Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 16, 1995 TAG: 9510160089
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT WILLIAMS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
With solo guest Colin Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ``CBS This Morning'' introduced a new studio, a live studio audience and - its producer hopes - a different kind of morning television.
``This program will be so different that I'll be able to compete on a playing field that I'm creating, instead of one that I can't compete on,'' said Jim Murphy, the show's executive producer since September 1994.
CBS' morning shows have sailed under a curse ever since the network canceled ``Captain Kangaroo'' in 1984. After a few false starts, ``CBS This Morning'' debuted Nov. 30, 1987, worked hard, and settled into third.
Where it has remained.
``We do every bit as good a job as the other guys do, often much better and more responsibly - and it doesn't matter,'' Murphy said. ``History's against us, and the tide of television right now is against us.''
The first hour of the new ``CBS This Morning'' has news segments, anchored by Jane Robelot, with longer segments for interviews by co-anchors Paula Zahn and Harry Smith, and weatherman Mark McEwen.
The second hour is devoted to in-depth exploration of a single issue or interviews with a single personality, like Powell. Through it all, the studio audience will be there.
So what's the Letterman connection?
When Letterman's producers took ``Late Night'' for its London visit in May, they let Murphy stage his show in the Ed Sullivan Theater. ``All they said was, `Don't screw up the audio board; it's expensive,'' Murphy recalled.
``I felt that if we could get great bookings and keep the audience involved, it was going to be fine,'' he said. ``A couple of days before we got it there, I started to feel it was going to be really good.''
After three exhilarating shows in the Ed Sullivan, ``Basically, we realized that we were involved in producing a better program than anything we'd ever worked on,'' Murphy said.
It's all because of the studio audience, he said.
``You can get immune to the cameras and forget there are six or eight or 10 million people watching,'' Murphy explained. ``When there are people sitting right there in front of you, you can't let down. The energy level goes up by 20-30 percent - and we got really intelligent, interested audiences.''
With Powell, ``CBS This Morning'' is declaring its plans to have shows that will make news and get written about.
``Presidential politics, the Million Man March, this terrible racial fallout in the country following the Simpson verdict - there are lots of issues to address with the guy everybody wants to hear from for leadership,'' Murphy said. ``I can't imagine people aren't going to write a few stories about that.''
``Oh, and I should point out that on Tuesday we have Bill Cosby.''
Murphy, 35, has been working in TV since his schoolboy days. He has the intense focus and manic energy you'd expect in a live TV producer - and a keen, irreverent sense of humor that keeps his balance.
``It's going to be a good program. I don't know if anybody's going to watch it,'' he said. ``I'd be surprised if it went through the roof. I'd be happy as hell if it did, because I'd be the most famous man in television - but I don't expect that.''
He knows, too, that the new ``CBS This Morning'' hasn't got forever to prove itself. If Westinghouse Electric Corp., CBS' new owner, doesn't see results in a year or less, CBS could be out of the morning TV business.
``I need to provide for CBS something that is different from everything else they've tried and from what the other guys provide,'' Murphy said.
``The other guys aren't not going to change. They've been doing this a long time and make a lot of money at it,'' he said. ``So why would they screw with that formula? It doesn't make sense.
``This conglomerate, this division can afford to screw with the formula a little bit and, maybe, come up with something that changes the whole battle.''
by CNB