ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 9, 1996 TAG: 9607090032
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK (AP)
SOURCE: FRAZIER MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Something new is about to bloom on TV sets and personal computers all over the place.
But whether or not you bother checking out MSNBC right away (and even its architects warn not to expect a revolution on day one), its debut Monday will almost certainly lead to changes in how you watch television and use your PC.
The MSNBC moniker employs Microsoft's initials as a prefix to NBC. But along with those five letters, a billion-dollar joint agreement binds the software giant and the broadcast-TV network.
The result, as announced last December, will be an online information service working hand-in-glove with a news-and-information cable channel.
``Visionaries have said, `Oh yes, someday the computer and the television screen will come together,''' says Mark Harrington. ``Well, `someday' turns out to be the 15th of July. What happens after that, we'll invent one day and one story at a time.''
Harrington, who is MSNBC's vice president and general manager, is speaking from its cable headquarters in Fort Lee, N.J. (in the same office building that houses sibling network CNBC).
The channel on which you and some 22 million other cable subscribers now find America's Talking will be transformed into MSNBC On Cable at 9 a.m. EDT next Monday.
At the same moment, MSNBC on the Internet will launch from the Microsoft interactive operations base in Redmond, Wash.
Drawing on the resources of NBC News (including its stars, from Tom Brokaw on down), the cable channel will present 10 hours of ongoing news, interviews, conversation and analysis each weekday. Then each evening brings four hour-long ``appointment viewing'' series, including in-depth news anchored by Brian Williams.
Meanwhile, MSNBC on the Internet will provide related information and other interactive services on interlinked World Wide Web pages accessible from this computer web site: www.msnbc.com
The cable and computer components each will stand on its own.
Even so, ``this is one service with two halves, where we can send the viewers and the computer users back and forth,'' Harrington says. ``The interactive newsroom in Redmond will plan material that fits with our [cable] material, so we come together as a unified service.
``We'll be able to say on the air, `For a background report on Saudi Arabia, consult the MSNBC web site.' And the web site will be able to say, `A bomb has gone off in Saudi Arabia. Go to MSNBC Cable for the latest pictures.'''
That's just one example of how things will go. But the real beauty of MSNBC is that, despite the months of feverish planning, the millions of dollars at stake and no end of bullish talk, no one involved knows what MSNBC will evolve into.
Even sweeter: They're embracing this uncertainty, clearly tickled to be plunging into the unknown.
What should surely distinguish MSNBC from anything else on television is two other initials: R and D. That is, the whole enterprise seems to be a monumental research-and-development project, a corporate-funded communications laboratory with an eye not to short-term profit but to long-term product breakthroughs.
What they insist they're after at MSNBC is discovering how to satisfy tomorrow's audience for news. So what will you find on MSNBC on Cable next Monday? Only the beginning, say the people in charge.
From 9 a.m. through 7 p.m. EDT weekdays (6 a.m. until 7 p.m. on weekends), a flow of news and information will be anchored by Jodi Applegate, John Gibson, Ed Gordon and John Seigenthaler.
Developing in depth one or two of the day's big stories, this will not - repeat, not - be a CNN-like news wheel.
``We can't be completely free-form,'' Harrington allows, ``but I think we need to walk the line between some structure for the audience, and being unpredictable.''
At 7 p.m., ``Time and Again,'' with Jane Pauley as host, will draw from 220,000 hours of NBC News archives to revisit stories as they were covered when they broke.
At 8 p.m., ``Internight'' is an interview program with Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric, Bryant Gumbel, Bob Costas and Bill Moyers in the rotation as host (Ed Gordon on Saturdays).
At 9 p.m., ``The News with Brian Williams'' will bring a flexible approach to the nightly news format, often dwelling on only one or two major stories.
At 10 p.m., ``The Site,'' produced in San Francisco by MSNBC and Ziff-Davis, publisher of numerous computer magazines, will explore new media.
Weekend prime-time schedules will largely consist of repeats, although correspondent John Hockenberry will launch a Saturday night talk show in the fall.
That's the plan. But anything could change. Which, above all, seems to be the point.
LENGTH: Medium: 94 linesby CNB