If there was a moment when fortunes at WLS-Ch. 7 began to change, it was in January, 1984. That was the month Floyd Kalber came back to local news in Chicago, and the month a syndicated game show called ”Wheel of Fortune” spun across the dial at 6:30 p.m. And it was the month a sassy Baltimore talk-show hostess named Oprah Winfrey assumed control of moribund ”AM Chicago” and began altering perceptions in daytime television.
Joe Ahern was then station manager at the ABC-owned station, and a contentious television mechanic named Dennis Swanson was general manager. When Swanson took the post in July, 1983, WLS still was battling the demons of
”happy talk” and the widespread perception that this was not entirely a serious TV station.
In some ways, it is battling that perception still.
Before 1983, WLS was the kind of place where news stories on ”Killer Drugs” and nasty rock music lyrics were a broadcasting staple; where strains of ”superrats” and ”sharks in Lake Michigan” were teased on the 10 p.m. newscast; where a now-departed female anchor was accused of dyeing her hair red to appeal to Chicago`s Irish constituency.
”The late 1970s and early 1980s were really the low point for the station,” said Ahern, president and general manager of WLS since March, 1985. ”From the time Dennis took over (Swanson is now head of ABC Sports), we tried not to kid ourselves about the situation we were in. There was a terrible, negative image, one I`d seen when I was working in the sales department here. There had to be strategies on talent, on programming, on the look of our operation and our image in the community.”
To the continuing dismay of the competition, WLS solved those problems. By March, 1986, the station had become the ratings winner in every newscast, including the prestigious 10 p.m., long the private reserve of WBBM-Ch. 2.
Now, at a time when the station ought to be watching the competition roil in its wake, it is dealing with rumors and reports that Ahern is about to decamp for California, there to take control of KABC-TV, the network-owned station in Los Angeles.
Ahern, a dapper man with a weakness for $35 handkerchiefs and a portable telephone, acknowledges that conversations involving KABC have taken place. The sudden departure of the incumbent general manager in Los Angeles has accelerated the pace of events throughout the network`s owned-stations division.
With the November ratings book approaching, the possibility of an upper-management change at WLS is very real.
”I`m not being coy,” Ahern said Tuesday. ”I don`t know the answer to that question right now. There`s no decision, but clearly there`s a decision to be made.”
If you use Dennis Swanson`s arrival as a jumping-off point for the station, WLS has enjoyed a storybook five-year run. If you look back over the last 31 months, there are ”the numbers” to tell the tale:
On a typical weekday, Channel 7`s airing of ”Good Morning America”
bests the local network competition, despite the fact that NBC`s ”Today”
show is a consistent winner around the rest of the country.
At 9 a.m. Oprah Winfrey steamrolls past whatever counterprogramming WBBM- Ch. 2 and WMAQ-Ch. 5 can muster. Most mornings, according to the A.C. Nielsen ratings, nearly half the TV sets in use in Chicago are tuned to Winfrey`s peculiar video magic.
With Winfrey leading off, the station mops up in what is called ”day rotation.” Between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., Channel 7 averages about a 10 rating and a 30 share. (A Chicago rating point represents 30,000 TV households; a share is a percentage of sets in use.) Channel 2 carries about a 3/10 and Channel 5 a 3/12.
On the other end of the daytime schedule, at 6:30 p.m. lurks ”Wheel of Fortune,” one of the most spectacular, and lucrative, success stories in TV- syndication history.
Even WLS` prime-time ratings border on the boffo, an upset, given the anemic condition of ABC`s entertainment lineup.
How strong are WLS` numbers?
Last year an oddball syndicated program, ”True Confessions,” was tried out in midafternoon. After a few months the show was pulled out of production, failing in nearly every market in the country. At the time the show was yanked, however, ”True Confessions” was beating the competition in its time slot at Channel 7.
Since March, 1986, Channel 7`s 10 p.m. newscast with John Drury and Mary Ann Childers has controlled that important time slot at the expense of Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson, and Carol Marin and Ron Magers.
Drury`s success at both 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. reflects the station`s approach. ”Comfortable” is the word you hear often from Ahern and his news director, Jim Hattendorf. The news director even expresses a fondness for a rival station`s slogan: ”Chicago`s Very Own.”
”The first time John Drury was here, in the `70s, he was a dominant figure in town in early news,” Ahern said. ”Having Floyd and John in place by the summer of `84 put us in a wonderful position.”
So did having what turned out to be the three top-rated syndicated daytime programs: ”Wheel of Fortune,” ”Jeopardy” and ”Oprah.”
Drury had abandoned WLS in 1979, the same year Channel 2 displaced Channel 7 as the top-rated news shop in town. He spent five years coanchoring the 9 p.m. news at WGN-Ch. 9 and returned to Channel 7 in 1984.
In recent years, the station has not ventured far from this area code for talent. In the 1960s, Kalber, who now anchors Channel 7`s 6 p.m. newscast, was as much a part of the local skyline as the Merchandise Mart.
Joel Daly, now coanchoring the 4 p.m. newscast, has been with the station since 1967. Linda Yu has been on the air in Chicago since 1979. Joan Esposito came to the station in 1981 from WGN, Childers nearly 10 years ago from far-off Indianapolis, with a local production stint on ”Donahue” wedged in in the mid-1970s.
”Other people, like Tim Weigel and Steve Deshler, have strong Chicago ties and associations,” Ahern said. ”There`s no mystery there.”
Modesty is a difficult and alien posture in television, and an impossible task when you are looking at Nielsen victories in 17 consecutive ratings
”books” in nearly three years.
Success has hardly made WLS the critics` darling, though it is no longer the local punching bag for newspapers and periodicals. Also, the station tends to go home alone on the nights the local Emmys and the big-ticket journalism prizes are handed out.
Inside the station those realities engender resentment, a combativeness and a sense that ”Eyewitness News” still is paying a price for the sins of the 1960s and `70s.
The news director, for example, tends to wrestle every inquiry to the ground, as when asked about the strength of his prime-time lead-in to the 10 p.m. news.
”We have to win at 10,” Hattendorf said with some impatience. ”Aren`t we better off if we don`t have to depend so much on an entertainment lead-in? Isn`t that the idea?”
Hattendorf is a hard case, known to have his problems with most everyone, from Ahern on down. But in a business in which finesse is overvalued and straight talk is rare, the news director`s blunt assessments can be refreshing.
When former NBC News President Lawrence Grossman says that the news with the best ratings is the best news, it is seen as steely-eyed TV wisdom.
When Hattendorf says it, as he has more than once, it is perceived as arrogance.
The good-cop, bad-cop act with Ahern and Hattendorf has served WLS well. But in local TV, there is always a dynamic, an appreciation of the
impermanence of success.
One of Ahern`s competitors has made the argument that the way to upend WLS is to find a point of attack in its programming schedule. In television, as in other arenas, it is hard to sit on a lead.
WBBM and WMAQ have joined the battle in early-news slots, Channel 5 moving to a 4 p.m. newscast with its top anchor team last month. Both stations have tried to strengthen afternoon lineups, to put some hot programming breath on Channel 7`s 4 p.m. newscast.
”We have to get them to make a move, to change an anchor slot, to run scared in one of their broadcasts,” a rival TV executive said.
Ironically, it appears that that long-awaited move may come at the general manager`s level.