Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 13, 1994 TAG: 9404130095
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
But he's still taking early spring dips in the chilly Pacific. And he keeps trying to redeem television, which he began to shape as NBC president four decades ago - then dolefully watched slide into mediocrity.
Weaver now lives in Santa Barbara, a seaside retreat from the TV industry's Los Angeles-New York power centers. To hear him talk, television seems to be a promising child who keeps bringing home lousy grades.
``It's very disappointing,'' he says of broadcast TV. ``And cable as well. There's occasional good things on, but there's no consistent arts programming.''
He's cooking up a way to change that, an ambitious scheme involving ... but wait. Before giving cynics the details to pick apart, let's consider what Weaver brought to TV - often over the jeers of less visionary folk.
It's a grand list of innovations he's credited with during his eight-year tenure at NBC, 1949-56, and detailed by Weaver in his new autobiography ``The Best Seat in the House'' (with coauthor Thomas M. Coffey; Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher, New York).
Consider some of the evidence:
``Today,'' which debuted in 1952, when most in television insisted people wouldn't turn on their sets in the morning. Weaver figured if they listened to radio, they'd look at TV for the right show - one that was entertaining and informative, telling ``early risers all kinds of things they should know as they faced the day,'' he writes.
In a bold move, he took the show out of a closed studio and planted ``Today,'' with host Dave Garroway, in a Manhattan storefront setting with a huge window that allowed passersby to peek in. The idea is being revived: Later this year, ``Today'' is moving hosts Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric into a similar setup.
``The Tonight Show,'' which proved there was a late-night audience. Five years before it debuted in 1954 (with Weaver's handpicked host, Steve Allen) Weaver had envisioned it as ``an hour with fun and songs and jollity and features and unrehearsed gimmicks,'' he recounts in his book. Still a blueprint for Letterman, Leno, et al.
``Your Show of Shows,'' the celebrated variety hour that gave TV the combined talents of Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca and others. Weaver intended it as a high-powered, Broadway-type revue, a reason for viewers to stay home Saturday night. It worked.
The concept of the television special, a one-time show pre-empting regularly scheduled programming.
Network-created shows. When Weaver joined NBC, networks commonly sold time to advertisers to fill. Weaver wanted to gain creative control for NBC and reduce meddling by sponsors - such as the toothpaste company executive who ordered Jackie Gleason fired, saying ``I don't want that fat man on my show anymore.''
Weaver doesn't claim he did all this alone; he gives ample credit to the performers, producers, writers and other executives involved. He also doesn't pretend the comedy-heavy schedule he built at NBC represented high culture.
A savvy businessman, Weaver saw comedy as the fortified diet that would help NBC grow - allowing the gradual introduction of the more elevated programming he believed TV should also carry.
(For the record, Weaver relishes a good laugh: he recounts chuckling through rehearsals of ``Your Show of Shows,'' then returning to enjoy the show again on air night).
Television, if properly developed, ``could raise the educational and cultural level of the entire nation. It could enrich the common man - make him the uncommon man,'' he writes in ``The Best Seat in the House.''
``We were moving very well in that direction,'' Weaver says by phone from Santa Barbara. ``We were able to take people to the opera, the ballet, the concert hall ...''
``If I'd stayed in command, we would have gotten there,'' he said. ``But the money guys took over, and they really don't know what's up [except] the bottom line.''
He and his wife Elizabeth could fill their days now with golf and grandchildren - they have five: one from daughter Sigourney Weaver, the actress, and four from son Trajan. But Weaver the visionary keeps working.
In partnership with pollster Lou Harris, he has cooked up a novel idea dubbed Intercept TV. It would allow subscribers, using their VCRs, to capture offerings of the performing arts, comedy and movies between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. for later viewing.
``We're still hoping we can get somebody to do it,'' says Weaver, who's encountered his share of disappointment since leaving NBC, including a concerted network effort to quash a pay-TV service he launched in the '60s.
Why keep tilting at TV windmills?
``If you're not an optimist, you might as well jump in the ocean,'' he replies. ``And stay there.''
by CNB