amazingly, the first time it has ever advertised outside of Turner network airwaves in any major way.

Even within CNN, there is a faction that thinks any effort to alter the cyclical nature of cable news viewership is futile. Johnson and Kaplan agree that breaking news will remain CNN’s priority. With that, Johnson says, some cyclicality is inevitable, but he insists some can be removed.

It’s clear the gains, if any, will be hard won. “If this were easy, don’t you think that both Fox and MSNBC would be doing a lot better than they are?” says Lou Dobbs, president of sister financial channel CNNfn and anchor of CNN’s “Moneyline News Hour,” one of CNN’s success stories. But it’s in CNN’s rivals’ interests, as well, for CNN to succeed; Fox is trying to do the same thing, says Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes. Still, he says, Kaplan “has yet to prove that cable audiences will spend a great deal of time with network-quality newsmagazines. If he can prove that, he can revolutionize the business.”

As the war drags on, Kaplan remains optimistic that CNN’s breaking news strengths can be converted into everyday viewers. Kaplan says CNN “has confidence in our strategy and our product, but it takes time.” His goal, he says, isn’t to vanquish MSNBC and Fox, which he says aren’t his competition; the broadcast networks are.

Still, viewers use CNN, MSNBC and Fox in very similar ways, to get news when they want it, a reality CNN is not ignoring. “I believe this new competition serves as a catalyst to do more and to do more quickly,” Johnson says. And just in case, CNN forgets: Last week, a Fox billboard just went up outside CNN’s Atlanta headquarters, visible from the offices of many CNN top executives.