<<

That’ : The History, Development, and Impact of the First Five

Seasons of “,” 1981-86

A dissertation presented to

the faculty of

the Scripps College of of University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Sara C. Magee

August 2008

© 2008

Sara C. Magee

All Rights Reserved

ii This dissertation titled

That’s Television Entertainment: The History, Development, and Impact of the First Five

Seasons of “Entertainment Tonight,” 1981-86

by

SARA C. MAGEE

has been approved for

the E. W. Scripps School of

and the Scripps College of Communication by

Patrick S. Washburn

Professor of Journalism

Gregory J. Shepherd

Dean, Scripps College of Communication

iii Abstract

MAGEE, SARA C., Ph.D., August 2008, Mass Communication

That’s Television Entertainment: The History, Development, and Impact of the First Five

Seasons of “Entertainment Tonight,” 1981-86 (306 pp.)

Director of Dissertation: Patrick S. Washburn

The line between and entertainment on television grows more blurry every day. Heated debates over what is news and what is entertainment pepper local, national, and cable . Cable channels devoted entirely to entertainment and a plethora of syndicated, half-hour entertainment news magazines nightly. was not always so.

When “Entertainment Tonight” premiered in 1981, the first daily half-hour syndicated , thought it would survive. No one believed there was enough and news to fill a daily half-hour, much less interest an .

Still, “ET” set out to become the glitzy, glamorous newscast of record for the entertainment industry and twenty-seven years later is still going strong. But the legacy of entertainment as news is only one of its many facets. The creators of “ET” developed a unique delivery system that revolutionized satellite syndication and it popularized the cash-plus-barter system of selling syndicated programs. The first five years of the program, from 1981 to 1986, were seminal in creating these facets that would provide the backbone for the success of the program and much of syndicated television for the next two . The philosophies and principles for producing the program that emerged during these years provided a stable base upon which “ET” would evolve into the leader for entertainment news on television. This dissertation uncovers what it took to a pioneer in syndicated television and a show that can bill itself as “television’s most

iv watched entertainment news program”. The story of the first five years of “ET” is told in this dissertation through the personal interviews and reflections of the producers, reporters, anchors, and executives who brought “ET” to life, as well as contextual analysis of a sample of early shows and published reviews and articles. Television news directors in local and cable markets who remember when “ET” premiered also explain the impact it had on television news. By understanding how “ET” began and why it survives, we can understand where news and entertainment are headed today and how syndicated television programming developed.

Approved: ______

Patrick S. Washburn

Professor of Journalism

v Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Professor Patrick Washburn for his assistance, guidance, and

support throughout the writing process and for the invaluable historical and

knowledge he provided. Special thanks also to Associate Professor Mary Rogus

for her incredible knowledge of the broadcast news industry and her willingness to share

it with me as well as her belief in this research topic. And special thanks to Professor

Joseph Bernt for his support of this topic and keeping me calm through moments of stress; Professor Gregory Newton for fostering my interest and knowledge about the broadcast and syndication industry and for being my “technical support;” and Professor

Sherrie Gradin for encouraging me to delve into the rhetoric of broadcast writing and news and listening to my wild ideas about news and entertainment. Also warmest thanks to Jennifer Kowalewski for her editing skills, incredible support, and for being my voice of reason when it was needed. This dissertation would not be possible without all of you.

vi

Dedicated to my parents, Joel and Barbara Magee, for their unfailing love, support, and

encouragement throughout this process and throughout my life. Also dedicated to my

sister Mary Davis, and my brothers Charles Magee and Bernard Davis for their advice

and love; and to Marty and Sheryl Nantus for being my sanity and the best support

system anyone could have.

vii Table of Contents

Page

Abstract...... iv

Acknowledgments...... vi

Chapter 1: Let Me Entertain You...... 1

News vs. Entertainment ...... 3

Technology, Production, and ...... 6

Historical Analysis...... 7

Notes Chapter 1...... 13

Chapter 2: That’s Entertainment!...... 16

The Early Years ...... 18

Radio & News...... 21

Television...... 24

Masini’s Great Idea...... 32

Forming a Show...... 38

The Big Concern...... 41

The ...... 43

Notes Chapter 2...... 48

Chapter 3: Breaking New Ground: The Sales and Distribution Process ...... 56

Cable & Satellite...... 58

Satellite Distribution...... 64

Sales & Advertising...... 68

Notes Chapter 3...... 75

viii Chapter 4: Into the Fire...... 79

Hiring the Staff ...... 81

Creating a Format and Template ...... 86

News Versus Glitz and Glamour ...... 95

Lights! Camera! Action!...... 98

Onward and Upward? ...... 102

Notes Chapter 4...... 106

Chapter 5: Moving ...... 112

Life After Friendly...... 113

Bringing In Bellows...... 119

Getting the Feel of Things ...... 124

Death and Credibility...... 131

Notes Chapter 5...... 137

Chapter 6: Settling In...... 143

A New Face ...... 144

Reviewing Maltin ...... 151

Promotional Consideration ...... 154

Making Music...... 156

Making it Work...... 158

Dealing With Frustration ...... 161

“Entertainment This Week”...... 163

Mary Hart...... 165

Notes Chapter 6...... 168

ix Chapter 7: Seasoned Pro ...... 173

Not Quite Making Waves ...... 174

Growing in Stature...... 177

Dealing with News...... 182

Research...... 184

Good Morning George Merlis ...... 185

Notes Chapter 7...... 194

Chapter 8: ...... 199

Good Bye George, Hello Jack ...... 200

Promotion: Inside & Outside ...... 203

Reilly’s Years ...... 206

A Typical Show ...... 211

Business Matters...... 213

Notes Chapter 8...... 222

Chapter 9: Entertaining Legacy ...... 228

Television News Before “ET” ...... 229

CNN...... 230

Network Newsmagazines, News, and Channel ...... 233

Local Newscasts ...... 238

What Happened Next...... 242

Competition ...... 244

Notes Chapter 9...... 252

Conclusion ...... 257

x The Legacy of “Entertainment Tonight” ...... 259

It All Comes Down To This ...... 265

Notes Conclusion...... 268

Bibliography ...... i

Appendix A: Memorandum from Al Masini, 1981 ...... xiv

Appendix B: “ET” Original Staff Positions and Photos ...... xxi

xi

Chapter 1: Let Me Entertain You

“You can’t live in today’s society and not know what’s going on in the area, in , television, all of those things . . . . If you present a show that tells all this stuff, entertainment news will be around as long as the regular news.” 1

Al Masini, Entertainment Tonight Creator

Al Masini believed the television lineup was missing something when he examined it in 1980. His career philosophy, which led him to create the media giant

TeleRep, the Emmy-winning made-for-television movie , and the hit “Solid Gold,” had always been to a need and then fill it. Having seen for years the attraction of and tabloid magazines as well as the popularity of movie

magazines, Life, and even the newly published People magazine, he realized there was nothing of that on television. “So when you take those magazines, People, TV

Guide, and the movie magazines,” said Masini, “you put them together and you say, what is like that on TV? There's nothing like that on TV, so I said there's an opportunity to appeal to that.”2 Based on that belief, he contacted Mel Harris at Domestic TV in early 1981 and proposed a program that would fill that need.3 From that correspondence, “Entertainment Tonight [ET]” was born.

Since its first broadcast on September 14, 1981, “ET” has entrenched itself in the access hour between seven and eight o’clock, airing on hundreds of stations across America and constantly remaining in the top fifteen syndicated programs with an audience of more than 6 million viewers per week.4 It has spawned clones such as

,” “,” and the “Insider.” Cable-network programs devoted to

entertainment news include the E! Network’s “E! News Daily” and CNN’s “Showbiz

Tonight,” and in the fall of 2007 the CW premiered an entertainment

news-style magazine, “CW Now.”5

“Entertainment Tonight” is often called one of the most influential television

programs for its impact on the entertainment industry. That impact extends to television

marketing and promotional campaigns, syndication and distribution systems, and to the

reputation of franchise owner .6 The program has established itself as a part of American culture, with references to it popping up all over the spectrum, from , to news programs, to popular literature. “It [ET] was on all the

time, and we always were [mentioned] on different shows,” said Masini. “We became

part of the American culture.”7 However, what is not so well known about “ET” history

is its contribution to the media industry.

“ET” revolutionized the syndication field, establishing the first satellite system to

distribute daily syndicated programs across the country.8 Before this, there was no satellite system available to convey programming. The program’s distribution system opened the door to a way to distribute first-run and syndicated programs such as

“Regis & Kelly,” “Oprah,” and “Jeopardy.” “ET” also was the first program to be sold on a combination cash-barter system, combining week and program ratings to make possible larger advertising fees and allow stations to use both a cash and a barter

system to negotiate advertising time.9 “ET” also remains one of Paramount

longest running, most profitable franchises, bringing in between $90 million and $100

million a year in profits.10

2 News vs. Entertainment

Those are just a few of the legacies of “Entertainment Tonight,” and what particularly cannot be ignored is the influence the program had on television news. A study of “ET” can provide possible answers to a -button question about television news: Is there a line between news and entertainment? National and programs today often run pieces on celebrity news or scandals, many times when someone famous dies or has done something scandalous. For example, after the death of Heath

Ledger on January 22, 2008, ABC and CBS news ran packages on the actor in their nightly newscasts, and NBC did a live shot from his City apartment on its nightly broadcast. The February 2007 drug overdose death of former model

Anna Nicole Smith led or appeared in the first block of five o’clock local newscasts nationwide and was mentioned on all three nightly network newscasts. The saga of O.J.

Simpson, from the televised white Bronco chase to the murder investigation and trial during the early , led many television newscasts. OJ again made the local and national news with his 2007 arrest on suspicion of planning an armed robbery in Las

Vegas.

Cable news programs also played these stories repeatedly, often times devoting entire programs to the investigation or latest news surrounding Ledger, Smith, or

Simpson. While this amount of coverage is small compared to what programs such as

“ET” run on the same stories, one wonders what led to this need for national, cable, and local news broadcasts to include even a few of these entertainment news stories on programs that usually are regarded as hard news, non-feature oriented programs. It is this need that has many critics and supporters heatedly debating the impact of entertainment

3 news on national, cable, and local news broadcasts.

Whether you believe there should be a clear boundary between news and entertainment, or you think that line has been crossed and there is no going back, the question remains: How did get to the point where entertainment news pops up all over the media today? In addition, one might ask why televised entertainment news has become as standard or as influential as local or national news? Has entertainment news truly invaded every aspect of broadcast news? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

And of course, why do we care? There are many possible views and answers to these questions, but certainly one set of answers requires going back to when entertainment news first became a presence on television.

This research provides a historical framework for examining this question by exploring how and why entertainment news gained a foothold in the broadcast media and put television center in the ongoing debate over the value of entertainment news.

This will be accomplished by conducting a historical in-depth analysis of the first five seasons of “Entertainment Tonight,” (1981 to 1986) to examine how its and the issues this brought to affected television news and perceptions of entertainment as news during those formative years. This time period of the early was crucial in television news history because, for , competition to the big three network newscasts and their local affiliate newscasts was emerging and fragmenting the news audience. This competition came in the form of independent stations and cable news networks, most notably CNN. The twenty-four hour news network premiered in 1980 with what one called a “news is entertainment” philosophy.11 Morning or

“breakfast” newscasts also began to emerge with stronger segments,

4 providing new uses and appeal for entertainment news stories.12 This increased competition created situations in which local and network television news frantically struggled to regain viewers who were suddenly finding other avenues for quick and constant news.

Amid all this competition, “ET” suddenly appeared and created a spark on local and national news radars. Despite an initial pounding from media critics, the program evolved and made a name for itself as it quickly became apparent that coveted younger viewers were watching the program, which was based around entertainment news and stories.13 “ET” patterned itself somewhat after the local newscast format and thus became the first “newscast” to spend an entire thirty minutes reporting on nothing but entertainment news. Earlier shows, such as “PM Magazine,” focused on presenting longer segment pieces on feature topics and entertainment, but not with a timely edge.

“ET,” however, used shorter story segments as well as its two-anchor set up and reporting style that reflected a local television newscast format, even though its creator says it was not specifically inspired by local newscasts. Masini said his initial idea for the program was simply to produce a show with stories in formats that would keep people’s attention and deliver the information they wanted to hear. To him, the shorter segments and reporting styles were a way to put together “all the elements of what you would want to see in an entertainment news show.”14 Producer John Goldhammer said an important aspect of establishing “ET” was making sure it had news credibility; that people trusted the information that the program brought into their homes. In fact, this concern resulted in the hiring of famed editor Jim Bellows to ensure the show had that credibility.15

5 Technology, Production, and Marketing

As mentioned previously, another impact that “Entertainment Tonight” had on the

television industry was its effect on satellite delivery and syndication. The program was

the first to be made available as a daily, live download, requiring local stations airing the

program to invest in a .16 Goldhammer said “ET” created a distribution

network that was previously non-existent. By making satellite transmissions something

that every local station could access, “ET” opened the doors to daily syndicated news and

entertainment programs such as “Live with Regis,” “,” and “Oprah,” that would

invade broadcast television in the 1980s and 1990s.17

“ET” also helped develop and promote the use of machines. “I’m not gonna

claim that we actually invented the fax machine . . . but I like to think that ‘ET’ sort of

co-created the fax machine” said , one of “ET’s” first reporters, explaining

how the program worked with early forms of the fax machine to transmit scripts between

the West and East coasts.18 ET also had an impact on the marketing and sales of television programs to advertisers. The program, according to Goldhammer, was “really the first cash barter show. You [advertisers] got one spot during the week and that same spot ran on the weekend show.”19 This enabled the program to be sold with a higher rating, because it averaged the weekday and weekend ratings to come up with a larger ratings number than either alone. Therefore, advertisers paid more cash for one spot to run once on Monday through Friday, while a barter agreement with “ET” allowed the spot to run again, of cost, once during the weekend show. This cash barter technique was unique and groundbreaking for television advertising sales; before “ET,” most shows were sold for either all cash or all barter.

6 Researching the history of “ET” and the people behind it also shows how some of

today’s most important figures in media got their start and ended up in powerful industry positions today. Many of those who ran major television networks such as FOX and

Disney, during the 1990s got their start as producers or directors on “ET” or in management positions at Paramount during this time.20 Thus, this entertainment news

program, it can be argued, served as the training ground for today’s broadcast executives and perhaps even shaped how they think and work to create the current broadcast networks and industries.

Historical Analysis

This dissertation examines the history of “Entertainment Tonight” from 1981 to

1986 for the reasons described above. The focus is an in-depth analysis of the

development, format, and content of “ET.” Issues of technology also will be discussed as

they relate to the distribution, production, and marketing of all syndicated programming.

Interviews, primary documents, and published articles and interviews, were used.

In-depth interviews with ET’s creators, anchors, producers, and directors, as well as those executives running Paramount Television during this period, provide insight into the process behind the creation of the program. Along with interviews, content analyses of various “ET” programs during these formative years were conducted on the programs.

The final component of this dissertation research was interviews with news directors at local television stations and cable networks during this time period that provide more insight into how “ET” informed or influenced the style or content of news coverage.

These news directors who were working when “ET” first premiered are a valuable

7 of information about how the program was received by the and what impact

it had on their news departments and coverage.

This study begins with the program’s and in 1981, then

examines how it evolved as it struggled to find its place in the news world and with

during its first five seasons. Technology, production, staffing, and executive decisions during this time period were seminal in creating the format, style, structure, and reputation the program would eventually develop and successfully implement for years to come. Decisions made about program content during this time also would provide fodder in the news world about what role entertainment news could play in attracting viewers.

The historical period covered by this dissertation will stop in 1986, the year that numerous anchor and production changes, including the hiring of co-anchor created some program shakeups but by which time “ET” had become a fully established source of televised entertainment news. This is a natural stopping point because by 1986

“ET” had a recognizable form, structure, and style of news coverage and delivery in place, along with the procedures and philosophies that would inform and support the program for the future. In addition, the program had proven that it could make entertainment news a viable television product, one that also could attract the desired younger, female audience demographic. While the program would evolve with time and technology, the foundation for its future laid in the program’s first five seasons provided

the base from which the program would build and television’s focus on entertainment

news would grow. From 1986 onward, the program would remain a steady fixture in the

television news world, spawning numerous competing programs and entertainment-based

cable networks.

8 As the popularity of entertainment news grew throughout the 1980s and early

1990s, “ET” began to focus more heavily on the younger demographic that advertisers and news programs were desperate to attract. Entertainment news had traditionally appealed to a younger audience, which was filled with consumers who wanted among

other things, to be like their favorite celebrity personalities.21 Entertainment news also

was preparing for another change because of technology, increased competition, and a

growing marketplace of news and entertainment news programming. Future research will

examine today’s entertainment and broadcast news programming in even more detail.

A study of the early years of “ET” also reflects a need in academia for more

research on broadcast entertainment news programs because entertainment news

programs such as “ET” play an important role not only in shaping media but in creating a

market for advertisers, attracting viewers, and continually managing to stay on air,

despite enormous competition from other media sources. There is little research

examining programs such as “ET,” much less research examining the value and the

importance of these types of programs in shaping television news today. Understanding

the legacy that a program such as “ET” has had on cable, national, and local television

news and the broadcast industry in general provides valuable information for researchers

and those interested in studying how television news and the broadcast industry have

evolved as a result of the appeal of entertainment news.

Studies of broadcast news programs have been done, mostly looking at content,

style, format, and news decisions of such programs, but that research has not specifically

focused on entertainment news programs such as “ET.” Some of that research has taken

into account how entertainment content factors into local and national news broadcasts.

9 For example, a 2003 study of network television news broadcasts by James Wittebols found that nightly news programs on ABC, NBC, and CBS were more entertainment than public-service oriented, and television programs in general, news or otherwise, tended to use more dramatic storytelling techniques.22 Jonathan Morris suggested in the same year that news channels, especially cable, have been “infusing more entertainment-based news” into shows to draw viewers.23 An audience response study in 2000 by Maria

Elizabeth Grabe, Shuhua Zhou, Annie Lang, and Paul David Bolls examined the packaging of tabloid style news. They found that while the tabloid-style of newscasts increased audience arousal and attention it allowed for no significant recall or recognition of stories at a later time.24

Along with research into television news programs, articles on the importance of entertainment to an audience and advertisers also have appeared in numerous industry publications. Many of these articles have stressed the need to separate or distinguish news from entertainment, especially in news programming. George Mason University

Professor Frank Sesno, a longtime CNN political editor, stated in a 2004 interview that news and entertainment divisions “have separate agendas and thresholds for success. . . .

[T]he public is not informed as to how the standards for one are different than the standards for the other.”25 Much of this results from an economic demand for what sells, according to Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation Director Bill Kovach, who said in a 1998 New York Times interview, “The journalist is focused on the economic demands, not on the demands of the information he or she is working with.”26

Local news especially stands to gain from an investigation of how entertainment news content influences programming. Despite the increasingly fragmented audience

10 demographics, local television news remains the leading source of news and information

for the public according to a 2006 & Television News Directors Foundation

Survey that found 65.5 percent of the public gets its news from local TV.27 However,

Journalism.org’s annual State of the Media study in that same year also found that local

television news viewership was decreasing in the ratings each year, a significant part of

which could be attributed to an increasingly fragmented news audience that was going other places to get their news fix, such as CNN, FOX News, and the .28 This

creates a need for new ways to attract an audience and a need to consider what can be

done to draw viewers back. At the same time that local and national newscasts are

experiencing falling ratings, entertainment news programs remain on the list of the top

twenty-five or thirty syndicated programs each week in Broadcasting & Cable. Thus,

examining entertainment news programs provides new ways to look at the development

of America’s fascination with entertainment news and, more specifically, how television

news is reacting to and capitalizing on this phenomenon.

Geoffrey Baym, a leading researcher on the melding of the news and

entertainment genres, noted in 2005 that “any clear distinctions between the public and

private spheres, public affairs and popular culture, and information and entertainment”

have disappeared in today’s media environment.29 This is indicative of the concern over

the “news and entertainment” line in the media, especially in television news. Questions

of how and why the broadcasting industry got to where it is today can begin to be

answered by looking at where it started for television, “Entertainment Tonight.”

The legacy of “ET” remains strong and no doubt the program will continue to

have a major and lasting influence on other broadcast news products and programming.

11 Entertainment news is not going anywhere anytime soon, although no doubt it will change with , with technology, and with public events and opinions. More entertainment-based news programs on network, cable, and satellite will emerge and debate will continue to heat up over whether there should be a hybrid of news and entertainment in today’s broadcast news media. Bill Carroll, vice president of Katz

Television Group, summed it up in 2007 with what seems to be a defining philosophy in the entertainment news market, no matter what the year: “One thing we do know is that there seems to be an insatiable appetite on the part of viewers for entertainment news and particularly gossip. If you can feed that appetite you’re going to do well in this business.”30 Thus, the contributing, long-lasting importance of a study of the early years of “ET” is to increase understanding of the integration of entertainment stories into mainstream television news and the dramatic development of syndication technology and syndicated programming, thus demonstrating why “Entertainment Tonight” has been one of television’s most influential programs.

12 Notes Chapter 1

1. Interview, Al Masini, December 3, 2007.

2. Ibid.

3. Robert Edelstein and Jim Benson, “A Bona Fide Original, A Billion Dollar Success Story, and One of Today’s Most Influential TV Franchises,” Broadcasting & Cable, October 23, 2006, Supplement, 30.

4. See David Kaplan, “Demo Delivery Stays on Par,” Broadcasting & Cable, September 12, 2005, A1; and Katz Television Group, “Programming Newsletter 2006,” http://www.katz-media.com/tv/TVProg/v23n1/newsletter.htm (accessed on April 27, 2007).

5. “CW Now,” at http://www.cwtv.com/thecw/cw-now (accessed on May 18, 2007).

6. See Edelstein and Benson, “A Bona Fide Original,” 30; and T.L. Stanley, “‘ET’: 25-year Track Record Keeps Marketers in Tow,” Advertising Age, March 27, 2006, S12.

7. Interview, Masini.

8. Kevin Downey, “‘ET’: It Changed Showbiz and the Syndie Biz as Well,” Broadcasting & Cable, November 11, 2003, 22.

9. See Interview, John Goldhammer, January 9, 2008; and Interview, Masini.

10. Susanne Ault, “‘ET’: The Business Behind the Buzz,” Broadcasting & Cable, July 2, 2001, 14.

11. Joseph Cumming, “: Captain Outrageous,” Saturday Evening Post, October 1980, 66.

12. Jan Wieten and Mervi Pantti, “Obsessed with the Audience: Revisited,” Media, Culture & Society, 27 (January 2005); 21.

13. Richard Stengal, “Turning Showbiz into News,” Time, July 4, 1983, 42.

14. Interview, Masini.

15. See telephone interview, Goldhammer; Interview, Masini; Stengal, “Turning Showbiz into News,” 42; and Ault, “‘ET’: The Business Behind the Buzz,” 17.

13

16. Downey, “‘ET’: It Changed Showbiz and the Syndie Biz as Well,” 22.

17. Telephone interview, Goldhammer.

18. Telephone Interview, Robin Leach December 27, 2007. “ET” worked with the RapidFax company developing the ability to transmit two pages of script from the East to the West coast in under seven minutes.

19. Telephone interview, Goldhammer.

20. Examples of people who started out at “ET” and went onto bigger things were Eisner and were executives at Paramount, who greenlit ET before moving to head up Disney and FOX broadcasting respectively; Lucie Salhany was a Paramount executive who spearheaded “ET” through the mid-1980s and went on to become the first female broadcast network manager of FOX and then CEO of the UPN network.

21. See Kaplan, “Demo Delivery Stays on Par,” A1; and Lee Allen Hill, “Selling the Steak, Not Just the Sizzle,” Television Week, November 7, 2005, 30.

22. James Wittebols, “More Show Than News: The Evolution of Network Television News” (Paper presented at the International Communications Association Conference, May 23-27, 2003, ).

23. Jonathan Morris, “The Fox News Factor,” Press/Politics 10 (July 2005); 61.

24. Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Shuhua Zhau, Annie Lang, and Paul David Bolls, “Packaging Television News: The Effects of Tabloid on Information Processing and Evaluative Responses,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 44 (Fall 2000); 581-598.

25. McClellan, John Higgins, and Allison Roman, “News for Sale?” Broadcasting & Cable, January 26, 2004, 40.

26. James Sterngold, “Journalism Goes Hollywood, and Hollywood is Reading,” New York Times, July 10, 1998.

27. Bob Papper, “RTNDF, Future of News Study, 2006,” at http://www.rtnda.org/ media/pdfs/bestpractices/futureofnews/survey/section2.pdf (accessed on October 25, 2007).

28. Project for Excellence in Journalism, “State of the News Media 2006,” at http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2007/execsummary.pdf (accessed on October 25, 2007).

14 29. Geoffrey Baym, “: Discursive Integration and the Reinvention of ,” Political Communication 22 (July-September 2005): 262.

30. Chris Purcell, “For Syndie Newsmags, a Mettle Test,” Television Week, February 26, 2007, 57.

15 Chapter 2: That’s Entertainment!

“It [‘Entertainment Tonight’] would be infotainment. Information about entertainment and it’s a new genre, a new area, but I thought since nobody had ever done it before, there really was a great opportunity.”1

Al Masini, “Entertainment Tonight” Creator

Before 1981, there were no entertainment-based news programs on television.

Local and national newscasts were the main options for regular, formulaic news coverage

of the day’s events, most of which had few or no entertainment stories. Still, Al Masini

believed entertainment news would sell, especially if it was put on TV. Having spent his

childhood enthralled by movie magazines, and noting the public’s constant fascination

with gossip and tabloid magazines in supermarket checkout lines, as well as its interest in

celebrity-filled television movies, he knew people would like entertainment news in a

televised form. Not to mention the fact that with no way to appease this need on

television, Masini figured an entertainment news program would fill a void he saw on

television. “Nothing was out there that covered this type of news, and there needed to

be,” he said. “I knew this program would work and be successful because it was

something that people would watch.”2

He was right, as “Entertainment Tonight” and its twenty-seven year legacy has

shown. People apparently were ready for a television-based entertainment news program

in 1981, one that aired in many markets after the local or national nightly news and did relatively well in the ratings.3 It only seems logical for a culture that has been obsessed

with entertainment since it began. From the earliest forms of folk games, festivals and

celebrations, to wild-west shows, vaudeville, , radio and television, the public

16 actively engaged in promotion, production and enjoyment of amusements and

entertainment in the media. Throughout the twentieth century, much of that fascination

with popular culture has focused on radio, movies, television, and music and created a

fascination with the involved in those endeavors. “In the entertainment

economy, celebrity is the only universal currency,” wrote media researcher Michael Wolf

in his 1999 book on the growing power of the entertainment economy. “Stars attract us to

entertainment products.”4 Television news reports have played into this fascination, with more and more stories about celebrity lives, deaths, scandals, and work finding their way onto national, cable, and local newscasts. The popularity of syndicated televised entertainment news magazines, such as “ET,” and its competitors “Access Hollywood,” and “Extra,” as well as the all entertainment E! Network, also reflects this seeming public need for entertainment news. The increased interest and importance of entertainment news and how it is presented on both broadcast and syndicated news programs introduces new fodder for the debate over whether news in general is becoming more entertainment based.5

That debate brings to light numerous issues, but to get to the of it, one must first understand how “Entertainment Tonight” was able to get on the air, and remain there for more than twenty-five years. What was happening in popular culture, and in the broadcast news business during the years leading up to the 1981 premiere of “ET” to make this type of program something that television stations would consider airing? Why did Masini and Paramount Television decide to take a chance on an extremely expensive program that no one had any idea would work? The answers to these questions can be discovered through an examination of America’s developing fascination

17 with popular culture over the years; the need Masini sought to fill by creating an all

entertainment-based broadcast news program; and the effort that went into creating and

selling his unique new program.

The Early Years

“The world’s fascination with entertainment has been around since time began,”

said media entrepreneur and “20/20” and Fox News Channel co-creator Dan Cook. “You

don’t think the biggest entertainer of all Jesus?”6 Regardless of country or time

period, people have always enjoyed entertainment. From the early days of folk dance,

festivals, and storytelling through today’s popular culture websites and , people

have sought out entertainment in some form. Cultural and political developments

informed entertainment from the 1600s onwards around the world, for American’s especially as they colonized the New World and created their own unique identity and culture, separate from British and European cultures.7 As America came into its own,

residents enjoyed everything from concerts and plays to such feats of “danger” and

“death” as men jumping off tall buildings or going over Niagara Falls.8

The concept of the celebrity during this time reflected those making the news of the day, most of it scandalous. Erotic literature, brought to America from England with the settlers, served as the tabloids of the early 1700s. In her dissertation, British cultural

and historical scholar Skipp, stated that people reading this literature were

“stimulated by intrigues in the lives of well-known public figures—the aristocracy, politicians, , playwrights, actresses, and occasionally the monarchy.”9 However, as

the Revolutionary War drew near and Americans struggled to find a national identity,

18 celebrity emerged, according to historian Amy Henderson, as a search for a “mythic

national by focusing on military , romantic fictional protagonists, and

eminent statesmen who embodied the ideals of virtue and self-reliance.”10

Publicity also influenced the popularity of different types of celebrity figures,

most notably in the penny press, which sold for a penny and heavily promoted the new

and growing types of sensational entertainment as well as creating a mass market for .11 Publishers such as and Richard Kyle Fox also

capitalized on these trends, producing newspapers and magazines that featured

sensational stories of sex, and crime, as well as blood sports such as

prizefighting.12 “Screaming headlines sold newspapers,” wrote media researcher James

Roman about the publishers’ efforts to sell papers.13 The beginning of the telegraph as a

business tool in the late 1840s helped bring more foreign and exotic news to these papers

as well.14 Newspapers helped spread information and publicity about these types of

stories as well as served to build interest around these entertainment events and the

people behind them.

During this time, the concept of celebrity was beginning to emerge as people

began to clamor for personal information about their , such as Buffalo Bill and

Annie Oakley, or sports figures and athletes.15 Newspapers capitalized on these celebrity

stories, drawing on the appeal and attraction of these performers and shows to sell papers.

The press also started focusing more on sporting events, especially boxing and baseball,

as well as the athletes participating in them. “Sports entertainment is always

supplemented by intimate personal profiles of the athletes, their trials and tribulations,

their hard work, and their will to succeed,” wrote Catherine Carstairs in a 2003 article on

19 sports and scandals.16 Through this process, sports celebrities began to emerge from these

arenas as the press reported on standout athletes and teams, and the public bought into the

fascination with sports and athletes.17

By the turn of the century the American public was indulging in these types of

popular culture and entertainment venues. The emphasis on more sensational forms of

entertainment, especially as reported in newspapers during this period, included a heavy

focus on sensational crime stories. Stories in newspapers and magazines of the period, according to an 1883 book by Andrew Comstock, founder and secretary of the New York

Society for the Suppression of Vice, “glamorized the lives of libertines, harlots and criminals, and destroyed parents’ best efforts at sheltering their children.”18 The National

Police Gazette was a prime example of this, as evidenced by its message on editorial

content: “We offer this week a most interesting record of horrid murders, outrageous

robberies, bold forgeries, astounding burglaries, hideous rapes, vulgar seductions and recent exploits of pickpockets and hotel thieves in various parts of the country.”19 This publication gained success through this type of story coverage, creating and influencing a new style of journalism that gave way to the term “yellow press” in the 1890s.20 In his

2006 book on The National Police Gazette, Guy Reel explains that it was a greater desire for entertainment spurred by growth that also contributed to the publication’s success.21 The publication became one of the top two dozen American magazines published in the post Civil War years.22

During this time, new ways also were being found to bring music and film to the populace. The invention of moving images in the 1890s allowed short to be shown during vaudeville acts. By 1905 the first theater specifically for showing films had

20 opened in McKeesport, .23 When sound was added to the silent films in

1923, audiences flocked to theaters to see this marvel of technology. “Sound

revolutionized the entertainment industry, the movie industry,” said “ET” movie critic

Leonard Maltin. “Things would never be the same when the movies got sound.”24 And with audiences flocking to the theaters to see these astounding new films, they began to develop a fascination with the stars of these productions, such as ,

Douglas Fairbanks, , and Mary Pickford. These , according to historian

LeRoy Ashby, were considered “rising cultural authorities” who “owed their existence to passionately engaged movie audiences.”25 This audience of fans constantly wanted to know more about their movie idols and flooded with questions about their lives.

This public curiosity, along with the realization by movie executives that there was a market in providing this type of information, began to create the idea of the movie .26

Radio & News

By the 1920s radio was finding a place in America’s heart as listeners took the characters and their stories to heart. The hugely successful “Amos n’ Andy” made such an impression on listeners, that they quite often forgot the characters were fictional. For example, in one episode the duo mentioned they did not have a typewriter. The next week 1,880 listeners sent the program typewriters. In the same vein, when one of the characters a dog, a listener sent one to the NBC station in New York to replace it.27 People had begun to think of these celebrities, whose voices came into

their homes every week, as family, or as someone you might meet on the street in your

hometown. With such eager response, radio programs began to capitalize on sound,

21 music, comedy, and the personalities conveyed through the vocal talents of performers

such as Jack Benny, , and .28 Radio by the mid to late 1920s

also was helping in the Golden Age of American Sports, so called because along

with increasing newspaper and magazine coverage, radio brought sporting events directly

into people’s homes, finding an audience of eager fans, waiting breathlessly to hear the

exploits of their favorite players, such as baseball’s , football’s Harold “Red”

Grange, and boxing’s Jack Dempsey.29 At the same time, when football especially had

proven its appeal to the public, different college games constantly showing up in

newsreels alongside much more serious news.30 Sports heroes were also being created in

radio programs and magazine publications through what sports historian Michael Oriard

called a “celebrity profile,” which focused on the coaches and athletes and their lives

instead of just reporting what they did in a game or their careers.31 Such legends as Knute

Rockne and John Heisman were quite often featured in these different media profiles.

Hollywood, after an initial hesitation, took to radio as well, realizing it was a productive way to promote their product. “For a long time radio was an enemy to

Hollywood movies,” noted “ET” movie critic Leonard Maltin in a 1997 book chronicling the broadcasting.32 Studios feared radio programs would take away from

office draw, but eventually realized that the two mediums could compliment each

other, especially when it came to promotional campaigns. Soon, studios began to lend out

their stars to become the voices of many a familiar character on a weekly radio show.

One early radio show even focused on entertainment news and interviews with the stars,

much in the vein of “ET” in later years. “” premiered in 1934 with host

Dick Powell and celebrity gossip commentator .33 The program was a

22 huge success, as Parsons asked celebrities to come onto the program and talk about their work and the latest celebrity gossip. Parsons also had a weekly update and roundup of celebrity news and gossip. The program lasted until 1938, when it became too expensive to get stars to come on the program.

As the medium of radio developed and the popularity of dramas, comedies, and celebrity variety shows grew, radio news found itself getting off to a slower start during the 1930s. This was because most advertisers, who controlled to a large degree the types of programs that made air, did not want to advertise during newscasts because they felt they were not as attention grabbing as radio entertainment programs.34 News, when it was aired at all, was generally in the form of announcers reading from the newspapers and occurred only occasionally or when some major event happened. However, this would change significantly with the advent of World War II.35 Newspapers and magazines sent into the field to report on the war, its soldiers, and the status of American troops. Radio news correspondents covered every angle, live and from the field, bringing short reports to listeners across the country and around the world. Edward R. Murrow and his “” often reported directly from the scene of battles and became trusted voices to deliver the news.36 Murrow and Eric Sevareid broadcast live reports from

London during bombing raids while others traveled with the troops and told the stories

from the field.37 “Broadcast [radio] coverage of the war was more timely than newspaper

reports,” said media researcher Steve Barkin. “It reached a national audience of millions,

and identified the institution of CBS with a single individual.”38 Propaganda and

ran rampant in the media, however, as stories were sent home on heroes and

23 military leaders, while radio announcers and newsmen brought nightly updates on the war efforts into the American homes in an effort to build morale.39

On the entertainment front, comedians like kept spirits up with

extremely popular radio programs that attempted to draw support for the war as well as

take people’s minds off of the horrors of war for short periods of time.40 While all these

forces were bombarding American culture, the increasing appeal and broader access to

the developing medium of the stage for an even bigger change in how

audiences received and indulged in the culture of entertainment through the mass media

and the importance that celebrities played in it.

Television

Television revolutionized the entertainment and the media industry, although its

inventor’s reaction was not quite as excited as ’s first successful

test of the telephone. Farnsworth’s first words on the successful transmission of an

electronic image in the late 1920s: “There you are, electronic television.”41 Television created a new medium for news, popular culture, and entertainment. The demand for this new medium soon became clear as fledgling networks began to embrace the idea of the small screen., Moss Hart, President of the New York Dramatists Guild, said in a guild meeting in the mid-1940s, “The day is coming when a two-hour play will be seen by millions of people. The network will be looking for writers to supply them with thirty-six full plays—or seventy-two hour long plays—each week.” In reply, the oldest answered, “When was it ever decreed that man had to have so much entertainment?”42

That thirst for entertainment was whetted by the emergence of television.

24 Television gave a face as well as a voice to actors and products and those who

sponsored them. As technology and production improved throughout the 1940s and

1950s, more and more people began to buy television sets. Problems with signals and

antennas emerged as fledgling networks began to try to produce programs that could be

sent over the airwaves and directly into homes. News programs and anthology shows

featuring comedy and music were the first programs to spark American public interest;

and as the need for more programming grew, television networks began to attract

younger actors who were just beginning to see the benefits of national television

exposure.43 The audience response to celebrities developed quickly during these years,

especially since many came directly from the popular radio shows. “Audiences would

surely be eager to finally watch the performers they had spent so many years listening

to,” noted researcher Susan Murray in 2005.44

Television news also came to the forefront during these years, thanks to newsmen such as Murrow who had now moved into television news. His news program “See It

Now” became one of the most popular programs on television. “” helped television news programs take off, making the medium a creator of news instead of just

an observer.45 Long-time CBS Reasoner said that Murrow’s working relationship and friendship with CBS founder and chairman William Paley resulted in

Paley believing news on television was an important thing to cover, and thus approving and supporting Murrow’s news broadcasts.46 As these news broadcasts became familiar

television staples, the influence of newsreels began to be seen on such programs as well.

Newsreels appeared before and between movies and usually consisted of short, unrelated

news items, including hard news stories, feature and travel pieces, celebrations or

25 festivals and other human-interest topics.47 Nightly network news reports began to appear

on the scene in the mid 1940s, with “See It Now,” “CBS Reports,” “NBC White Paper,”

and “ABC Close-Up,” combining the style of newsreels with the importance of the

reporting and storytelling that Murrow’s reports had established. Hard national and

internationals stories filled the broadcasts, with human-interest pieces scattered throughout. Entertainment stories were more in the human-interest vein rather than celebrity news or information.48 However, with powerful, compelling anchors like

Murrow, , and , the public began to see the news anchors as celebrities, thus giving the nightly newscasts a celebrity aspect of anchoring if not in content.49 This idea of celebrity appeal can be seen in just about any

news or entertainment newscast today simply by looking at how the anchors themselves

seem to be considered stars, perhaps even more so than the celebrities themselves.50

Morning news programs also found their footing during the late 1950s and 1960s, although it was not without a little help. NBC’s “Today” show entered the sphere in

1951, conceived as a program that would combine news and entertainment. However, at the time, the American public was not responsive to morning news programs. They did not become responsive until NBC producers in 1953 added a baby chimp named J. Fred

Muggs and the ratings skyrocketed. Writer Gerald Green, after reflecting on this decision, said, “I always had a theory that half our audience watched the show because of our commercials. Then, of course, the chimp came along. Many people say that was the key.”51 As the show progressed, he noted that more people were tuning in to “learn what was happening, not only in news, but in movies and books.”52

26 ABC’s “ [GMA]” entered the morning news scene in

1975, more than twenty years after “Today.” While providing news competition to

NBC’s “Today” the program also featured considerable entertainment and lighter stories,

not surprising since it was run out of the ABC Entertainment Division, not the News

Division.53 Interestingly, then “GMA” producer George Merlis noted that he believed the

broadcast was newsier when being run by the entertainment department. “We had more

news, pound for pound, minute for minute, hour for hour, than when it was run by news,”

he remarked.54 “GMA” also used the lighter, entertainment interview type material to appeal to the female audience, many of whom were staying home in the mornings but were not watching “Today.” “We literally set out to do a show that would appeal to women ages 18 to 49,” said Merlis, “‘GMA’ succeeded and found a whole new audience for morning news.”55

Local news and community programming had existed in various forms since the

1930s, after the Communications of 1934 made it mandatory that local stations create

a certain amount of that would provide a public service to the

community. Newscasts and public affairs programs complemented the network news

briefs and programs during the 1950s and 1960s, although local news would become

much more prominent in the , especially as independent stations increased and

found a need for competitive programming that would also fulfill the required pubic

service mandate.56 At the same time, the Federal Communications Commission was

working to decrease the predominance of network programming on local affiliates on

weeknights by passing the in 1970. The rule required that at least one half hour to an hour of evening programming (before 8 p.m.) had to be filled

27 with shows of a more local nature, in essence, those not produced by the networks.57

Mary Rogus, an associate professor at Ohio University, who was producing news in the

late 1970s and early 1980s, recalled the rapid increase in early evening 5 p.m. local

newscasts as part of the result of this along with the attempts to fill them with content that

would attract the highly coveted female demographic. “Most stations were trying to fill

an hour and a half of time, as well as draw in viewers,” she said. “You had to find

something that would attract them, especially the younger, female audience that news

departments coveted.”58 At the same time, production companies were finding new

sources of revenue by producing programs that could fill these early evening hours. This

led to one of the first forms of a televised entertainment feature program, “PM

Magazine.”

The program premiered in 1976 and featured a mix of national content and local

entertainment pieces, by local reporters who specifically catered to individual markets. It

also was the first magazine show produced entirely on location and the first local venture

on which television stations spent large sums of money to produce.59 As reporter Terry

Knopf recalled, “PM Magazine” was “really the first show to fulfill the spirit of the

Federal Communications Commission’s historic prime-time access rule . . . . in the hope

of encouraging local stations to create their own shows.”60 KLAS-TV Bob

Stodal also recalled the popularity of “PM Magazine” in the market during the

early 1980s, stating that the station often had the highest rated “PM Magazine” broadcast

in the country, and it fit well with the local news and information mix the station was

trying to create and present to the community.61 The influence of “PM Magazine” was not

just on feature and entertainment news content but also provided the proving ground for

28 both early female co-hosts on “ET,” and . Each had performed

hosting duties on local “PM Magazine” shows before moving to “ET.”

With morning, nightly, and local news creating venues for hard and softer news,

the evening newsmagazine also thrived. CBS’s introduced its pioneer “60

Minutes” in 1968 in an effort to cater to audiences shorter attention spans and present a

new form of personal journalism that had an interesting entertainment connection.62

Creator said in a 1967 memo to CBS News President Richard Salant, “Why

don’t we try to package sixty minutes of reality as attractively as Hollywood packages

sixty minutes of make-believe.”63 The program changed television journalism with its

hard-core reporting style and serious presentation of news issues; however, it differed

from newscasts because the program focused on three to four longer reporter-centered investigative pieces to fill the hour instead of packing it with shorter, less detailed stories.64

For years, “” reigned supreme in the newsmagazine world and saw

little competition until ABC’s “20/20” premiered in 1978. However, “20/20” producer

Dan Cooper said the program was created to challenge, not copy “60 Minutes.” He said it

was an “adventurous, conceptual thing” that patterned itself instead after the award

winning PBS television magazine called “The Great American Dream Machine” that

focused on presenting a more satirical style of thought and comment on political and

social topics.65 While “20/20” did not commit heavily to the satirical route, Cooper said

they planned out the program so it would feature at least three but no more than four

stories that would address certain topics. The first piece would focus on the burning

question of the day; the second piece tackled a social trend, and the third piece would

29 provide a profile of a major rock or pop music star. “It was surprising to see how well

these pieces did,” Cooper said, noting that every week ratings skyrocketed when pieces

aired in the last segment of the program. “People loved it,” he said. “We were combining

the news and entertainment forms into a different kind of newsmagazine than ‘60

Minutes,’” Cooper said, “and every week during those early years, we’d be one of the top

10 programs.”66 Cooper also credited “20/20” with being one of the earliest formats to

incorporate entertainment news into television newsmagazines and prove there was a

market for this type of news story.67 However, while “20/20” provided an early basis for considering entertainment as news on a news magazine type program, it would be “ET”

with its local news format, that would provide the precursor to considering entertainment

and its place in the nightly and/or local one-half hour newscast.

The American public was now using these news programs not just as a window to

, but as a way to find out celebrity news as well. As news grew, so did

television programs that featured interviews and stories about the day’s top television and

movie stars. The idea of connecting to celebrities was being done through television, as

researcher Susan Murphy noted; people were searching for the “real” star behind the

glamour, the everyday person that just happened to have an extraordinary career.68

Murrow’s “Person to Person” program was a prime example of this process, what

professor Steven Barkin credited as being one of the “pioneers of celebrity journalism.”69

Murrow’s guests included entertainers as well as politicians, writers, and other creative

people. The program prided itself on following Murrow’s idea of bringing an intimate

side of that week’s guest to the public. “If our show has had any success,” Murrow

commented in a 1958 Saturday Evening Post article, “it lies in the fact that it consists of

30 extraordinary people doing ordinary things. The combination of the elements of fame and

an everyday hobby held an almost universal appeal.”70 In many cases, these intimate sides

helped viewers learn more about film and radio stars on a personal level, and thus it could be considered one of the earliest television programs to provide a form of celebrity news.71

The 1950s also saw the emergence of the popular television program “This is

Your Life” which focused on providing more personal views of celebrities and their lives.

The program often used what researcher Mary Desjardins called a “moral

approach to telling celebrity stories.72 That meant the pieces avoided the scandalous or

controversial stories surrounding a star that tabloid magazines like Confidential would

report and instead focused on family and friend interviews about the more moral and

successful aspects of a celebrity career or life.73 Arguably these in-depth interviews were

a far cry from today’s tabloid television, but seeing celebrities talk about their lives on

national television drew fascinated audiences and, it can be argued, fostered an interest in

celebrity news that remains today. NBC’s “” also took a unique look

at the news and celebrity phenomenon. When it premiered in 1975 the show earned raves

for its satirical take on the current political and cultural situation in America in its weekly

faux news broadcasts. Along with the satirical news, the program presented many skits

that dealt with celebrities and celebrity issues, and in the process created its own stable of

celebrities including , , Bill Murray, and John Belushi.74

Television programs also followed these lines, their stars becoming popular names and well-known forces in the entertainment news industry. Popular programs such as the “ Show,” “The Show,” and “I Spy” provided

31 entertainment fare for the masses, captivating audiences and making household names out of their stars, while “The Show” struck gold as a comedic variety program. In later years, “All in ,” “M*A*S*H,” and “” would garner record-breaking audiences and cover more controversial topics than had been seen

before on television or even in news broadcasts. With such a plethora of news and entertainment programs filling network and independent stations, why did Masini think

“ET” was needed, much less that it would be a success?

Masini’s Great Idea

The seed that grew into “Entertainment Tonight” was sown during a conversation that Al Masini had while on an airplane with ’s WGN station manager Shelly

Cooper in the late 1970s. The two were returning from a business convention where

Masini had proposed to industry executives that independent television stations get together and develop programming, instead of constantly airing of network programs. No one seemed to think much of the idea except Cooper, who liked Masini’s idea and said it was too bad that somebody did not do something about it. Masini looked over at Cooper and replied “Shelly, somebody is us. I mean, who is going to do it for us if we don’t do it?”75

With this in mind, Masini began to take stock of what was happening with the

television audience in general. “There was a lack of quality programming, especially for

local independent stations,” Masini recalled. “I thought they needed something to sell

advertisers and create ratings, especially programs that could compete with extremely

popular network programming.”76 In an effort to provide that type of programming,

32 Masini decided to form a committee called Operation Prime Time [OPT] that would

produce top quality, high-rated programs for independent television stations. “I wanted to

prove once and for it really was the programming that made the difference,” he

said when talking about the success or failure of independent stations in a 2007

interview.77 With this goal, the OPT committee formed in 1976 with members from broadcast groups Tribune, Chris-Craft, Cox, and Taft, which gave Masini access to

television stations owned by these companies, most of them in major markets, broadcasting to 60 percent of the population that had access to television.78 The

committee set goals to create and produce high quality programs that could be sold to

independent stations that wanted to fill their broadcast day with programs other than

reruns of network shows.

Masini, with the backing of OPT, eventually decided to produce made-for-TV

movies based on popular because, as he said, they already had name recognition of the author to them. The first movie produced was Taylor Caldwell’s “Testimony of

Two Men” starring David Birney. For Masini and his producing staff, it was a challenge.

This was the first time that he had produced something in which he was involved with daily producing tasks such as approving scripts, casting, and dealing with the actors and a production crew, skills that he would hone over the years and which would serve him well throughout his career. He also developed knowledge of how to interest television stations in buying programs and then promoting them and selling them to advertisers. In this case, the made-for-TV-movie promotional tasks included getting advertising space in

TV Guide and other industry publications. He also learned a lot about distributing the prints of the movies to individual stations. “It was an awesome responsibility,” he said,

33 “but we did okay. We told them [the sales staff] to sell it at a high rate because it’s going

to be impactful.”79

The 1977 production of “Testimony of Two Men” did well on independent

stations and led to future productions, including TV movies of ’ Bicentennial

Series, “,” “A Woman of Substance,” and eventually the Emmy-winning “A

Woman Called Golda,” which featured in her last performance.80 All of these productions, many of which featured the first on-screen appearances of future stars such as “’s” Kim Catrall and “’s” , brought in big ratings for independent stations. The success of these movies eventually led Masini to think about creating another program that could hopefully attract and do well on independent stations: a show featuring hot new music and artists performing their hits live. That program was “Solid Gold.”

To get “Solid Gold” off the ground, Masini convinced a group of people to partner with him in the endeavor. The partnerships formed would play a key role in getting “ET” on air a few years later. He secured for “Solid Gold” the backing and support of Barry Diller, the chairman of ; Michael Eisner, the president and chief executive officer of Paramount Pictures; Rich Frank, president of the

Paramount Television Group; and John Goldhammer, vice-president of Paramount

Domestic Distribution. The four had worked together on Masini’s previous projects and were determined to produce and sell the 15-million-dollar program to stations across the country. They succeeded, and the program went on for nearly years. When “Solid

Gold” drew good ratings and audiences, he realized there was a market for more of this type of entertainment programming and began contemplating existing broadcast network

34 programs, trying to find what he thought was missing from the television lineup and

could be capitalized on by independent stations looking for new programming. He

decided that missing link was an entertainment-based news program.

He discovered this missing link through his observation that entertainment and

tabloid gossip magazines were doing a booming business, but there was nothing on

television that dealt specifically with entertainment news. He would see entertainment

segments on all of the network morning shows and on “PM Magazine,” but the absence

of a program devoted to entertainment news struck him as strange. Having grown up poor

in , he had always been fascinated by how those with money lived and

played and who they were. As he worked his way up the ranks in the television business, from editing news in the 1950s for CBS, to sales representative during the 1960s, to the owner and creator of the sales giant TeleRep in the 1970s, he continually not only observed what programs people chose to watch on television but what they were reading, and where they were spending their time and money.

He knew that to sell this concept of a half hour of purely entertainment news, he would need hard facts and figures along with an examination of the public’s fascination with celebrity and gossip magazines. Popular magazines had found great success by focusing on entertainment as interest in movie, music, and television stars grew, especially among younger readers. Publications such as People magazine, which began in

1974, already had a circulation of 2.5 million by 1980, taking pride in its interviews and features with people making the news, who, in many cases, were celebrities.81 Teenagers got their fix of entertainment and popular culture through magazines such as Tiger Beat,

Teen Beat, 16 Magazine and Seventeen, which featured interviews and pictures of

35 popular movie and television celebrities.82 And of course there were the supermarket

tabloid magazines, which were picked up by many shoppers waiting in checkout lines.

He also conducted complex studies of ratings for the current network television

programs; examined how the programs flowed from one to another and how this affected

audience size; studied what topics and ideas seemed to appeal to people in these

programs; and looked at the production values of on-air content.

There was the simple fact, universal in the broadcast industry and reflected in

station programming and budgets that news sold. “The one thing you learned about when

you were in the syndication business, or in the station programming business,” said

Masini, “is certainly that news is the anchor for the station.”83 If a station had a strong

local newscast, it usually did well in the ratings, and newscasts that got higher ratings

attracted more advertising money, which made up a good portion of a station’s revenue, a

fact that remains true to this day.84 Local news also was easier to produce and put on air

than other programming and if a newscast was strong in the ratings, the costs of

producing it were offset by the advertising revenue it drew in.85 Then, there was the fact

that research suggested local newscasts tended to attract larger, demographically

heterogeneous audiences, because of the variety of content, anchors, and production

values.86 In essence, local news made money for a station and appealed to advertisers and viewers. These basic concepts informed Masini’s decisions to put the show together, although he said he did not consciously attempt to model “ET” after a local newscast.”87

Another concern that Masini faced as he struggled to get his program concept into

production was getting an initial set of core stations that would buy and run the program

and become anchor stations for “ET.” He wanted at least two groups initially committed

36 to airing “ET.” With this goal, he sold his partners at COX and Taft Television on the

program; their stations across the country would become the mainstays in airing “ET.”

However, to make the program appealing and sellable to more local stations, there was a

need to find a group with the money to support production costs, and with inside

knowledge about how Hollywood worked and operated. Having formed connections with

Paramount through his TV production career, as president of TeleRep, and through the

production of “Solid Gold,” Masini thought it would be a natural fit for producing and

supporting “ET.” “So, I went to Rich Frank and I said, ‘You know, let’s talk to Michael

Eisner and Barry Diller. Would they be interested?” he remembered.88 Both Eisner and

Diller were interested and began in early 1981 to work with him to develop the concepts and logistics involved with the mammoth task of producing the first topical, daily syndicated news program for television.

A key difficulty to selling the program to investors and eventually to local independent and affiliate stations was the fact that there were no other daily syndicated programs at the time, much less programs that would be a full one-half hour of entertainment news reflective in many ways of entertainment and gossip magazines.

Frank also could see the appeal of this type of news program, noting in a 2008 interview that “at the time there were a lot of magazines out there that were just selling gossip of

one type or another relative to entertainment people, I mean, there was nothing on

television with it because at the time all you had were the three network news’.”89 The

closest thing to entertainment news could be found on the network morning programs,

such as the “Today Show” and “GMA.” In attempting to conceptualize his show, Masini

took note of the appeal of celebrity news and information on these shows, how it was

37 presented, and the way both Hollywood and these news programs developed working

relationships. He hoped the big draw for “ET” would be exposure for celebrities. “I tried

to design a show where they [celebrities] needed you as much as you needed them,” he

said.90

Taking all of this into consideration, Masini thought: why not combine this

research and knowledge to create an all-entertainment-based newscast? After all, to him it was really the same thing as any type of newscast; it was just news dedicated to a special topic, the entertainment industry. He said he worked hard to convince everyone involved that his new program would be a companion piece emerging from or leading into a local newscast. “For me, it was news,” Masini said about his program. “There was no question that, in my mind, it was a news thing, it was just the topic was the entertainment world.”91 So, armed with this knowledge and sheer determination, he

approached Paramount Television Group President Mel Harris early in 1981 with the idea

for a daily entertainment show.

Forming a Show

John Goldhammer, “ET” producer and Paramount vice-president of Domestic

Distribution, vividly recalled how he learned about the plans for “Entertainment

Tonight.” “I got a memo from Mel Harris, outlining in about a paragraph, [that] the next

project up was going to be an entertainment news show that was going to be day and date. ‘Let’s talk about it when you get a chance,’” he said in a 2008 interview.92 The program was called “Entertainment Today,” and that is how it was referred to during the conception stages. That memorandum led to numerous conversations among

38 Goldhammer, Masini, and Frank about the concept of the new program. “We were doing

the daily entertainment news, we wanted to be the ‘of record’ program for entertainment

news,” said Frank.93 Being the “of record” program meant hashing out what types of

stories and formats would be used to create the program as well as how the entertainment newscast would be referred to and presented. This created discussion among those

involved; as Masini wanted the program to be more “glitz and glamour” while Michael

Eisner, president and chief operating officer of Paramount, and Barry Diller, the CEO of

Paramount, wanted a more business- oriented, news-type program.94 As the content and

format were hashed out among the creators and producers, this idea of what the program

should entail continued as an important issue.

The discussions about what type of show “ET” would be also had to consider the

desires of the partners—Paramount, Tele-Rep, Cox, Taft, and Chris-Craft –funding the

endeavor. The people funding “ET” wanted to know what types of stories and

information it would be bringing the public. As the program began to take shape, Masini

showed the partners demos of what it would look like. In a six-page memo on August 12,

1981, he recapped the discussion that the partners had had a week earlier about the rules

and ideals to be followed by those producing the show (see Appendix A). It stated:

The show should be described at all times (including to the press) as a satellite- , intimate daily look at the people and happenings of the exciting, glamorous Entertainment World. The show will resemble . The show will be highly visual (not talky), light, fun, frothy, and timely, with emphasis on the stars. While the program will contain news of the stars and behind the scenes of the Entertainment World we are not trying to be investigative reporters, deliver a message, or try to make the material more important than it is. The show will be entertaining not heavy news. This is particularly important since this program will run in access of an hour and a half of heavy news. We are not trying to produce a “meaningful” show we are trying to produce an excellent show! We

39 should not use the word “journalism” or “magazine.” Journalism means regular news to most people and magazine means PM Magazine to most people.95

The memo went on to explain in detail: the types of stories and personalities that should be used to grab the audience; how long each story should be (2 to 2 ½ minutes and if it was of exceptional interest, it should be carried over to the next day); the fact that the program would not cover sports (since the networks did); and whenever possible, performing acts should perform. There also would be segments in each show: “Current Daily,” which consisted of key breaking stories that emphasized the stars, news, and gossip about personalities, and visits to entertainment “happenings” in different cities; “Current Weekly,” which focused on the week’s top movies, music, and

TV shows, previews of upcoming movies, TV shows, and music, and the top act, concert or party of the week; and “Evergreen,” which provided a place for feature and on- location stories, stars speaking out on a topic, super star profiles, “where are they now” features, star birthdays, paparazzi, tours of stars homes, intimate facts about the stars, and the best dressed and most beautiful stars.96

At the same time the program was being defined, controversy had arisen over the

name of the program. Goldhammer got a call from the Paramount legal department,

stating that there was an industry-based paper called “Entertainment Today” that was

published and distributed daily to the studios. Its editors heard about the program and decided they wanted $500 a show in royalties if the same name was used for the television program. That worked out to $3,000 a week, which Goldhammer did not want to pay, considering there were countless other expenses that he deemed more important.

“So, I said, tell them thank you very much but the name of the show is ‘Entertainment

40 Tonight.’”97 And so it was from that moment on with no objections from its creators or

investors.

While the memo presented the ideas for the “glitz and glamour” program that

Masini envisioned, producers at Paramount were quick to make it known that they

wanted it to have some type of news credibility as well. Goldhammer remembered Diller,

in his excitement over the program, saying “ET” could be a “60 Minutes” for

entertainment. “And we all kind of looked at each other and said, ‘I don’t think we want

it to be ‘60 Minutes’ for entertainment, but you know we’ll deal with that later.’”98

The Big Concern

While issues of what and how these types of stories would be covered continued to be debated, another concern arose that would frustrate both Masini and Goldhammer.

It came from a question continually voiced by stations and industry executives: would there be enough entertainment news to fill a one-half hour program for five days a week and an hour on the weekends? Also, would viewers actually be interested in a one-half- hour program covering the entertainment world? Robert Edelstein and Jim Benson summed up this concern in their 2006 article on “ET:” “In 1981, ‘Cruise’ was a missile, not a movie star; USA Today was a year away from launching; and CNN was one year old.”99

In an effort to alleviate these worries, and to prove that this type of entertainment

news program could be done, the decision was made to produce mock shows in scripted

form (with everything but the ) to show there was enough entertainment news to fill

one-half hour each day. Goldhammer and his staff began to scour magazines, morning

41 shows, and even tabloids to find stories and information to create the newscasts. “We did

it literally by getting any magazine we could get our hands on,” he said. “Remember, this

is pre-Internet so you had to do all the research yourself.”100 Using their research skills,

the programs were pieced together bit by bit as segment producers and reporters looked

for stories and video to go with them. They then gave this information to salespeople in

an effort to help them convince stations that there was indeed a market for a daily

entertainment news program.

Paramount salesman Greg Meidel recalled visiting stations with these magazines

and information. He would “plop down piles of celebrity-themed magazines to prove

that the market was there” he said in 2001 about his efforts to sell “ET.”101 “We actually

had to walk into stations where we wanted to sell it, pointing to People magazine with

celebrities on the cover” original “ET” sales staff member Joel Berman said in 2006.102

Goldhammer also remembered joining the “ET” sales force for a time, trekking to numerous stations and explaining over and over that there was enough entertainment news to keep the program alive. He told station programmers “Yeah, absolutely [there is enough news], look at this, that and the other thing [magazines].”103 With the plethora of

entertainment magazines and examples feeding the sales crew, Goldhammer and his staff

found that while challenging, there were enough stories to create newscasts five days a

week and on the weekend. “We found that we could fill the shows very easily,” added

Masini. “So, I think we overcame that objection.”104

Goldhammer and Masini agreed that along with proving there was a market for

entertainment news through these mock scripts, a pilot program complete with anchors

and video clips should be produced to help stations get an even better feel for what was

42 proposed. So, Goldhammer and his crew began to search out stories and reporters that

could contribute to a pilot, showcasing what “ET” would be about.

The Pilot

After the decision to create a pilot was approved, producers hired noted newsman

Jack Haley Jr., the son of the actor who had played the in the Wizard of Oz, to

produce the pilot. He had won acclaim as a director in Hollywood with such hits as

1974’s That’s Entertainment and several shows throughout the 1970s.

“We hired him to make contacts, to try and get people to come onto the show and give us

advice on the ins and outs of Hollywood,” said Masini.105 Producers then selected former

Miss World Marjorie Wallace, star Tom Hallick, and newsman Ron Hendren to co-host the pilot. Another key player brought on board for the pilot of “ET” was one of the program’s first and most prolific reporters, Robin Leach.

Leach, a British reporter, had been doing entertainment stories for CNN and reporting for various celebrity and entertainment magazines such as US for several years when he was asked by Haley if he could help with the program. “Jack literally asked me, could I do what CNN had done, but just for entertainment, with this project,” Leach said in a 2007 interview, “and I said , I thought I could.”106 Thus engaged, Leach began to

search out entertainment stories that would capture audience, and buyer, interest. He was

the perfect person to accomplish this because he had developed good relationships with

celebrities while reporting on the entertainment business. This was reflected in the stories

that he produced for the pilot. “We had the first pictures on location of the new James

43 Bond movie, and whatever would have been the big stories of the day,” he

remembered.107

However, the key to the pilot was a news story that broke on the day before it was

set to tape. Actress was fired from the hit “Three’s

Company.” This was a monumental event, according to Leach, because no actress had ever been fired for asking for more money.108 Having developed a relationship with

Somers and her husband, he was able to get the first, in-depth interview with the star,

which not only emerged as the lead story on the pilot but became a staple for the type of

“inside celebrity” reports that would make the “ET” reputation in the coming years.

While Leach hunted down celebrities and stories to fill the program, Goldhammer

and his staff began to work on the layout and look of the program, especially concentrating on making the stories credible. “I had a standing, standard rule for the show

and that was that you couldn’t put anything on the air that you couldn’t verify from two

independent sources.”109 This meant that those producing and writing every story, no

matter how small, had to adhere to this philosophy and thus help build a credible, trustworthy program. Even in the demo production process, it became important to build the idea of news credibility and show that “ET” could be the number one, reliable source for entertainment news.

Even then, with only the pilot to go on, those involved remember the debate that

had begun to take shape over how “ET” would actually be. Masini’s initial plan

was for a glitz and glamour newscast, while those behind Paramount, Eisner and Diller,

wanted it to be much more news oriented. “I sat in meeting after meeting,” said

Goldhammer, “saying you know I hear both of you and the reality of the show is

44 certainly, for the first few years, it’s got to be right between that. It has to have glitz and glamour but also credibility.”110

Whether newsy or glitzy, one of the key components to telling entertainment

stories was having the video to go with them. Gathering video clips of stars, movies, and

entertainment stories proved problematic because, until “ET,” there had not been a huge

demand on production companies to provide video clips of stars or their movies. If a

program wanted to use clips of any film, television program, music, or other media, it had

to pay for that right or get a clearance to use the material. Goldhammer said studios

received no more than two or three requests for clips a month. While movie and

television clips were somewhat scarce on the “ET” pilot, as the program came closer to

reality, the need to create a system for getting them became important. “I remember in

the first two or three weeks we were on the air, we had twenty requests for FOX that

were clips. We put ‘em into cardiac arrest,” said Goldhammer.111 “ET” actually started

out with only a few people dealing with the clearances. However, as the program

continued and demand for clips and clearances grew, it developed into a department

staffed by numerous people. Goldhammer credited the program’s need to make constant

clip requests of studios, and the increasing number of people needed to make the process

work, with creating the clip clearance business that thrives and is used by entertainment

and news programs today.

Taking all of these elements into consideration, trying to make sense of them and

then turning it into a compelling, sellable pilot was not an easy experience, according to

Goldhammer. One of the main challenges he recalled was finding stories that seemed to

45 fit the style that “ET” was seeking (a mix of glitz and informative news) and would interest an audience.

“I remember standing in an edit room with Mel Harris, looking at the stuff they [reporters] were doing and saying, oh my God, we don’t have a show. And Mel, to his credit, said no, no, I know how to put this together, let’s sit down and work it out. So, we sat there for two hours and worked out a format and we did put that pilot together.”112

Along with content issues, the “ET” staff also had to deal with the various unions that had become involved since the program featured producers, actors, writers, and directors working together to produce what was considered a news program.

Goldhammer and Frank recalled working tirelessly to convince the Writers Guild, the

Screen Actors Guild, and the Directors Guild as well as others that they were indeed a news program and thus should fall under the rules that the guilds set for those employed in the news business. The problem, according to Frank, was that “news organizations didn’t have a sound guy and a lighting person and the huge crew out with a cameraman and reporter because they shot under the definition of news.”113 Thus, the guilds were hard to convince that “ET” was a news program, not a more heavily produced film or television show. Eventually, those involved with “ET” ended up working under previously signed agreements between the guilds and Paramount that did not exactly fall under typical news agreements but covered the basics. “You lived with it,” said

Goldhammer. “It was signed and you lived with it.”114

Once the stories were confirmed, written, and set to video, the pilot was taped and

“ET” producers moved to the next step: getting it out to stations to sell their product. The burden of getting “ET” on television screens was up to the Paramount sales department.

46 It had examples and rationale for why the program would be successful, but actually convincing stations to buy “ET,” which included issues of financing and advertising, was a major challenge. This challenge brought up two major aspects in the creation of “ET” that would dramatically alter the business of syndication: sales and distribution.

47 Notes Chapter 2

1. Interview, Al Masini, December 6, 2007.

2. Ibid.

3. “Progress Report on Entertainment Tonight,” Broadcasting & Cable, November 2, 1981.

4. Michael Wolf, The Entertainment Economy: How Mega Media Forces Are Transforming Our Lives (New York: Times Books, 1999), 28.

5. See Jeff Allen, “A Slippery Slope from News to Entertainment,” Television Week, February 2, 2004, 8; Geoffrey Baym, “The Daily Show: Discursive Integration and the Reinvention of Political Journalism,” Political Communications 22 (July-September 2005); 259-276; John Consoli, “All the News that Fits,” MediaWeek, June 1, 1998, 12; Steve McClellan, John Higgins, and Allison Romano, “News for Sale?” Broadcasting & Cable, January 26, 2004, 5; Jonathan Morris, “The Fox News Factor,” Press/Politics, 10 (July 2005); 56-79; Kathryn Olsen, “Exploiting the Tension Between the News Media’s ‘Objective’ and Adversarial Roles: The Role Imbalance Attack and its use of the Implied Audience,” Communication Quarterly, 42 (Winter 1994); 35-56; and James Wittebols, “More Show than News: The Evolution of Network Television News” (paper presented at the International Communications Association Conference, May 23-27, 2003, San Diego).

6. Telephone Interview, , April 25, 2008.

7. Leroy Ashby, With Amusement for All (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2006), 2-3. The Puritans did much to create the acceptance of leisure, even though they had strict definitions of what was considered fun or acceptable to do. This separation helped create distinct divisions of class—and entertainment appropriate to the higher and lower classes.

8. Ashby, With Amusement for All, 8-9. Examples of these “dangerous feats” included daredevil Sam Patch—who jumped from the high masts of ships into the water and constantly went over Niagara Falls.

9. Simon Jenkins, “Sex in the 1700s,” http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-03/uol-sit32307.php, (accessed on April 29, 2007).

10. Amy Henderson, “Media and the Rise of Celebrity Culture,” Organization of American Historians Magazine of History 6 (Spring 1992) from: http://www.oah.org/ pubs/magazine/ communication/ henderson.html (accessed on April 29, 2007).

48 11. See Roggenkamp, Narrating the News: & Literary Genre in Late 19th Century American Newspapers and (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2005), 1-20; and Ashby, With Amusement for All, 21-24.

12. Ashby, With Amusement for All, 92-103. The scandalous stories emerging at the time focused on love crimes and sexual misdeeds. Newspapers also were looking for sports stories, and developed public interest by creating almost “gladiator” type heroes and events.

13. James Roman, From Daytime to Primetime: The History of American Television Programs (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005), 239.

14. A Brief History of Newspapers, The Newspaper Industry, from: http://www.newspaper-industry.org/history.html, (accessed on April 29, 2007).

15. See Larry McMurtry, The Colonel and Little Missie: Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 7; and Roger Hall, Performing on the American Frontier, 1870-1906 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 3-8.

16. Catherine Carstairs, “The Wide World of Doping: Drug Scandals, Natural Bodies, and the Business of Sports Entertainment,” Addiction, Research & Therapy 11.4 (August 2003); 264.

17. Ibid.

18. Ashby, With Amusement for All, 88-90.

19. Guy Reel, The National Police Gazette and the Making of the Modern American Man. New York: Mcmillan/Palgrave, 2006, 17.

20. Elliott Gorn, “The Wicked World: The National Police Gazette and Gilded- Age America,” in The Culture of Crime, eds. Craig LaMay and Everett Dennis, (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1995), 10.

21. Reel, The National Police Gazette, 61-62.

22. Gorn, “The Wicked World,” 12.

23. Ashby, With Amusement for All, 148-157. The first theater specifically for showing movies was created by vaudeville magnate Harry Davis and his brother John Harris. They showed fifteen minutes of film continuously from 8 a.m. until midnight.

24. Telephone Interview, Leonard Maltin, May 1, 2008.

49

25. Ashby, With Amusement for All, 194.

26. See Henderson, “Media and the Rise of Celebrity Culture;” and Ashby, With Amusement for All, 197.

27. Bruce Lenthall, Radio’s America: The and the Rise of Modern Mass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 70.

28. Henderson, “Media and the Rise of Celebrity Culture.” These radio voices became not just celebrities, but members of the family, as they were heard inside the intimacy of peoples’ homes on a regular basis.

29. See Ashby, With Amusement for All, 177-180; and Jim Sumner, “The Golden Age of Sports,” Tar Heel Junior Historian 43 (Spring 2004); 1.

30. Michael Oriard, King Football: Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio and Newsreels, Movies and Magazines, and the Daily Press (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 170.

31. Ibid., 135.

32. Leonard Maltin, The Great American Broadcast: A Celebration of Radio’s Golden Age (Penguin Putnam Inc., 1997), 233.

33. Ibid., 234.

34. Steve Barkin, American Television News: The Media Marketplace and the Public Interest (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 24.

35. Ibid.

36. Michael Haskew, “The Voice of Edward R. Murrow Brought the Blitz Home to Americans,” World War II 15.3 (September 2000); 6.

37. Ibid.

38. Barkin, American Television News, 25.

39. Aran McNerney, “Speaker Discusses Military Journalism in WW II,” The Daily Online, from: http://media.www.dailyfreepress.com/media/storage/ paper87/ news/2002/03/01/News/Speaker.Discusses.Military.Journalism.In.World. War.II-194769.shtml (accessed on April 29, 2007).

50 40. Library of Congress, Bob Hope and American Variety, from: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/ bobhope/radio.html (accessed on April 29, 2007).

41. Neil Postman, “,” Time, March 29, 1999, 92.

42. Michael Ritchie, Please Stand By: A Prehistory of Television (New York: The Overlook Press, 1994), 2.

43. Jeff Kisseloff, The Box: An Oral , 1920-1961 (New York: Penguin Books, 1995), 228.

44. Susan Murray, Hitch Your to the Stars: Early Television and Broadcast Stardom (New York: Routledge, 2005), 1.

45. Joseph Persico, Edward R. Murrow: An American Original (New York: McGraw Hill, 1988), 301.

46. Barkin, American Television News, 26.

47. Ibid., 27.

48. Ibid., 34-35.

49. Roman, From Daytime to Primetime, 255.

50. Barkin, American Television News, 125. He notes that the network’s cultivation of their anchors, such as Murrow, led to the idea of considering the news anchor as the embodiment of a network or station, in essence, making him a celebrity.

51. Kisseloff, The Box, 370.

52. Ibid.

53. See Telephone Interview, George Merlis, April 11, 2008; and Barkin, American Television News, 121.

54. Telephone Interview, Merlis.

55. Ibid.

56. Susan Eastman and Douglas Ferguson, Media Programming: Strategies and Practices (7th ed.) (Belmont, CA: Thompson/Wadsworth, 2006), 192.

57. “Prime Time Access Rule,” The Museum of Broadcast Communications,

51 http://ww.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/primetimeac/primetimeac.htm (accessed on February 3, 2008).

58. Interview, Mary Rogus, May 29, 2008.

59. Terry Ann Knopf, “Mourning Becomes ‘Evening,’” Magazine, April 1989, 76. The program was first created for the television market in 1976, but it soon grew and the Boston show followed in 1977. Over the next few years, many local stations in different markets would adopt the program, using it inside their various early newscasts.

60. Ibid.

61. Interview, Robert Stodal, April 15, 2008.

62. Barkin, American Television News, 51.

63. Don Hewitt, Minute by Minute (New York: Random House, 1985), 27.

64. Barkin, American Television News, 52.

65. Telephone Interview, Dan Cooper, April 25, 2008.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid.

68. Murray, Hitch Your Antenna to the Stars, 129.

69. Barkin, American Television News, 121.

70. Pete Martin, “I Call on Edward R. Murrow,” Saturday Evening Post, January 18, 1958, 78.

71. “Person to Person,” The Museum of Broadcast Communications, http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/persontoper/persontoper.htm, (accessed on April 29, 2007).

72. Mary Desjardins, “Maureen O’Hara’s Confidential Life: Recycling Stars Through Gossip and Moral Biography,” in Small Screens, Big Ideas: Television in the 1950s, ed. Janet Thumim (New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2002), 119-120.

73. Ibid.

52 74. Aaron Reincheld, “Saturday Night Live and Weekend Update,” Journalism History 31 (Winter 2006); 190-197.

75. Interview, Masini.

76. Ibid.

77. Ibid.

78. Ibid. The anchor stations broke down like this: Tribune brought in the Chicago stations it owned as well as WPIX in New York; Chris Craft added several major LA stations to the mix, COX had numerous stations in cities around the country, and Taft brought in the major Ohio stations it owned. All together, this allowed Masini to start with a good strong base of stations in major markets that would pay for and run his programming.

79. Ibid. Masini noted that one of his main goals in producing these movies, as well as any TV series was that it had to make an impact of some form on an audience. Otherwise, why would they want to watch?

80. See Telephone Interview, John Goldhammer, January 9, 2008; and Interview, Masini. Both men are extremely proud of the fact that Bergman wanted to do the televised movie, especially as she was battling the cancer that would kill her just days before she won an Emmy award for her work.

81. Barkin, American Television News, 120.

82. (Ed.), “Teen Magazines,” from http://magforum.com/glossies/ teen.htm (accessed on February 7, 2008).

83. Interview, Masini.

84. Project for Excellence in Journalism, State of the Media 2007, http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2007/sitemap.asp (accessed on February 28, 2008).

85. Eastman and Ferguson, Media Programming: Strategies and Practices, 170- 173.

86. Robert Wicks, “Product Matching in Television News Using Benefit Segmentation,” July 3, 1988, 3. (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, Portland, , July 2-5, 1988).

87. Interview, Masini.

53 88. Ibid.

89. Telephone Interview, Rich Frank, January 28, 2008.

90. Interview, Masini.

91. Ibid.

92. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

93. Telephone Interview, Frank.

94. Masini, Goldhammer, and Frank all discuss in their interviews the battles that were fought over whether “ET” would be glitz and glamour or credible entertainment news.

95. Memorandum, “Al Masini to “ET” Partners,” August 12, 1981, from Al Masini Personal Collection, Honolulu, (see Appendix A).

96. Ibid.

97. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

98. Ibid.

99. Robert Edelstein and Jim Benson, “Entertainment Tonight: A Bona Fide Original, A Billion Dollar Success Story, and One of Today’s Most Influential TV Franchises,” Broadcasting & Cable, October 23, 2006, 31.

100. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

101. Susanne Ault, “‘ET’: The Business Behind the Buzz,” Broadcasting & Cable, July 7, 2001, 15.

102. Edelstein and Benson, “‘Entertainment Tonight,’” 31.

103. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

104. Interview, Masini.

105. Ibid.

106. Telephone interview, Robin Leach, December 27, 2007.

107. Ibid.

54 108. Ibid.

109. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

110. Ibid.

111. Ibid.

112. Ibid.

113. Telephone Interview, Frank.

114. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

55 Chapter 3: Breaking New Ground: The Sales and Distribution Process

“We were the reality pioneers. “” and E! Entertainment [channel] came out of “ET,” all of those different things [programs] came out of shows that we had. . . .We were pioneering the way, showing how it could be done.” 1

Al Masini, “Entertainment Tonight” Creator

Figuring out how to produce, sell, and distribute the first daily program in syndication history was not an easy task. Not to mention that there were the naysayers who kept telling creator Al Masini that this type of entertainment news program format would never work because there wasn’t enough entertainment news or viewer interest.

But he did not let the criticism get to him. “For every show you want to do, somebody’s going to tell you it’s absolutely ludicrous, so you have to have your own convictions” he said.2 Masini knew that it would be extremely expensive to put together a program like

“ET” and realized that if it were going to succeed and become profitable he had to find a

way to recoup expenditures. Masini estimated that it would cost about $25 million to get

the show on the air that first year and needed to make sure that license fees and advertising revenues would be able to cover the daily expenses of producing six shows a week, plus bring in a profit.3 With the main clients for the program being independent

television stations in local markets, both Masini and Paramount knew that successfully

selling the program would be crucial, especially because the independent stations did not

have the financial revenue of their competing local network affiliates. With this in mind,

a new sales system was created that eventually would become one of the most popular

systems for selling syndicated programming. Thus, as “ET” creators were figuring out the

finances the issue of distribution now loomed even larger.

56 Television programs at the time were physically put on and then

couriered to different markets, allowing most stations a full slate of programs that they

could air at their appointed times during the week. However, with “ET” needing to be

delivered on a daily basis, the courier system was not a practical option. More unified

cable systems had begun to emerge in the late 1970s and fledgling networks such as CNN and pay channels HBO and Showtime were attempting to use the system to

distribute programming, but that was not viable for “ET” either because it was not going

out to a cable system or the cost of buying was extremely expensive. Satellite

technology was gaining prominence as several major communications companies had

purchased and were using satellites for their own transmission operations. However, the

expense and limited distribution system meant that not many companies used satellites to

transmit programs. But Masini and Paramount saw a golden opportunity in the

developing technology, one that would benefit not only “ET” but all the stations that

agreed to carry it. The satellite distribution system “ET” created completely

revolutionized and set new precedents for the syndication business and satellite industry.

These two processes would prove to be some of the most important in the

broadcast and syndication business. They would change the way syndicated programs

were sold to affiliates and independents in local markets and set up a distribution system

that directly led to the increase of syndicated programming and eventually to the

expansion of cable and satellite systems. Understanding how “ET” was able to do what it

did, much less create such a revolutionary concept, is key to conveying the importance

and impact of the “ET” sales, advertising, and distribution systems. This understanding

can be found by looking back at how cable and satellite developed and where they had

57 settled by the early 1980s, and how “ET” played off the sales systems and technology to create its own unique footprints in which many follow to this day.

Cable & Satellite

Cable television played an important part in the distribution and saturation of entertainment news and eventually provided minor competition for “ET” in the mid-

1980s and became a major force of competition in the 1990s. Cable had been around for years, but as the 1980s dawned, new programs and networks were beginning to establish themselves and provide an endless stream of news, entertainment, and information. CNN,

MTV, , and the like all began during the early 1980s and prospered alongside “ET” in their distribution of news and entertainment. As “ET” grew and established itself throughout its first five seasons, these cable networks began to offer some competition in their promotion and production of entertainment news and with

MTV, music news, although “ET” remained the dominant source for entertainment coverage during this time.4

Cable systems first appeared on the scene in the 1950s as a way to retransmit broadcast signals to rural areas using set-top or rooftop antennas. The history of these first cable systems is peppered with stories of enterprising men in Pennsylvania,

Arkansas, and Oregon who put their money and time on the line to bring broadcast over- the-air signals to their communities. The recognized founder of is John

Walson, who along with his wife Margaret pooled their resources and opened The

Service Electric Company in Pennsylvania in 1947, where they made a career of servicing and selling appliances. When the couple began selling

58 television sets they realized that many in the community were located in areas where the over-the-air broadcast signals could not reach. So, Walson put an antenna on a utility pole, grabbed the broadcast signal, and used coaxial cable to connect the community and distribute the signal.5 Media researcher Megan Mullen added Pennsylvania businessman

William Calsam to the list of the first cable pioneers. Calsam was one of several

community antenna operators in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, that met in January

1952 to discuss how they could create the first distribution system that became known as

Community Antenna Television [CATV].6 Calsam would go on to establish the

Schuylkill Haven CATV system before heading to Oneonta, New York to found Oneonta

Video, where many new and innovative cable technologies would be developed and

tested. New York local independent stations would also be connected to the developing

cable system, providing set schedules filled with sporting events and movies along with

local programs Calsam and his partners would create.7 Similar stories popped up in communities in Arkansas and Oregon as CATV became more widespread.

By the 1960s and early 1970s, these early “mom n’ pop” cable operations across the country had begun sell out to larger corporations and conglomerates, which were now providing numerous channels over the coaxial cable system.8 Coverage began to stretch

the breadth and length of the country, and by 1975 there were more than 3,500 cable systems serving more than ten million subscribers.9 Cable systems thus found themselves

with a need to fill hours of programming on their numerous channels, creating a demand

for programs, many of which were news and information based. Pay channels, which

charged viewers for their programs that were delivered through the CATV system, had

been tested during the 1960s, but quickly went out of business when people did not want

59 to pay for the product.10 It was not until Home Box Office [HBO] took off in November

1972, with its mix of sports events, special programming, and movies, all distributed

through cable systems, that pay channels came into their heyday. In 1976, HBO had another first, initiating satellite delivery with its distribution of the 1976 fight between

Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier to paid subscribers.11 That same year fellow pay channel

Showtime emerged following a similar format; and, four years later in 1980, the third

major pay station, , joined its pay TV brothers.12

Cable news also was struggling to get off the ground, although a pioneer was soon to emerge in the form of media mogul Ted Turner. Turner had created the first

,” WTBS in in 1976, that was distributed on cable systems across

the country and, by 1980, he had decided to launch the first twenty-four-hour news

channel, the Cable News Network, more affectionately called CNN.13 Turner also managed to secure two major sponsors to support the network: Proctor & Gamble and

General Foods, both of which helped the network get off the ground.14 “CNN revolutionized cable news and the news business in general,” said CNN’s first president

Reese Schonfeld. “It gave people access to news, all the time, from all over the world. No one had been able to do that on television before.”15 Turner founded CNN with a “news is entertainment” philosophy, and filled the hours with , special reports, and

pretty much anything else he could find to fill time.16 It was a risky business, especially trying to find enough news to fill twenty-four hours, and CNN in its early years was often referred to as the “Chicken Noodle Network.”17 Schonfeld admitted that filling the time

was hard, but said that CNN did manage to do some standout coverage that helped earn it

a good reputation, thanks in part to the fact that it had begun setting up systems of getting

60 video and signals from local stations to its main headquarters in Atlanta. The system

allowed them to go live and receive from news stations across the country, and

thus break major news and entertainment stories.18 One of those defining early stories that

Schonfeld said helped make CNN’s reputation was its coverage of the 1980 MGM Grand

Casino fire in Las Vegas. “We scooped the world on the MGM fire because we carried

the local Las Vegas station coverage,” Schonfeld said. “It solidified our relations with

Japanese clients too, just because you could see people being picked up off the roof of the

MGM Grand live as you woke up in .”19

CNN was a cable network, but it made use of satellite technology to gather all the

video they needed from around the country and the world. Schonfeld said CNN had put satellite receivers in nearly a dozen markets by the time “ET” premiered. However, it could not match the coverage that “ET” created with its satellite distribution system.20

But regardless of who first started making satellite receivers available, satellite

technology was coming into its own and would soon transform nearly every aspect of the broadcast business.

Satellites, like cable television, had been around since the late 1950s. The idea

behind this technology, however, had come about in the 1940s when noted scientist and

author Arthur C. Clarke explained in a 1945 technical paper how he believed that a

“space station” parked at a certain distance above the equator could exactly match the

earth’s rotation, thus providing a stationary target for transmitting signals.21 While no one

believed him at the time, several years later researchers at AT&T looked into his ideas

and satellite technology was born. It came into prominence with the October 1957 Soviet

launch of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik I. This started the space race

61 between the U.S. and and led to the first capable of receiving and retransmitting signals, AT&T’s I, which launched in 1962.22

Sputnik inspired scientists and engineers worldwide, and large companies and government corporations began using financial and technological resources to get involved in this new distribution system, eventually leading to the corporate launch of the first major communications satellite, II, built by the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1963.23 Syncom II surpassed Telstar I’s elliptical orbit in that it went into at a much higher altitude, more than 22,500 miles above the earth’s surface, thus covering a larger area for signal transmission.24

All of this was buttressed by the Congressional passage of the Satellite

Communications Act of 1962 and the creation of the Communications Satellite

Corporation (COMSAT) in 1963.25 Most of the early use of satellite systems was to relay telephone communications, but as knowledge grew, companies began experimenting with transmitting pictures and television signals. Deregulation of the industry during the early

1970s also contributed to the development of commercial satellite systems and their use in broadcast television delivery.26 As cable systems began to flourish, satellite technology began to emerge as a viable way of transmitting programming. Companies that could not afford to spend money on expensive landlines to transmit programming began to look into satellite distribution.27 While satellites did exist, most controlled by several companies and public corporations, the idea of using satellites to distribute programming was quickly catching on, although Masini said the idea would not take off until “ET” began to use satellite dishes in their efforts to sell and distribute the program.28 Still, the possibility of satellites and their impact on the broadcast industry was endless. “Satellite

62 technology joined cable as the deus ex machina of the broadcast reform movement,”

wrote Eric Guthey in his 1995 dissertation on Ted Turner and his impact on television.29

Public television also became one of the first organizations to start using satellite

technology to distribute programming on March 1, 1978, when it launched the Public

Television Satellite System.30

Technology was now bringing more and more channels into people’s living rooms and a huge drive was underway to find programs, both news and entertainment

based, that would fill hours and bring in viewers. Independent stations especially needed

to find competitive programming, since they lacked shows. This need

for programming increased significantly throughout the early 1980s, with over 200

independent stations up and running by 1985.31 For the most part, the hours surrounding

news and prime time were filled with heavily popular game shows “Wheel of Fortune”

and “,” and re-runs of popular network programs such as “I Love ,”

“M*A*S*H,” and “Happy Days.” These syndicated programs had already aired on

network TV, and therefore could be sold at a competitive price to one local station per

market. The benefits to this system were that stations could receive all of the episodes in

a season at once, because they were already edited and produced and then air them in

their own timeslots.

This helped build the syndication business, as sales and representative firms such

as TeleRep, Masini’s company, prospered. However, there was no daily programming

such as “Oprah,” “Doctor Phil,” “The View,” or “Regis and Kathy Lee,” to help fill in

those bare hours of local station programming. The reason for this lack of daily

programming was simple: there was no technology capable of delivering a daily program

63 without spending massive amounts of money to buy telephone lines from AT&T to

transmit it.32

Satellite Distribution

The idea of transmitting a daily, syndicated program to local stations across the

country was something that had never been done before, because of technology

limitations and the high cost of telephone lines for the transmission. By the early 1980s,

the concept of satellite delivery was gaining new focus, thanks largely to the success of the PBS distribution system and an increased need for programming because of expanding cable television systems. Despite the established satellite systems, most

programs were still being distributed via AT&T telephone lines. As cable systems began to increase across the country, some began to experiment more heavily with the use of

satellites to distribute programming; but the expense of buying satellite time, much less

finding one available, discouraged many from using them.33

Because of this, many syndicated programs were rebroadcasts of network series,

such as “,” “Happy Days,” and “Laverne & Shirley.” These programs,

having already aired, could be sent to stations to air at a time of their own choosing,

eliminating a need for a daily feed.34 This system of distribution, known as bicycling,

involved sending already produced episodes of programs from larger markets to smaller

markets through a complicated and time-consuming process. Every station had a film

director who was in charge of physically getting tapes and cuing them up, and then

running them to a courier or a to send them from city to city.35 Former “ET” producer

64 Vin Di Bona described the specific process when he worked at Westinghouse in the late

1970s.

“So, they would tape the shows [such as the “Mike Douglas Show” and “”] in New York, and the tape that day would get dubbed in Pittsburgh [where Westinghouse facilities were located]. It would then get shipped to the top 25 markets . . . . Then those stations after they ran it that first week, those tapes were shipped to secondary markets, and the secondary markets the third week shipped them to tertiary markets. So, if you lived in Poughkeepsie, you got the show three weeks later.”36

However, those behind “ET” realized this system would be far to expensive, complicated, and out of date for distributing a program that needed to air on the same day in markets across the country. Numerous suggestions were considered. Masini said one of the original ideas for distributing “Entertainment Tonight” was to feed the program via

satellite to PBS stations across the country and pay them to have a person physically run it over to the commercial stations in their town or city. However, the process was deemed cumbersome, not every area had such access, and many were not willing to participate in the process.37

As producer Goldhammer set about figuring out how to create a distribution

system that would work with a daily program, he recalled telling Paramount President

Mel Harris that he would run some budget numbers on the program, “but I said ‘It’s

really going to be enormously expensive. How are we going to deliver this thing day and

date? Hard lines are pretty expensive.’”38 Pretty expensive was an understatement.

Former president and creator of Wold Communications, Robert N. Wold, said in a 1981

article in Business Week that the program delivery method on AT&T hard lines could

cost an estimated $10,000 per one-half hour program.39 Plus, there was the fact that

65 relatively few stations had access to satellite receivers. “We had a chicken-and-egg

situation that had existed for three or four years, despite our best efforts,” said Wold’s

nephew Robert E. Wold in a 1991 article in Electronic Media, “there was no

infrastructure.”40 This created what Wold called a Catch-22, in which in syndicators were not willing to consider putting shows up via satellite because not many local stations could receive them and local stations were reluctant to put in satellite receivers because they said there was no programming.41

This meant if “ET” were to become a success, a new means of distribution would

have to be found. “‘ET’ was pivotal because it broke that chicken-and-egg syndrome,”

said Wold.42 After considerable discussion between Paramount and Masini, a plan was hatched that would hopefully eliminate the problem of financing the expensive endeavor: create a satellite distribution system to deliver the program directly to stations. This was revolutionary because not many local stations or production companies could afford, much less access, satellite time. Furthermore, there were relatively few satellites available for this type of use. Wold Communications contracted with Paramount and agreed to install up to fifty-seven antennas at stations around the country at Wold’s expense.

Paramount would then compensate Wold for the receivers and installation process over time. “We said, all right, we’re willing to cough up about a million dollars because we believe not only in the program but also in the distribution system,” said Robert N. Wold about his decision to work with Paramount on “ET.”43

With Wold and his company on board, “ET” set out to sell local stations on this

new satellite distribution system. What it meant was that sales people had to convince

every station that aired “ET” to get a satellite receiver of its own. This was expensive

66 since most satellite receivers cost more than $10,000; and, therefore, was not an easy sell

to local independent stations. So, the powers behind “ET” had to come up with a plan that would convince them that buying an expensive satellite receiver would benefit them even more in the long run. Thus, according to Frank, the Paramount salesmen had to become not only program salesmen but satellite salesmen as well. “We had to teach them a whole new language,” he remembered. “I mean the stuff we got into, like the wind velocity that would blow over these stations and how they could put it [the satellite] in, was crazy.”44

“At first we actually didn’t know how we were going to do it,” said Greg Meidel,

a salesman for Paramount. But then the producers came up with a revolutionary although somewhat hard-to-sell idea. “What we did is promise stations free satellite receivers if they signed up for ‘ET,’” he said.45 The idea behind this was that if stations bought “ET”

and continued to air it, the cost to Paramount for buying and installing the satellite

receivers would be made up within the first year of programming. “What we figured out,”

Goldhammer said, “was that if they would carry the show for at least six months, we

could afford to pay for the $10,000 to put a satellite dish in the parking lots of these

stations.”46 Plus, local stations then had a satellite they could use to receive other

programming. This became a major selling point that the Paramount sales department

stressed in its presentations. “This really started most of the stations in the country onto getting satellite,” said Frank, “and I think that was one of the biggest impacts it had on the industry.”47 Goldhammer noted that by the time the show was sold, an entirely new

distribution network was in place, one that hadn’t existed or even been possible before.48

This selling tactic worked well and receiver installation began at the local stations

that had signed on to carry “ET.” In a 2001 article in Broadcasting & Cable, Wold

67 remarked that he felt like the “Johnny Appleseed” of satellite communications during

these early years, “installing dishes at stations for Paramount’s ‘ET’ as well as

Metromedia’s ‘ Show.’49 The fact that Wold’s company also was one of the only ones offering satellite facilities and distribution no doubt contributed to this feeling

as well. Despite the seeming success of this distribution system, Meidel said many of the

stations thought the program would be “the biggest white elephant that they had ever

seen.”50 However, worries notwithstanding, by the time “ET” went on air in September

1981, 75 percent of the 117 stations signed on had agreed to the satellite dish sale. The

remaining stations had worked out deals with other local stations to downlink the

program on a daily basis.51 “ET” was the first program that stations received through this

distribution system, but other programs were quick to follow, many distributed by Wold

Communications. A 1981 article in Business Week noted that it was expected by mid-

1982 that more than half of ’s 725 commercial television stations would be

receiving entertainment programming of a daily nature.52 Thus, this new satellite

distribution system helped independent television stations become more competitive with

networks because it gave them non-network-produced programming options.

Sales & Advertising

Along with the new distribution process, another key element for the success of

“Entertainment Tonight” was its ability to provide attractive programming to local

stations. While some network affiliates were brought in as the program grew in its first

few years, the original sales pitches were aimed at independent stations and the license

fees a station would pay to air the program varied from market to market. “There’s no

68 way to put a price on the sale of a show in syndication,” said Paramount executive Rich

Frank, who was involved heavily in selling the program. “Prices differed from market to

market and station to station, depending on the competition and deals worked out, but

‘ET’ was definitely in the top tier of show repayment.”53 Syndicated programs

themselves had found a comfortable home at local and independent stations, as well as

larger affiliates by now, because buying a syndicated show was more profitable, being

offered at cheaper prices and taking up as little as fifty percent of commercial airtime.54

However, the way in which “ET” was sold to local stations featured a revolutionary

combination of two payment systems that had been used separately to sell syndicated

television programs for years: cash and barter.

If a station opted to pay cash for a program, this operated much like taking out a loan. It made an initial down payment to the syndicator in cash for the program, followed by a series of payments over a set period of time while the program was aired. The station

recouped its investment and made a profit by selling local advertising time during the syndicated program. The barter system dealt with airtime rather than cash. In this system,

no money changed hands. Instead, the local station agreed to run national commercials

sold by the syndicator in return for the right to air a program. Therefore, the syndicator made its money from selling national advertising time while the station gave up some or all of the time that normally would have been sold to local advertisers.55 So, in essence, a

barter deal meant that a station would get a program without paying cash for it, but it would lose more than half of the local advertising spots. Researchers Susan Eastman and

Douglas Ferguson explained that the barter system can be “both a blessing and a curse.”56

The blessing is that barter can help reduce a station’s expenses, because it saves money

69 that could be spent on buying other syndicated programs. The curse is that the main way

a station can make money, by selling local advertising time, is many times cut in half.

For years, these two systems were the only way that programs were sold into

syndication. However, “ET” changed things when it decided to use what became known

as a cash-plus-barter system. The combined system usually involved a local station

paying part of the license fee in cash, and the other part was given by the station to the

syndicator to sell to national advertisers. This system, in essence, is what the “ET” sales

staff created.

Using the pilot program that had been put together, along with their mockups of

daily one-half-hour programs, Paramount salesmen began wooing local stations into

buying the program through the cash-plus-barter system. The way this worked for “ET”

was complicated since no one had combined both systems into a sale before. As part of

the cash system, local stations paid cash to air “ET” and in return got all but one minute of the advertising spots in the week-night broadcasts. That one minute was held back for

Paramount, which sold it as two thirty second spots to national advertisers. “Therefore, we didn’t have to charge them [local stations] as much because we got that [the one minute of national ],” Masini explained.57 Thus, local stations could make a profit from having a large amount of local advertising time to sell during the daily program, while the one remaining minute of advertising time allowed Paramount to place national advertisements and make its own profit.

The barter system involved the weekend production, “Entertainment This Week,” a one-hour program that aired across the country. It was a compilation of extra or extended segments from the week’s shows as well as new content and other

70 entertainment news. As part of the barter process, stations did not have to pay for the

weekend show, which fed out every Friday afternoon, but Paramount kept all ten of the

available advertising spots.58

One of the unique aspects to this combined system was how Paramount used the weekday and weekend advertising time it sold on a national level. It was this combined barter and cash-plus process that put the show on the air. According to Masini, “every minute that ran Monday through Friday would have a companion minute in the hour on the weekend.”59 Thus, a national advertiser would pay one price for one spot that would

air twice; once during the daily program on Monday through Friday and a second time

during the extended spot time that Paramount kept on the weekend. In this way, national advertisers got two spots in a week for the price of one. As an added benefit to this cash-

plus-barter system, “ET” was able to sell national advertising time at a higher price—by selling, in essence, one program to local stations (since they did not have to pay for

“Entertainment This Week”), they could combine the ratings for the weekday and

weekend show. “So, if we could get a 10 rating Monday through Friday, and a 6 rating on

the weekend,” Masini explained, “he [the advertiser] would have a 16 rating overall,

which was the equivalent of prime time on the network.”60 This higher rating allowed

Paramount to charge what the networks were charging advertisers during prime time

hours because its ratings were at the same level.

All of this also was dependent on the time slot that “ET” was placed in local

markets. Called a clearance, the goal was to get “cleared” during what was then called the

access time period, which meant the hour before network programming took over at 8

p.m. eastern standard time (7 p.m. central time/mountain time).61 Since many television

71 stations ran several hours of national and local news between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., the trick was to find a time slot that would bring in those news viewers. President of Paramount

Television Group Rich Frank recalled that sometimes the program would air late at night after the 11 p.m. local news, other times it would air before the 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. local news programs, and sometimes it could be found after the 6:30 p.m. nightly news. The time slot, like the station, was different in every market and numerous sales battles were fought over where “ET’ would be put in the program schedule and what this would mean to ad sales and revenue. If a program were cleared for the prime time access hour, it would have a huge impact on national advertising sales because typically that was when people were watching, as they prepared for prime time programming. In many markets

“ET” aired its first season during the prime time access hour, but in others, it found a home either late at night after the 11 p.m. newscasts or early in the afternoon around 4:30 p.m., right before the local news came on. “You had to know each market,” said Frank.

“They [the Paramount sales staff] did an unbelievable clearance job on the show.”62

Knowing each market was key because it determined how the program fared in terms of advertising and ratings. Originally, the first season of “ET” aired in the early afternoon in

New York and . The program did not do as well in these key markets until the both markets moved the program into the prime time access hour.63

The entire sales process was a gamble according to Frank, who recalled the production risk of relying on the ten spots during the week and the ten spots on the weekend to make back the $400,000 a week needed to have the show break even. “This system was a first in the industry,” he said. “No one believed it would work, but it did and we surprised everyone.”64 The sales system proved so popular that today, most

72 syndicated shows are sold through cash-plus-barter system. “We created history,” said

Masini. “Plus, the pilot turned out to be pretty good and we sold the advertisers and we

sold the stations.”65

This new distribution system also created additional value for advertisers in the

use of the cash-plus-barter system pioneered by “ET.” The president of the program

distribution company Enterprises, Jamie Kellner, noted in 1981 that advertisers

were attracted to “ET” because they knew their ads would air on a specific day instead of

a week later. “If a film company has a new picture opening, they know the commercial

will run on the same day nationally,” she noted.66 This immediacy also meant distributors and producers could sell advertising spots for more money, thus generating larger profits.

“We had resisted some shows which were tape delivered because we had no time control,” said a spokesman for Gillette Company.67

The exposure to numerous local markets around the country also appealed to

advertisers, who could count on their products being seen by more people in more locations. Ironically, this satellite distribution system also gave advertisers the ability to create and make successes of both QVC and the Home Shopping Network, both of which premiered in the mid-1980s thanks to increased viewer exposure.68 This system, along with the increase in cable networks and satellite providers, also helped boost spending on

TV advertising for broadcast, cable, and satellite. Ad spending for television rose five percent during the 1980s at the expense of newspapers, which saw ad rates down four percent, and magazines, with ad rates down 3 percent.69

With the program sold and a distribution system in place, it was now time to focus

on putting together a show that would draw viewers and live up to the promises that

73 Paramount and “ET” had made to stations. And so production on the first season of

“Entertainment Tonight” got underway.

74 Notes Chapter 3

1. Interview, Al Masini, December 6, 2007.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid. Program costs included everything from production, staffing, salaries, equipment, and all the other elements that went into getting the program off the ground.

4. See Telephone Interview, John Goldhammer, January 9, 2008; and Interview, Masini.

5. “Cable Television History,” About.com from http://inventors.about.com/ library/inventors/blcabletelevision.htm (accessed on June 12, 2008).

6. Megan Mullen, “Cable Televisions Forgotten Pioneer,” Media History 13.1 (2007); 67.

7. Ibid., 71.

8. Megan Mullen, “The Mom ‘n Pops of CATV, in Cable Visions, (Eds.) Banet-Weiser, Cynthia Chris, and Anthony Freitas (New York: NY University Press, 2007); 27.

9. Museum of Broadcast Communications, “ Cable Television” from: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/U/htmlU/unitedstatesc/unitedstatesc.htm (accessed on June 12, 2008).

10. Megan Mullen, “The Pre-history of Pay Cable Television: An Overview and Analysis,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 19.1 (1999); 39.

11. Patrick Parsons and Robert Frieden, The Cable and Industries, (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1998), 53-54.

12. Patrick Parsons, “The Evolution of the Cable-Satellite Distribution Service,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 47.1 (2003); 2.

13. Joseph B. Cumming Jr., “Ted Turner: Captain Outrageous,” Saturday Evening Post, October 1980, 67.

14. “The 1980s,” Advertising Age, February 28, 1995, 50.

15. Telephone Interview, Reece Schonfeld, April 9, 2008.

75 16. Cumming Jr., “Ted Turner: Captain Outrageous,” 67.

17. James Roman, From Daytime to Primetime: The History of America’s Television Programs (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005), 248.

18. Telephone Interview, Schonfeld.

19. Ibid.

20. Interview, Masini.

21. Gerald Jonas, “Arthur C. Clarke, Author Who Saw Become Real, Dies at 90” New York Times, March 19, 2008.

22. Roger D. Launius, “Sputnik and the Dawn of the Space Age,” from http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blsatellite.htm (accessed on June 12, 2008).

23. White Fence Publications, “A Look Back at Satellite TV,” from http://www.whitefence.com/articles/ cabletv/history-satellite-television.html (accessed on March 1, 2008).

24. “Like the Red Queen,” Time, August 2, 1963 from http://www.time.com/time/ magazine/article/0,9171,870350,00.html (accessed on June 12, 2008).

25. Parsons and Frieden, The Cable and Satellite Television Industries, 4. Comsat's mission was, in part, to be the exclusive state-sanctioned service provider for satellite communications facilities in the United States. It also helped form and manage a similar international body, , the International Satellite Organization.

26. Ibid., 7.

27. Ibid., 19.

28. Interview, Masini.

29. Eric Guthey, “The Legend of Ted Turner & The Reality of the Marketplace,” (PhD diss. Emory University, 1995), 289.

30. White Fence Publications, “A Look Back at Satellite TV.”

31. Derek Kompare, Nation (New York: Routledge, 2005), 134.

32. Interview, Masini.

76 33. Parsons and Friedman, The Cable and Satellite Television Industries, 7.

34. Lynn Gross, Brian Gross, and Philippe Perebinosoff, Programming for TV, Radio, & the Internet (Burlington, : Focal Press, 2005), 14-16.

35. Robert Edelstein and Jim Benson, “‘Entertainment Tonight:’ A Bona Fide Original, A Billion Dollar Success Story, and One of Today’s Most Influential TV Franchises,” Broadcasting & Cable, October 23, 2006, 31.

36. Telephone Interview, Vin Di Bona, February 13, 2008.

37. Interview, Masini.

38. Interview, Goldhammer.

39. “Satellite TV Starts Dishing it Out,” Business Week, October 19, 1981, 106.

40. Amy Bertram, “‘ET’ Still Seeking New Frontiers as it Turns 10,” Electronic Media, September 16, 1991, 26.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

44. Telephone Interview, Frank.

45. Edelstein and Benson, “’Entertainment Tonight,’” 31.

46. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

47. Telephone Interview, Frank.

48. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

49. Susanne Ault, “‘ET:’ The Business Behind the Buzz,” Broadcasting & Cable, July 7, 2001, 15.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid, 16.

52. “Satellite TV Starts Dishing it Out,” 106.

77 53. Telephone Interview, Rich Frank, January 28, 2008.

54. Bianca Ford and James Ford, Television and Sponsorship, (Oxford: Focal Press, 1993), 68-69.

55. Susan Eastman and Douglas Ferguson, Media Programming: Strategies and Practices, 7th ed. (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006), 111-112.

56. Ibid.

57. Interview, Masini.

58. Rich Frank, email message to author, May 20, 2008.

59. Interview, Masini.

60. Ibid.

61. Eastman and Ferguson, Media Programming, 205-206. Primetime access was originally created to try and get stations to produce and air more local programming in the 7 to 8 p.m. hour and create a more equal balance between networks and their affiliates, advertisers and program production companies.

62. Telephone Interview, Frank.

63. See Telephone Interview, Leonard Maltin, May 1, 2008; Telephone Interview, Goldhammer; and Telephone Interview, Masini.

64. Telephone Interview, Frank.

65. Interview, Masini.

66. “Satellite TV Starts Dishing it Out,” 106.

67. Ibid., 107.

68. “Mergers and LBOS,” Advertising Age, March 28, 2005, 58.

69. Ibid.

78 Chapter 4: Into the Fire

“By some miraculous miracle, we got it on air and it worked.” 1

Andy Friendly, “ET” Producer (1981)

By September 1981, more than one hundred stations had signed on to carry

“Entertainment Tonight.” The pressure was building as the to September 14 began. Many decisions had to be made, including hiring an entire staff for the program,

figuring out what this daily entertainment news program was going to be, and

establishing a format as well as creating a unique look and feel. Topping it all off was

figuring out how to produce this daily program and meet the deadlines that using satellite

feeds required. Producers, assistant producers, managing editors, and numerous other

staff members took on many challenges, such as trying to find celebrities willing to do interviews with the unknown program and the overwhelming need to access video to help tell the celebrity stories. Editors and producers worked together to experiment with the

style and pace of stories and what would provide the greatest appeal to an audience, and

this resulted in even more focused debates between Paramount and creator Al Masini

over how the program would present itself and eventually led to the show’s first major

management change. All of these issues percolated as the program began to take shape

and set the stage for the show’s first few months.

The first major decision confronting the Paramount executives and Masini was

figuring out who should be at the helm the first season. The person had to be someone

who could create a daily newscast from scratch as well as deal with the hiring of the

entire staff and with the numerous other production decisions. Jack Haley Jr. had

79 produced the hour-long pilot that had helped sell the show, but as the premiere date grew

closer the executive decision was made to go with a different producer, one who had a

familiar last name in the television world, Andy Friendly. He was the son of former CBS

News President Fred Friendly and had made a name in the business by directing and

producing television programs and special events, such as the “ 30th

Anniversary Special,” and “Speak Up America.” He also had good connections with and an understanding of the Hollywood industry.2 “Paramount was very sold on Andy,”

Masini recalled, “they felt he would do a good job.”3 Friendly said the process of getting

hired at “ET” involved a lot of work, especially process which featured

lengthy interviews with Paramount executives John Goldhammer, Rich Frank, Randy

Reiss, Michael Eisner, and Barry Diller among others. When he got the job in June 1981,

Friendly experienced a bit of a shock at being sent to his office that first day, a small room in the back of a bare, empty soundstage with one assistant waiting for him. “It was slightly daunting” he said wryly, “we were going on the air three months later, and I had no staff.”4

Thus began Friendly’s job of creating the framework for “ET” as well as hiring a

competent staff that could get the program on air in three months. Finding a staff was not

easy considering he had to create and staff every department from editorial to production,

and graphics to music, not to mention hiring co-hosts and reporters who put a face on the

program. He needed help and fast, so he began to assemble a team from different

backgrounds including news, entertainment, and television production. Many were

people he had worked with before, and some came on the recommendation of fellow

producers and directors.

80 Hiring the Staff

Producer and writer Steve Paskay was one of the first people hired by Friendly,

having worked with him on “Speak Up America.” Paskay spent a lot of his early weeks

helping to hire the “ET” staff. “One of the first questions I’d ask was, ‘Do you have any

living relatives in the city [LA]?’” he said. “If they did, they were less desirable to me as a team worker because I knew they would never get a chance to see their families working on a show like this.”5 That question resulted in a relatively young, mostly single

staff that devoted their lives to getting the program on the air. Associate Producer Bruce

Cook, also one of Friendly’s early hires, remembers his excitement at being involved in

creating many aspects of what he believed would be a revolutionary program. “I started

out as associate producer, it was a catch-all title,” he reminisced in a telephone interview,

“involving everything from the business end, including hiring, firing, and managing the money, to the more creative end in terms of casting, assigning, and creating stories.”6

Certain positions were key to getting the program off the ground, one of which was the segment producer. This person would be responsible for finding and creating the stories that would fuel the program each day. Segment producer Helaine Swerdloff-Ross remembered being told by a friend that there was a new entertainment show in town, and it was hiring. She had been working as talent coordinator for the “Mike Douglas Show” but was ready to move on. “Everybody told me I was crazy to go from an established show to work for an unknown show that nobody had heard of,” she recalled.7 Within a

few months, she had become the senior segment producer and was put in charge of booking most of the celebrities for the show. Producer Susan Haymer had been working

in Los Angeles at a local television news station, setting up and producing movie reviews

81 and interviews with a television movie critic and was debating on whether to go back to

New York or go to that year’s National Association of Television Program Executives

(NATPE) convention in search of another job. She decided to go to NATPE after a friend

mentioned that Paramount was starting a new entertainment program that she might be

interested in and would have a booth at the convention. She gave her resume to

Goldhammer and a few weeks later was hired.8 Vicky Gordon joined Friendly’s team

after several years in Boston producing the first all-night live in the country.

She was in on vacation when her cousin told her about an entertainment news

show that her friend Andy Friendly was starting. She remembered asking Friendly during

her interview what he was going to do with the program. “He said, I’m going to do this

investigative show about the entertainment business,” she recalled, “and he told me he

needed someone to produce the lead segment on the show every night, which would be a

’ like investigative piece.”9 Intrigued, Gordon moved to LA to become a

producer with “ET.”

Friendly also called on fellow producers and directors that he had worked with including Ken Furman, who was hired to handle the music segments of the program.

Furman, who produced documentary films, had become with Friendly over the

years and said his love and knowledge of music is what got him the job. “I think what

really made him hire me was that I would bring records over to his house that he’d never

heard,” he said. “I said to Andy, ‘You’ve got to hear this song’ and he said, ‘Anyone who

even knows these songs knows enough about music to handle it on the show.’”10

Producer and writer Bill Olsen had worked for Friendly on a the year

before, so when Friendly called him up and asked him to come to work on his new

82 program, he said yes immediately. He had the unique opportunity of starting on the

program as a tape runner and “all round gopher” as he put it, before working his way

through production and directing positions to eventually become a show writer.11

To write for the program, Friendly hired news veteran Bob Flick, who had been wounded in the mass suicide in 1978 and had been working for NBC when he was fired in 1980. He was approached by Paramount because his background in news would add credibility to the program.12 He was skeptical about the program at first, but

they brought him in for an interview, and a few weeks later he accepted the offer to come

on board as a writer. Quite simply, it was a job, a needed one at the time, and one that

happened to pay better than most for something that he enjoyed doing. “I just wrote,

which I’m pretty good at, and that’s what I did.”13 Also coming from a news background was the program’s first reporter, Catherine Mann. She had been working in Los Angeles for “PM Magazine,” as its Hollywood reporter, when a friend told her she should talk to the people at Paramount about a new show that was focusing on entertainment news. “I wanted to be on that show,” she reflected. “I was thrilled because I had a feeling it was going to be really big, and it was my first national show.”14 Reporter Robin Leach also

was added to the roster, after spending several years reporting and making a name for

himself at CNN. “I had never done television until I came to CNN,” he recalled, “and

with both CNN and ‘ET’ it also was great to be in the forefront of entertainment

reporting.”15

Another important aspect that went into creating “ET” was the formation of a

research department. The researchers needed to create a library of all of the celebrity

information and facts that were known, including personal information and promotional

83 pictures of every celebrity that they could get. The researchers also had to be ready to

provide that information to producers at a moment’s notice. Creating the entertainment

library was a huge responsibility that fell in part on Shauna Zurbrugg, who helped head

up the research staff. She had been a disk jockey for many years and found the idea of working for a program such as “ET” intriguing. “I felt it was fascinating because there truly was a lot of entertainment news out there,” she said, “and it was a new start for me, in television, so I was kind of excited.”16

Producers, writers, and researchers were not the only elements that Friendly

needed to get up and running on “ET.” Key positions in post-production also needed to

be filled, including finding the show’s first director. Steve Hirsen, a veteran of CBS

News’ West Coast Edition, was hired to handle the direction of the program and create a

mood and feel for the show. Despite having a good deal of experience in directing

newscasts, he remembered being hit hard by all of the responsibility thrust on him. “They

handed me the pilot, which had been put together in hours and hours of post production,”

he recalled, “and said, ‘Could you do this live?’ And I went, ‘Well, we’ll figure it out.’”17

With Hirsen set to handle the day-to-day direction of the program, attention turned to finding someone to handle the post-production process, which included overseeing all of the for the program and making sure the changes that the wanted were implemented. Cheri Brownlee, a friend of writer Paskay and a former colleague of Friendly, was offered the job. She said she was excited about the challenge of getting the show off the ground.18

With nearly all of the behind-the-scenes positions filled, the focus shifted to

finding the co-hosting team that would give a face to the program. Soap star Tom

84 Hallick, who had anchored the pilot of “ET,” was chosen as a co-host for the program.

“Tom was a great guy, but he wasn’t a journalist,” noted Friendly, “but he did a great job.”19 Tom’s co-host was former Marjorie Wallace. “She was very attractive

and very well spoken, but again, not a journalist,” Friendly said.20 To bring more of a

journalistic feel to the program, he hired Ron Hendren, a local NBC news commentator,

to round out the team. “I thought the show needed a little more credibility, and I thought

we needed an anchor who would give us that,” Friendly said of Hendren.21 “Hendren was

a real news anchor who came out of NBC,” recalled Hirsen, “He was a real pro.”22

Reflecting on the hiring process, Paskay wryly noted that if he had known how difficult it was going to be, he might have thought twice about signing onto the show.

However, the early staff members agreed that Friendly put together a great team. “It was finding the right group of people, who were responsible, under the guidance of Andy, for launching the show and getting it on every day,” remarked Paskay.23 “It was an

extraordinary group of people,” said segment producer Gordon.24 Fellow producers

Furman and Swerdloff-Ross also said they could not imagine a greater group of people

with whom to get the show off the ground.25

The other factor that had to be considered in the pre-production months involved the categorization of “ET” as a news or entertainment program and how that affected the various guilds or unions that represented the people who worked on the show.

Goldhammer recalled meeting with the Writers, Directors, and Screen Actors guilds, as well as the America Federation of Television and Radio Artists, trying to convince them that “ET” was a news program. “I had to explain that we were going to be considered news, because we wanted to use news rates [for salaries],” he said.26 But it was his

85 discussion with the Directors Guild [DGA] that Goldhammer said determined how the

show’s producers specifically would be categorized. It agreed to consider “ET” a news

program because Paramount had signed a contract years ago that the guild said covered

news. At the time that contract was signed, however, the DGA had made strict provisions

involving the people who worked in what was classified as a “news” operation. That

contract required the field producers who went out and produced stories to be part of the

DGA and thus take on the title of segment directors. “We were excited because our

salaries were doubled and we got to be called directors,” said Haymer.27 “They [the

DGA] had news agreements which were onerous,” said Goldhammer, “but we had to live

by them and we did.”28

As the staff was being finalized during July and August of 1981, Friendly then

turned his focus to figuring out what the show should encompass. His goal was to create

a template for the program, a format that could be applied to story content, coverage, and style. At the same time, he also had to focus on building the “ET” team and creating the infrastructure that would allow the show to survive and prosper.29

Creating a Format and Template

Assistant Producer Ed Meyer remarked that Friendly was influential in setting up

the form and style of the daily program, creating a basic format that made it possible for

the program to survive and thrive.30 Figuring out the format of “ET” was a process between Friendly and the guidelines outlined by Masini. “We had rules,” said Masini,

“no story longer than two minutes, here are the areas you can cover, what were they like

when they were young, or in school”31 (see Appendix A). While these rules provided

86 some basic guidelines, it was Friendly who had to figure out exactly what content would fill the program each day. “We had to build the infrastructure of the show,” he said, “then we had to start banking pieces because we didn’t know how much breaking news we’d be able to cover, much less how much breaking news would occur on a daily basis.”32

Friendly spent most of those early months in meetings with Barry Diller and Michael

Eisner, plotting out hypothetical rundowns. The executives wanted to know every detail of how the show would come together, from script timing to content. Friendly recalled being impressed by their dedication and respected their interest and tenacity, but he added that it was time consuming when he was dealing with so many other responsibilities.33

Setting up a format for the show was an all-consuming job, one Friendly threw himself into with a passion. “We set out to do a little more in terms of ,” he said of his early pieces.34 The staff focused on bringing the format down to a science, trying for that mix of stories, news, and features that would remove the mystery of the glamour in which celebrities and Hollywood was cloaked. Friendly knew the program would want to cover big new movies coming out, premieres, and new fall

TV shows when they aired. “So that determined a good half of the show,” Friendly remembered, “and the rest was just sort of enterprise journalism at its best.”35 Masini noted that the program never wanted to do simple sensationalistic journalism but instead wanted to cover the important entertainment news in an exciting, informative way, yet not at the cost of news credibility.36

Another part of creating a format and template for the program was figuring out the length of stories and feature pieces. Segment producers were given time limits, usually between two and a half and four minutes for their pieces, many of which aired as

87 four-or- five part series in a week. Masini initially wanted pieces to run around two

minutes, but producers and reporters found that in order to tell a complete story, they

needed at least two and a half or three minutes if not more. The timing of the program, of

the stories themselves, and how both worked together to create a compelling program

was of special concern to Masini. He stressed the need to make sure all of the elements

that an audience would want to see in a story about a celebrity were set out and allocated

enough time to cover the basics but not leave an audience hungry for more. The debate

over length of stories often came down to self-governance, according to Robin Leach. “If

I felt that Turner warranted seven minutes, then I would cut it [the piece] at seven

minutes and I would script it and track it at seven minutes. So, it was self governance

based on twenty-five years of experience.”37 “We kind of labored on our pieces,” noted

segment producer Haymer. “Some of them were at least three minutes or longer.”38As a general rule, most of the produced pieces in the program’s first few weeks ran between three and four and a half minutes.

While Friendly was working on the production and format aspects of the show, reporters and segment producers were attempting to find the content to fill the daily half hour. One of the biggest issues that the segment producers faced was the fact that nobody knew what “ET” was or what it was doing. Many of the pieces were being produced in the months and weeks before the show had aired, so getting celebrities to agree to do interviews was somewhat difficult. “We were begging for stories at first,” noted reporter

Catherine Mann.39 Segment producer Swerdloff-Ross reflected on the difficulty of

convincing agents to give “ET” access to their stars, despite using all of the connections

she had developed while working on the “Mike Douglas Show.” Since no one had heard

88 of the show, agents were wary of allowing their clients to participate and it took all of the

persuasive techniques that Swerdloff-Ross had.40

Producers made every effort to get in touch with celebrities to promote the new

program, no matter whom they might be. Producer Bruce Cook vividly recalled sitting in a Hollywood restaurant and watching producer Vicky Gordon attempt to woo singer Neil

Diamond onto the program. “She walks over to his table, where he’s sitting with another couple, and goes into her pitch,” he said. “She’s being very businesslike and suddenly the other guy at the table puts his hand up and says, ‘Do you know who I am?’ then tells her,

‘I’m Michael Eisner, your boss. You don’t need to pitch anymore.’”41 Gordon said she

would never forget her response upon finding out she had been pitching “ET” in front of

the big boss. “I said, ‘Mr. Eisner, I just want you to know that I had a great three months

at Paramount, and I’ll be heading back to Boston tomorrow!’”42 Eisner did not seem to

mind, though, calling Friendly up on the next day to praise the dedication of his

employee. Similar stories to this one marked nearly every early “ET” producer’s quest to

find and get the A-list celebrities in the months before the premiere. All of them said they

were determined to convince the stars that “ET” was the place to be seen.

Masini reflected on the fact that the easiest way to book someone was to get them

when they needed exposure. And “ET’ was a perfect vehicle to do this. “After the first

couple of months,” Frank noted, “studios started realizing that we were a gigantic

potential promotional vehicle for them and that started breaking the ground.”43 Weekend

co-host and reporter Leeza Gibbons said it best by describing the early years of “ET” as

an all-access-pass: “It was an exclusive club, and it was the most powerful venue for

celebrities to make their case, to set the record straight and to do the bread and butter

89 business of publicizing their work.”44 Of course, it took a lot of work to get the program

to that point.

Swerdloff-Ross remembered her relief at getting several big-name stars to do

interviews, which were then turned into five-part segments that aired during the

program’s first week. Those stars included Brooke Shields, , and Barry

Manilow, the “three B’s that dominated the first week” as they were called by most of the staff.45 “I had to do a lot of begging and initially promise that we would promote a star’s

vehicle, like music, or a movie,” she remembered of those early days.46 Once the big-

name stars began to appear on “ET,” producers said other stars began to take notice and

came to “ET” to promote their wares. However, getting through to agents and managers

in those days was a challenge, especially for segment producers such as Gordon who had

no real experience in dealing with the Hollywood community. She said a particularly

memorable experience involved her first attempt to get music star Christopher Cross to

agree to be on the show. She informed his agent by telephone that she was with

“Entertainment Tonight,” a new program starting in the fall, and asked if she could do a

story with Cross. As soon as she got off the telephone she was pulled aside by fellow

producer Ken Furman, who gave her a bit of advice on how to talk to an agent. “He said,

‘No, no, no, that’s not what you say,’” she said. “’You say ‘Hey baby, this is Vicky

Gordon, and I’m really digging Chris Cross and I’d like you to send me over some of his product.’ And I said, ‘Kenny, I can’t talk like that!’”47 Furman recalled the coup of

landing rock group Blondie’s front woman Debbie Harry for the first show. “Most bands

didn’t want to come on the show,” he said of the early days, “they didn’t trust TV. But

we had Blondie, the entire band, on our first show.”48 Among the other artists who he

90 convinced to take a chance on TV, or at least “ET” in its early days, were Duran Duran,

Billie Joel, Rod Stewart, The Who, and the Go Go’s. Furman said when they realized what “ET” could do for them, and got more comfortable with the television medium, it became a little easier to convince them to do the program.49

Segment producer Haymer’s project for the first week of the show involved doing

a story on the Moral Majority versus Hollywood. She thought she was being tested with

the story and frantically called everyone she knew to set up interviews. She finally

realized there was a big demonstration for civil rights going on in downtown Hollywood

one weekend and headed out to get her interviews there. “We got everybody,” she

remembered, “the Ed Asners, and all those liberal people, and I came back and everyone

was just blown away.” To get the other side of the story, she then had to take the

Reverend Jerry Falwell out to lunch at a popular Hollywood restaurant. “Everybody was

gagging because I was having lunch with him,” she recalled.50 Fellow producer Shauna

Zurbrugg clearly remembered Falwell interacting with Haymer amid all the more liberal

Hollywood actors, directors, writers, and producers who were out eating that night.

“Falwell looked pasty, like he should already be in a coffin,” she said. “And here he was,

walking casually through this restaurant that was buzzing about why he was there and who he was with. It was rather funny at the time.”51

Leach remembered suggesting story ideas to producers as the premiere show

came together, but then he spent most of his time focused on actually getting the story

and the interview put together. He added, though, that it was a team effort between field

producers, directors, reporters, and cameramen.52 Ironically, he was not even in America

to see the premiere of the show. Instead, he was in France, doing an interview with the

91 reclusive , her first in twenty years, and that interview was quickly

incorporated into the first week of shows as a multi-part series.

While producers and reporters were trying to figure out how to get celebrities to come on the show, consideration also was being paid to what would happen when stars did agree to interviews. Telling Hollywood news and celebrity stories screamed for video and pictures of the stars and their glamorous jobs, not just “talking head” interviews that featured various close-up shots of the stars’ faces as they were interviewed by reporters.

However, gaining access to that type of video footage was not an easy task, mainly because Hollywood was not providing many opportunities for the media to visit sets and take behind-the-scenes video, in part because there had been no major demand for this type of promotion.53

Frank, who as a Paramount executive dealt with many publicity issues, recalled

that there were hardly any paparazzi at the time, so crews from “ET” actually had to go

out and get the video and sound to tell appealing stories. “Nobody wanted to see a bunch

of still photos, even if you could get them,” he said. “So, what you did was when you

finally got Burt Reynolds to sit down, you figured out how to keep him there for enough

time to put on five segments.”54 Ironically, many of the stories that aired during the first

few months of “ET” relied heavily on still pictures of celebrities or the projects they were

working on. However, producers lobbied to be allowed onset, to get video of the star

actually filming or working on a project. Haymer laughed as she recounted the lengths to

which they would go to get video. She had been putting together a story on a star-studded

area of Hollywood but was not allowed to shoot video inside one of the communities

where the stars lived. “So, we hid on the bottom of the car, and we went in and we just

92 kind of shot out the window at a lot of places,” she said. “We used to do things like that

in those days because we weren’t as famous as they [ET] are now.”55

As August ended and producers frantically tried to create content for the

September premiere, Friendly and his team realized one more element was needed to

make the show ready for air: a graphic design for the program that would reflect

Hollywood yet still give the sense of a credible news program. Enter John Ridgeway, a

talented young graphic designer brought into the mix only two weeks before the show

launched. A former design director for the PBS station in Los Angeles, he was a bit

intimidated to be shown an empty room on his first day and told that was his entire art

department. “I said, ‘Where’s the stuff,’” Ridgeway remembered, “and our operations

manager, Mike O’Gara said, ‘What do you mean, you have to go buy it.’”56

After the equipment was bought and an art department hired, Ridgeway set to

work on developing a compelling, attractive, memorable graphic design and look for the

program. “We fused the traditional functionality of news graphics with the glamour of

entertainment,” he noted in a case study of the program on his company’s website.57 The

inspiration for the show’s graphic design was based on the print medium. “You start with a flag, or the logo,” he explained in a 2008 interview, “then you build a hierarchical

structure for your typography, extending the logo and branding the project.”58 In essence,

the type style and structure that was used to create the “ET” logo had to be reflected in

some way in all the graphics used in the program.

Director Hirsen was instrumental in this process as well, working with

Ridgeway’s designs and giving them a sense of movement throughout the show. Hirsen

used cutting-edge equipment to create these moving graphics and effects that no one had

93 ever attempted before. “In the early shows, we’ve got graphics in a box,” he said. “The

box drops to reveal another box and then the top box comes full screen, then flips or spins

off the screen. No one was doing that.” He added that most of this was possible because

of the location where they initially shot the program, the Merv Griffin studios on Vine

Street. Griffin had left some state-of-the-art equipment in the and the “ET” crew

happily used it to create their unique, groundbreaking look and feel.59

Ridgeway recalled that some of the inspiration for the “ET” graphics and themes

came from observing the newly developing MTV network. The fast style of graphics and

the high level of information that the music channel delivered graphically made “ET”

designers realize a newscast could deliver a greater volume of information at a greater

pace and that viewers would still be able to understand it. “We created a more attractive

design than what MTV or even newscasts in general were doing. It moved a lot faster and

delivered much more information coherently,” he noted.60 The sets also were reflective of

a news studio but with a slightly more casual feel. The show opened on a shot of the two

co-hosts sitting in chairs before a large . The monitor with its graphics gave the

program a newsy feel, despite the lighter nature of the news. The second half of the show

was delivered from a second set, which featured the co-hosts sitting in chairs, with a table

and a flower arrangement between them. Every story made use of over-the- shoulder

graphics, (boxes with text and pictures, that appeared next to the anchor reading the

story), thus giving the program the feel of a newscast but with a slightly lighter edge

thanks to the quick movement of the graphics.

However, what Ridgeway found most memorable about creating the graphic look for “ET” was that money appeared to be no object. “It was one of the first and only times

94 I’ve ever been told that not having enough money was not an excuse,” he said, noting that the powers that be at Paramount told him “there will always be enough money to do whatever it is you need to do, just get it done.” It was this complete backing of the program, he said, that enabled “ET” to purchase cutting-edge graphic equipment to experiment with as they created its groundbreaking look.61

While all of these elements were being wrangled into a coherent program lineup, and Friendly and his crew were working hard to put the first weeks’ shows together, the battle between Paramount and Masini over the type of program that “ET” would become had been escalating.

News Versus Glitz and Glamour

Paramount was adamant about keeping the program more business oriented, focusing more on the behind-the-scenes action in Hollywood. “[Barry] Diller kept pushing for ‘ET’ to become the ‘60 Minutes’ of the entertainment world,” said

Goldhammer, who toed a fine line, being both a Paramount executive and a show producer.62 However, that was not the vision that Masini had for the program. “I kept

saying we sold it as a glamorous, glitzy show with stars and what stars think, not what

some unknown guy thinks that nobody’s ever heard of behind the scenes at the studio,”

Masini recalled.63 Leach, as a reporter and close friend of Masini, also had vivid

memories of the ongoing debate. “It was a bloody tug of war,” he said, “because we felt

we were dealing with executives who had completely missed the focus of what ‘ET’ was

to be. It was to be fun, frothy, and light and not delve into the serious side of the business that we felt the public didn’t want to know about.”64 Friendly agreed with Leach about

95 the ongoing struggle. “Whenever you have five partners, four of whom have one view,

Taft, TeleRep, Chris-Craft, and Cox, and one, Paramount, with another view, it created a

tough political situation for a young producer, namely me,” he remarked.65 Paskay as he wrote the show, noted that he believed “ET” should not be a program for Los Angeles or

New York but instead for everybody and every place in between. “Viewers wanted to know about entertainment, but when you’re reporting about something that is going on, even in the entertainment world, you still have to let the viewer know what impact the story is going to have.” He added that “ET” did report the hard news but made sure that the public understood the reason for including those stories among the softer, fluffier pieces.66

Segment producers also weighed in on how the ongoing debate affected their

jobs. Haymer said everything boiled down to how a story was covered, even if it was

celebrity oriented.67 Swerdloff-Ross remembered covering parties for the glitz and

glamour angle but while there also trying to find additional stories or aspects to make the

pieces interesting, yet newsworthy. She recalled being kicked out of several celebrity

parties because the hosts thought she was being too aggressive by cornering celebrities and trying to get them to talk about things other than their newest movies or shows.68

Furman said he did not have too much of a problem because he tried to use visuals and

music more than words to tell a story. When he did talk to musicians, he said he would

not throw tough questions out like curveballs, but would ask the hard questions in

sensitive ways. “When I interviewed a member of the Who, we talked about him leaving

his wife, and we talked about the riots in where eleven people were killed, but

there’s a way, a certain way, to do it.”69

96 Associate producer Bruce Cook said his main struggle involved trying to find ways to balance the celebrity fluff against the more substantive material that the show

presented, some of which he noted was boring but important. “I walked a fine line but I

think I did a good job in pleasing both sides of a very divided coin,” he remarked.70

Director Hirsen said regardless of the content, the show was presented like a newscast,

and it was just a question of whether the stories had any journalistic value. “I thought it

should be a news show,” he stated, “but what entertainment news actually was, was still

being defined in a sense. I thought it should be a real journalistic view of Hollywood.”71

Writer Bob Flick basically expressed his opinions to anyone who would listen, argued

with everyone, and eventually ended up writing whatever he was told. “I just said whatever you want,” he said. “I can write it anyway you want to, and I did.”72 Friendly

admitted he pretty much tried to do what Paramount told him, considering he reported directly to the studio, but he added that he listened to the concerns of both sides and believed the entire “ET” team created a fair mix between news and glitz and glamour.73

Adding to this debate was an issue of how the program was publicized in the trade magazines, especially TV Guide, in the weeks leading up to and during its premiere week.

Swerdloff-Ross had the job of getting TV Guide a list of all of the celebrities who would appear on “ET” a month in advance. “Barry Diller wanted us to have the best A-list guests to put in TV Guide,” she remembered. “I had to book a month in advance to get those names so there was a tremendous amount of pressure for who we were going to get on the show.”74 She added that sometimes a guest she thought was great would be shot

down by the executive producers or Friendly, so she and her fellow segment producers

had to work different angles to sell their bosses on the celebrities and their stories. For the

97 premiere week several different advertisements appeared in TV Guide and The New York

Post, featuring pictures of , , Burt Reynolds, and

along with the “ET” logo. even featured “ET” in its television

section for the week of September 13, 1981. In the “Of Special Interest” section for the

Monday, September 14 programming schedule, the program was described as: “The

premiere of a half-hour nightly series providing news and information on the

entertainment world. (In addition to weeknight broadcasts there will be a one-hour

program each Saturday beginning September 19 at 6:30 p.m.).”75

The debate over what form and style “ET” should take would continue to rage on,

even as Friendly and his team finally put together the premiere episode. After months of

wrangling, scraping together stories, and attempting to build a reputation with the

Hollywood community, “Entertainment Tonight” finally took to the airwaves.

Lights! Camera! Action!

The first show was a mix of fluff and features, focusing on interviews with

celebrities who had won or lost during the telecast on the night before.

“We knew we were going on air the day after the Emmy ceremony,” Friendly noted, “so

we knew we’d want to cover that extensively.”76 The show began with a list of the actors

and shows that had won awards, told with still pictures of the shows and actors on a

monitor graphic, read by Ron Hendren. Then, the program featured red carpet video of celebrities arriving at the ceremony. Actor Richard Chamberlain was interviewed next, expressing mixed emotions about not receiving the award. Viewers were then taken

98 backstage the night before the program and treated to a look at stars and hosts practicing

their speeches and getting used to the stage.

After the Emmy coverage, the first in a week-long series of pieces on Reynolds

aired, focusing on his new movie Paternity. The piece used two video clips from the

movie and long soundbites from an interview with him, interspersed with still pictures of

the star throughout his life. The package focused heavily on his earlier life, his rise to

stardom, and his desire to be a father, all of which were tied into his reasons for doing the

film. The piece was followed by a soundbite from Lana Turner in her first interview in

years, given exclusively to Robin Leach. The rest of the show featured a few clips from

celebrities promoting upcoming movies, including Mommie Dearest and Tarzan,

followed by an interview with musician Debbie Harry of Blondie, interspersed with a

of her song “Backfire.” The show ended with the co-hosts teasing the next

day’s show and saying , and the audience was left to watch more of Harry’s

music video.77

While the first show looked put together and professional, getting it on air was not

without problems. “This was the first time we were going to feed this thing across the

country, and we had nothing but crises,” Masini recalled.78 The first-day crisis came about because of timing issues. The program had gone before the studio cameras earlier that morning, and all had gone well. The show was shot on video tape and as a safety precaution, operators double rolled on the taping, creating two master tapes of the program. As the staff watched the finished product in the company theater, then tape runner Bill Olsen looked over the shoulder of the , who kept adding up the segment times but could not get them to work out correctly. “I said, ‘You know, Alan,

99 there aren’t 100 seconds in a minute,’” Olsen recounted, “and he turned around and looked at me and swore.”79 Because of the mistaken timing, the program was four minutes light. To compensate, producers quickly re-edited the end of the show, making up that time by playing all four minutes of the Debbie Harry music video. That done, the runners, including Olsen, were sent out with two tapes, racing to see who could make it down the block and across the street first to the satellite distribution offices. “We went through this whole process again, then he [Friendly] jumps up and says, ‘It’s too long, get

‘em back a second time.’ So, I’m having a heart attack by that point,” Masini recalled.80

With all of the recalls and re-cuts, the program was in trouble. stations were airing it at 4 p.m., so that meant it had to be at the local television stations at least thirty minutes before airtime. The premiere episode was now in jeopardy of not being fed on time. The solution? Cut the program up into three reels and send the runners out with the first two reels to feed out the first half of the program while editors re-cut the third and last segment. “I’d run up to Sunset and Vine,” Olsen recalled, “run through traffic at the major intersection, and we had guys holding the elevators since the satellite studios were on the fifteenth floor.” After arriving at the studios, Olsen had a moment of panic.

“Neither of the two tapes were labeled, and the tape looks at me and goes,

‘Which one?’ And I point and go ‘that one,’ he put it up, and sure enough, it was the right one. That was how “ET” got on air its first day.”81

Ridgeway’s memories of that first show came from a slightly different perspective. After getting the entire “ET” graphic design approved by management, he had realized several days before the premiere that the design would not work on air. The more he looked at the colors and styles of the graphics, the more he realized that they

100 were not fitting to what Friendly had told him he wanted when he’d first interviewed for

the job. “He said during my initial interview that he did not want 1980s graphics, I want

1990s graphics for this show,” Ridgeway remembered. “These weren’t 1990s graphics,

they were awful.”82 Even though the Paramount executives and “ET” staff had approved the design, he said after really examining and seeing the graphics in the days before the first show, he knew the design would not go over well on air and to his mind, would make the program come across as dated and not as fresh and new as it billed itself. With no time to get approval, but feeling something had to be done, he decided to take a chance and reworked the entire graphic design. “I just said I’m going to do it and figured what are they going to do, fire me? They’re probably going to fire me anyhow because they won’t like what we originally went with.” So, he made the changes and waited to see what the verdict would be that Monday after the first taping and screening. He remembered seeing Friendly walk past him looking pale and worried when the show finally made it to the satellite. “I thought, ‘Oh boy, this is where I get pulled apart.’ He looked at me and goes, ‘Well, I really liked the design.’”83 Despite the technical

difficulties and near heart attacks, the first show had made air and the entire staff

breathed a sigh of relief. Until they thought about what came next. “We finished the

show, we’re all applauding,” said Brownlee, who had overseen all the show’s post-

production, “and then comes the realization, Oh, My God, we’ve got to do this again

tomorrow.”84

Once the first show had successfully aired, the entire cast and crew set out to

produce the second show, hoping all would go better the second time around. Tuesday’s

show featured more television turmoil with actor Eric Estrada’s ongoing salary debate

101 with producers of his hit show “CHiPs.” Next there was a feature on how the economy

benefited from “fight nights” based around the Sugar Ray Leonard/Thomas Hearns

boxing match that night. Interviews with Paul Newman and promoted

their upcoming films, followed by the first of the four-part series on Brooke Shields. The

show wrapped up with a piece from New York on the reopening of and closed

with the second part of -piece series on Burt Reynolds. The rest of the week

followed suit, usually leading with a television-actor story, and featuring longer

pieces with Shields, Reynolds, , and Gordon’s piece on the Moral

Majority vs. Hollywood. Leach’s exclusive interview with Turner also was woven into

the shows.85

Onward and Upward?

After the first week was out of the way, the tempo stepped up as viewers and

Hollywood, began to get a taste of what “ET” could do. Producers were finding that

agents and managers, even stars themselves, were beginning to approach “ET” for

coverage of their latest projects. “The show gained popularity, all of a sudden it became hot” Swerdloff-Ross said. “It was like everybody suddenly wanted to do the show.”86

Enterprise pieces, based on producer connections, also filled the shows. “I did a piece on

my West Beverly High School drama teacher, John Ingle,” remembered Haymer. “I got

all these people I went to high school with who had John as a teacher, Richard Dreyfuss,

Julie Kavner, a lot of people. The piece ran six minutes!”87

While “ET” was beginning to make inroads with celebrities, it was not doing so well in its early days with critics. TV critic Howard Rosenberg said of

102 the show, “It won’t give you gallstones or yellow fever, but it won’t give you much information either. It’s so soft that it squishes.”88 A review in the September 24, 1981, issue of Variety said “the new weeknight syndicated strip opened like a stiff [a dead body]” and went on to say, “The initial impact, after the pre-show hoopla, had to be a disappointment to viewership.”89 “Great minds talk about ideas, small minds talk about

people, so the saying goes, and a lot of small minds have gone into overtime here,”

reviewed Jamie Gold in the September 13 edition of . His sarcastic

prediction of the future of the show said, “One can only hope public disinterest yanks the

plug from Entertainment Tonight fast.”90

With the pounding that the show was taking from critics, the pressure began to

come down on Friendly. “The headline of the first few weeks and months of ‘ET,’”

Friendly remembered, “was we didn’t have an infrastructure in place when we started in

June.”91 What that meant was that the “ET” staff had to start up everything from scratch,

including determining program content and coverage style, without any established

infrastructure like those structures that were in place at the national news networks.

Friendly said it was basically a bunch of kids, he was twenty-nine at the time and one of

the older staff members, hiring 250 people to make up the staff, create a template, and in

general create a workable infrastructure. This resulted in long hours, lots of frustration,

and little sleep for those involved. “I remember literally going home at one in the

morning and getting up again at five and coming back into the studio,” he said.92

There also was the day-to-day constant pressure from Diller, Eisner, and Masini about the direction the show was headed. Each day after the show aired, and sometimes during the show, the “ET” staff would receive thoughts and comments from the

103 executives. “They were there commenting on every show,” remembered Hirsen, who as

director, came into close contact with them every day. “I’m not saying they were wrong,

but Goldhammer would be in the control room every day, driving me nuts, and Rich

[Frank] or Randy [Reiss] would be on the floor with Andy, driving him nuts.”93 Along with content issues, the executives were not happy with the choice in co-hosts. Several weeks into the program, Diller and Eisner had decided to move Hallick off the anchor desk and into a reporter position, wanting to see how things would work with Hendren and Wallace as co-hosts. But the Paramount executives were not happy with Wallace, and made the decision to let her go at the beginning of November. “It was felt that she

[Wallace] was better at doing pieces outside the studio rather than reading information as a co-host,” said Frank in a 1981 article.94

With Wallace’s departure, and Friendly’s frustration over that decision as well as

where the show was going, he decided it was time to turn in his “ET” producer’s cap by

the end of October 1981. Frank told the Associated Press that the reason for Friendly’s

leaving was because executives wanted to “see changes in the show and Andy’s desire

was to go in another direction.” 95 And while Friendly admitted he was tired of the

wrangling involved in trying to get the show established, it was not the only reason for

his decision to leave. “I had just had enough of being told by them and everybody else

what to do,” he said with a sigh. “It really wasn’t just about the arguments, it was just

time for me to go. I was exhausted, I had gotten ‘ET’ up and running, and I was proud of

what we did.”96

After the blood, sweat, and tears of getting the program off the ground, sixty-five

shows into the first season, “ET’s” first producer was gone. His hand-picked staff was

104 devastated, wondering who would take over the reigns and what that change would mean

for their jobs and the future of the show they had worked so hard to bring to life. “I came

back from a shoot in Hawaii, for ‘Magnum P.I.,’” Swerdloff-Ross remembered, “and

Andy was gone. And at that point, I think the whole focus of the show changed.”97 That

changed focus would set off a new chain of events and begin to define how

“Entertainment Tonight” would evolve over time.

105 Notes Chapter 4

1. Interview, Al Masini, December 6, 2007.

2. See Interview, Al Masini, December 3, 2007; and Telephone Interview, John Goldhammer, January 9, 2008.

3. Interview, Masini.

4. Telephone Interview, Andy Friendly, April 1, 2008.

5. Telephone Interview, Steve Paskay, April 8, 2008.

6. Telephone Interview, Bruce Cook, April 3, 2008.

7. Telephone Interview, Helaine Swerdloff-Ross, April 2, 2008.

8. Telephone Interview, Susan Haymer, April 7, 2008.

9. Telephone Interview, Vicky Gordon, April 23, 2008.

10. Telephone Interview, Ken Furman, April 2, 2008.

11. Telephone Interview, Bill Olsen, April 26, 2008.

12. See Telephone Interview, Paskay; and Telephone Interview, Olsen. Both Paskay and Olsen said Flick’s news skills and ability to write anything made him a vital part of creating content that had both style and credibility and helped get “ET” off the ground.

13. Telephone Interview, Bob Flick, April 10, 2008.

14. Telephone Interview, Catherine Mann, April 9, 2008.

15. Telephone Interview, Robin Leach, December 27, 2007.

16. Telephone Interview, Shauna Zurbrugg, April 9, 2008.

17. Telephone Interview, Steve Hirsen, April, 9, 2008.

18. Telephone Interview, Cheri Brownlee, April 10, 2008.

19. Telephone Interview, Friendly.

106 20. Ibid.

21. Ibid.

22. Telephone Interview, Hirsen.

23. Telephone Interview, Paskay.

24. Telephone Interview, Gordon.

25. See Telephone Interview, Furman; and Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross. The opinion of every producer interviewed for this dissertation was that this initial team was extremely talented and fun to work with, and most have stayed friends to this day.

26. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

27. Telephone Interview, Haymer.

28. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

29. Telephone Interview, Friendly.

30. Telephone Interview, Ed Meyer, March 19, 2008.

31. Interview, Masini.

32. Interview, Friendly. Most of the pieces for “ET’s” first week were put together in the weeks before. Breaking news and news of the day was written on the day that the program aired, but the majority of segment and feature pieces were edited in advance of their airing.

33. Ibid. Friendly had to meet with and listen to the executives’ ideas almost every day and said that the process could sometimes take hours, taking him away from the every day, hands-on responsibilities that he had to perform to get the show ready in time for its premiere.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

36. Interview, Masini.

37. Telephone Interview, Leach.

38. Telephone Interview, Haymer.

107

39. Telephone Interview, Mann.

40. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

41. Telephone Interview, Cook.

42. Telephone Interview, Gordon.

43. Telephone Interview, Frank.

44. Telephone Interview, Leeza Gibbons, January 28, 2008.

45. See Telephone Interview, Olsen; and Telephone Interview, Cook. Both remember many staff members making jokes and teasing each other about the prevalence of actors and musicians with the letter “B” in their names that appeared on the show for much of its first month.

46. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

47. Telephone Interview, Gordon.

48. Telephone Interview, Furman.

49. Ibid.

50. Telephone Interview, Haymer.

51. Telephone Interview, Zurbrugg.

52. Telephone Interview, Leach.

53. Telephone Interview, Zurbrugg. As a researcher, Zurbrugg initially collected still shots and pictures to create the visual part of the “ET” library. It was not until the program was well underway that the video portion of the library began to grow, as celebrities realized that getting a camera out to shoot them at work was a great form of publicity.

54. Telephone Interview, Frank.

55. Telephone Interview, Haymer.

56. Telephone Interview, John Ridgeway, April 23, 2008.

108 57. “Case Study: ‘Entertainment Tonight,’” Via Worldwide (2006), http://www.viaworldwide.net/etCS.html (accessed on March 23, 2008).

58. Telephone Interview, Ridgeway.

59. Telephone Interview, Hirsen.

60. “Case Study: ‘Entertainment Tonight.’”

61. Telephone Interview, Ridgeway.

62. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

63. Interview, Masini.

64. Telephone Interview, Leach.

65. Telephone Interview, Friendly.

66. Telephone Interview, Paskay.

67. Telephone Interview, Haymer.

68. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

69. Telephone Interview, Furman; All of the producers interviewed mentioned that they attempted to ask pointed questions or find a newsy angle to their stories, while still keeping some of the celebrity aspect to their pieces.

70. Telephone Interview, Cook.

71. Telephone Interview, Hirsen.

72. Telephone Interview, Flick.

73. Telephone Interview, Friendly.

74. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

75. Television, “Monday,” New York Times, September 13, 1981.

76. Telephone Interview, Friendly.

109 77. The analysis of the September 14, 1981 premiere was conducted February 21, 2008 at the UCLA Film and Television Archives in Los Angeles. A beta tape of the program was watched and analyzed for descriptive information.

78. Interview, Masini.

79. Telephone Interview, Olsen.

80. Interview, Masini.

81. Telephone Interview, Olsen.

82. Telephone Interview, Ridgeway.

83. Ibid.

84. Telephone Interview, Brownlee.

85. The analysis of the first week’s programs was conducted February 21-22, 2008, at the UCLA Film and Television Archives in Los Angeles. Beta tapes of the first week’s programs were watched and analyzed for descriptive information.

86. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

87. Telephone Interview, Haymer.

88. Jim Bellows, The Last Editor: How I Saved the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the LA Times from Dullness and Complacency ( City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2002), 251.

89. Gordon Bok, “Entertainment Tonight,” Variety, September 23, 1981, 54.

90. Jamie Gold, “Entertainment Tonight,” Washington Post, September 13, 1981.

91. Telephone Interview, Friendly.

92. Ibid.

93. Telephone Interview, Hirsen.

94. Jerry Buck, “Shakeup for Industry Newscast,” Associated Press, October 31, 1981 from http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/results/docview/ docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3968731185&format=GNBFI&sort=null&start DocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3968741658&cisb=22_T3968741657&treeMax=true&tr eeWidth=0&csi=304478&docNo=1 (accessed on May 23, 2008).

110

95. Ibid.

96. Telephone Interview, Friendly. Several other producers interviewed implied that Friendly left because his agent also was Marjorie Wallace’s agent, and his leaving was a show of solidarity. However, Friendly did not confirm this in his personal interview.

97. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

111 Chapter 5: Moving Forward

“Everything changed because Paramount said we were tired of being called fluff.” 1 Helaine Swerdloff-Ross, “ET” Senior Segment Producer (1981)

As “Entertainment Tonight” entered its first sweeps period in November 1981, the show suddenly found itself without a producer and without a clear direction. Segment producers and directors were struggling with creating a look and feel for feature pieces even as celebrities began to agree to appear on the program. After airing a month and a half of shows, despite the identity crisis, “ET” was beginning to be seen as a potential promotional vehicle by some Hollywood agents and managers. However, the critics were still dismissive of the show and that worried Paramount executives. Debates occurred daily among the executives, writers, and producers over what other type of content would go into the program, what type of feature pieces were acceptable, and how the overall content of the show should be reported. In addition, Paramount’s top executives, Barry

Diller, Michael Eisner, and Rich Frank were frantically trying to determine who could replace Andy Friendly.

The show was still in its infancy, and despite its growing clout with Hollywood, was struggling to find an audience as well as more potential local stations to sign on.

Throughout the next few months, significant changes would be made in staffing and in the way content was shaped and sought. “ET” would get a new executive producer, managing editor, and co-host in addition to a new motto for how entertainment news

should be covered. All these changes would eventually steer the program in a new

112 direction, although one not everybody found comfortable. This chapter examines what

went on during that period of change and how it set the stage for what was to come.

Life After Friendly

Replacing Friendly as the show’s producer was not an easy job for the Paramount executives. While the search was underway a temporary producer needed to step in to

take over daily news operations and ensure the program made air. This task fell to Vice

President of Paramount for Domestic Distribution John Goldhammer. He had been

involved with the program from the start in an executive capacity, but as he moved into a

more hands-on producing role, he began to find ways to enforce his belief that the show

should have a lot of credibility and not be just a pure gossip show.2 With his rule firmly in

place that all stories must be confirmed by two independent sources before airing he

began to look for specific ways to bring the show more credibility in its format and

content. He also was torn between the two warring sides about the show’s style and

development. Coming from the Paramount side, especially as an acting VP for the

company, he knew that Diller and Eisner thought the program should evolve as a newsy,

entertainment-industry oriented program. However, he also answered to Al Masini and

the program partners who wanted the focus of “ET” to stay on the glitz and glamour of

celebrities and Hollywood. Finding a successful balance between both positions was no

easy task, although Goldhammer had a pragmatic philosophy about it: the show could not

survive unless it contained a mix of both news and glamorous entertainment stories.3

Goldhammer’s take charge attitude and willingness to work hard impressed his staff, and many credited him with keeping the program alive. “John saved the show,”

113 stated associate producer Bruce Cook. “It would have gone down the tubes and gone off

the air in weeks without him.”4 Director Steve Hirsen said Goldhammer’s producing style worked because he gave his staff good directions and trusted them to do what they did best: tell stories that made sense.5 Segment producer Helaine Swerdloff-Ross recalled that

she thought the whole focus and direction of the show changed with the advent of

Goldhammer as producer.6 In general, the staff was happy that the show had a producer,

even temporarily, who seemed to have a strong desire to give “ET” a more coherent and

defined focus, even if that focus could only come about through major change.

The appearance of a new co-host after Marjorie Wallace left the show at the end

of October 1981 was a major change. Dixie Whatley was hired and began work the week

after Wallace’s departure. Whatley had been anchoring the weekend newscast at local

station KTLA in Los Angeles and had a strong background as a television news reporter

and anchor. That news background, she believed, was key to getting the job. “They were

trying to change into a newer, more newsy format,” she said, “so they decided to hire a

newswoman and that was me.”7 For Whatley, working on “ET” was a whirlwind

experience in those first months, especially because she had no formal experience or

heavy involvement in the entertainment world. She did not do much reporting when she

first arrived, spending most of her day doing voice recordings for some of the produced

stories before taping the show in the late morning with co-host Ron Hendren. The co-

hosting duties were somewhat strange to Whatley, who was used to following a news

schedule of a full day of reporting and newsgathering. However, she said she pushed the

strangeness aside and did what she had been hired to do: act as a co-host. It helped that

she continued to work for and anchor KTLA’s weekend newscast, although she admitted

114 life was rather crazy at the time. “I went from being a part time anchor and reporter to a

full time anchor, on two different shows, with two different , and completely

different ways of looking at things,” she recalled.8

As Whatley adapted to her new role as co-host and Goldhammer began a push for

more substance to the stories being reported, the show was adapting to the growing

demands of the increasingly interested Hollywood community. By early November,

celebrities were beginning to take notice of the program that seemed to enjoy focusing on

their lives and their newest projects. Segment producers found that even though they had

to continually beg agents and managers to get access to the stars, some began to seek them out in hope of getting promotional time for their star clients’ newest projects. While many stars were still wary of the program, producers said they started receiving a few more invitations to visit the sets of ongoing television and movie projects, a welcome excuse not only to interview the stars but to get video of them at work and behind the scenes as well.9 Segment producer Ken Furman recalled that initially, singer Billy Joel,

who was hugely popular at the time, refused to come on the show. However, Furman said

that once Joel saw an interview he did on “ET” with the band The Who, his people called

him up and said he would come on the show.10 Swerdloff-Ross remembered the influence

that Robin Leach’s coverage of well-known talent agent Swifty Lazar’s Oscar party in

1982 had on getting guests onto the program. “Robin didn’t really want to do it at the

time because he was busy doing other entertainment stories,” she said. “But he went with

it because he knew it would help the show. And it did. After that, we got great interviews

on the red carpet and all from all kinds of Hollywood celebrities.”11

115 By early November of 1981, “ET” could be seen on 117 stations across the country, reaching more than 60 percent of television viewers.12 Meanwhile, in an effort to

promote the fledgling program to possible new station buyers, producers took out

advertisements in trade magazines. For example, a two-page spread in the November 2,

1981, issue of Broadcasting & Cable featured an advertisement touting how well “ET”

was doing in its timeslots across the nation. The ad focused on the fact that the “ET”

audience had grown since the premiere, total viewing was up 29 percent for the month of

October, and more importantly, the growth was in the category of women and men ages

18 to 49, the key audience demographic at the time. The same advertisement featured

ratings data from top markets in the north, south, east, and west regions of the United

States, all showing an increase in viewership in October. There also were quotations from

managers and programmers across the country who claimed the

program was a “breakout success,” a “prototype for television in the 1980s,” and the

“future of television.”13

Much of this promotional campaign also was geared towards combating the bad

timeslots the program had fallen into in several major markets, such as New York and

Los Angeles. The program aired at 4:30 in the afternoon on independent stations in both

cities, which meant that most people never saw the show because they were not home

from work. This included the executives and stars upon which the program was based.14

These timeslot issues in the two biggest television markets in the United States were a big

part of why the first season of “ET” was a rocky one, especially when it came to building

ratings and establishing the show’s credibility. The program did well in markets where it aired during the Prime Time Access hour that began at 7 p.m. but faltered in markets

116 where it received an earlier timeslot, such as 4 p.m. or 4:30 p.m., or a later timeslot, such

as 11:30 p.m. after the local news.15

The bad timeslots in the major markets, along with harsh criticism from the press,

were issues not taken lightly by Paramount executives or the “ET” production staff.

Goldhammer continued working with his writing and editing teams to come up with the

important entertainment news of the day to report around the feature segments, while

segment producers continued to struggle with what style and form those feature segments

would take. However, despite enjoying their jobs and the fledgling respect the program

was garnering from Hollywood, several of the segment producers felt something was

missing from the program. Producer Vicky Gordon summed it up: “I enjoyed it, I loved

my colleagues, but I think we all felt we wanted the show to be more hefty, that it wasn’t

as hefty as it could be.”16 Of course, figuring out how to make the program “more hefty”

was exactly what Goldhammer was attempting to do. Friendly had set the stage for the

program, created the template, and gotten the program to air, but it now fell to

Goldhammer and his staff to try and define “ET” in a way that would cement its future in

the television and entertainment news industry.

Goldhammer knew that drastic changes were going to have to occur to keep the

program alive and give it more of the weight that the staff was hoping to find, not to

mention appease the critical press. One change was clearly stamped in his mind because of an unforgettable that he received from Paramount chairman Barry

Diller. Goldhammer had been sitting in his office when the telephone rang and he picked it up and heard Diller’s voice. “Barry said to me, ‘The writing’s terrible, fix it’. And I said, ‘Barry, what is it about the writing--’ CLICK.”17 With that abrupt telephone

117 conversation, he knew something had to be done about the show’s writing, but the

question was what. “ET” had several main writers, including Bob Flick, who crafted the lead story every day, Dick Adler, and Steve Paskay, who wrote much of the rest of the copy and the program’s teases, the short bit of copy read before a commercial break to

“tease” the viewer into tuning back into the program after the break. Flick was the senior writer, having spent years working for CBS and NBC news, while Paskay and Adler came from production and writing backgrounds as well. “We tried to be playful and punny and intriguing,” said Paskay about writing stories. “For its day, I think our style of

writing was in a very sort of teasing way.”18 Flick believed the writing style in the early

days of “ET” was more creative and focused on people making news in all elements of

the entertainment world, not just the glitz and glamour or the show business industry news.19 Much of this writing entailed reporting on the latest box office numbers,

television schedules, industry news, and, of course, lighter, fluffier stories of red carpet

events and parties. All stories had to have some type of hook to draw in viewers, yet still

maintain the feeling of being a news story about entertainment.

Despite what the writers felt about the program’s early style, Diller’s comment

about improving the writing made Goldhammer realize the executives were still looking

for something that the program apparently was not providing. Regardless of whether this

attitude was because of the bad reviews or the ongoing struggle over the program’s

content, Goldhammer, Paramount, and Masini decided to search for someone who they

hoped could bring “ET” to a new level. To get to there, whomever they hired would need

to find a way to bring an infallible news credit to the program, improve the writing, and

create newsworthy content, thus hopefully alleviating the critical reviews and the worries

118 that Paramount had about continuing to make the show attractive to local affiliates. “The

search was on,” recalled reporter Robin Leach of this process, “for someone who came out of the news business and could not be faulted with his credentials if he was running

“ET.”’20 That search eventually led Paramount to famed newspaper editor Jim Bellows.

Bringing In Bellows

Bellows had spent more than thirty years editing and championing underdog

newspapers such as the , the Washington Star, and the Los

Angeles Examiner. These smaller newspapers were constantly competing with their much

bigger counterparts, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles

Times; and he made his reputation through innovative ideas and bold moves geared

towards making the smaller papers more competitive. He also served as managing editor

of and associate editor of the Los Angeles Times. While an editor at

these papers, he had been the initiator of “The Ear” gossip column in the Washington Star

and “Page Two” at the Herald-Examiner. 21

From 1978 to 1981, Bellows was working at the Herald Examiner and by the time

“ET” came calling, he was ready for a change. In his 2002 memoirs, he recalled how he was approached about the job. Diller called to ask if he had ever thought about running a

television show about entertainment news. Bellows had not but told him he would be

happy to discuss the matter.22 about his employment came at Michael Eisner’s home a few weeks later. Diller had sent Bellows several tapes of the show before the meeting so he could see what the program looked like and then set up the meeting with the Paramount executives and Masini. Bellows was up front with everyone, admitting this

119 venture was something entirely new for him. “I told them,” he recalled, “‘I know what I

don’t know. I don’t know anything about television. But I’m a pretty fast learner.’”23

Despite his lack of television experience, he was soon declared the right man for

the job, with the executives relatively sure that hiring a man of his stature would increase

the show’s credibility as well as its reputation with the public and the press.24 Bellows jumped quickly into the mix, determined to learn all he could about the business while trying to figure out how to make the switch from the newspaper to the television world.

“I think if anything, I can bring to the show a greater news feeling and orientation,” he noted in a December 1981 Associated Press article. “It’s a good show now, but it can be better.”25

While Bellows was trying to find his place in the television world, the “ET” staff

seemed willing to give his way of doing things a try. However, many remember having

difficulty understanding exactly what he was trying to convey in news meetings. “It’s a

hard thing to do, to break into that kind of show with a hard news background without

any television experience,” said Flick about Bellows’ attempts to make his television

staff understand what he wanted from them.26 Reporter Catherine Mann was not quite sure what to make of him at first, noting that he would simply give her his take on what she should do for a story, “wave his hand in the air like a genie,” and she would go do it,

whether she completely understood it or not.27 Producer and writer Bill Olsen recalled

Bellows going into what the staff called “high rotor” when trying to describe what he wanted out of a story. “He would start saying these ideas and his hands would go up in the air and spin, and we would go, ‘Oh, Bellows is in high rotor.’”28 Bellows said he

knew what he wanted to say, and could say it in a way newspaper people could

120 understand, but he had no idea how to convey his thoughts as clearly for the television

medium. His solution? Leaving Goldhammer to translate what he called “Bellows-

speak.29

As a newspaperman trying to convey his thoughts on television, Bellows had to

train himself to think in new ways, especially learning how the television

operated. He remembered thinking the newsroom was a lot louder than a newspaper

newsroom, and he was unfamiliar with the frenetic activity that went on involving the

news desk, the edit bays, and taping schedules in the TV newsroom. He also found

himself trying to get accustomed to dealing with stories involving video and audio

components as well as the technical processes that went into putting the show on air

daily.30 Most importantly, his main job was to find a way to bring more credibility to a

show that was about a topic that most people considered fluffy, entertainment, and

celebrity. “I was from the news side of the business,” he remembered. “You have to have

some glitz and glamour, but you had to have news in there so the program would be

respected.”31

As his first week of work reflected, Bellow’s transition from newspaper to

television was not a dull one. His first day of work was Monday, November 25, and on

Friday of that week, after only five days on the job, actress Natalie Wood drowned off of

Catalina Island. Since this was Bellow’s first week dealing with a television newsroom,

Goldhammer recalled his colleague standing in the newsroom as the news broke, alternating between looking like a “kid in a candy store or a deer in headlights.”32

Bellows called the news event his “baptism by fire in TV.”33 “ET” managed to pull things

121 together and provide continuing coverage of Wood’s death and the mysterious circumstances surrounding it.

The coverage of that story was a moment that many involved with “ET” cite as a defining point for the program, as well as a ratings booster. “We were the first ones to cover that story, and we stayed with it. Everyone looked to us to find out more about the story,” said Masini.34 Writer Steve Paskay gave a lot of credit for the coverage of Wood’s

death to the fact that Ron Hendren was vacationing on Catalina Island that weekend and

was there to cover the story from the beginning.35 Associate producer Bruce Cook

recalled the moment he knew “ET” had established some news credibility, when he got a

telephone call at 3 a.m. from the police, saying the actress had drowned. “I realized at

that moment that ‘ET’ must have some purpose if the police are calling me to tell me this potential story.”36 While Bellows did not remember doing much except watching how the

story was covered, he said he was impressed by how the “ET” staff reacted to it.37

An example of the type of coverage of Wood’s death that impressed Bellows and the staff can be seen in the December 5, 1981, “ET” broadcast.38 The program, airing

several days after her death, led with “the investigation continues” aspect of Wood’s

death, giving the latest update on the drowning, and then it went into a retrospective look

at her life, her childhood, her film career, and her most recent work, through still shots

and photographs of her, and video from her movies Miracle on 34th Street and West Side

Story. After her history was laid out, viewers were informed again of how she died, complimented by video of helicopters flying over the water off Catalina Island and of Wood, her husband Robert Wagner, and fellow actor Christopher Walken were on at the time of the drowning. The coverage included a long press conference soundbite from

122 the coroner, who spoke about Wood’s blood alcohol level at the time of her death and

addressed rumors that an argument that Wood and Wagner had before she drowned might

have had something to do with her death. “ET” crews then laid out a history of what

Wood and Wagner had done on the night before, including an interview with the owner of the restaurant that the couple had dined in that evening. An “ET” reporter then went back to the coroner’s office in an effort to “dig deeper” into the case and let the coroner speak for another minute on his investigation into Wood’s death, although there was not

much new information to report. Then, there was video of the service,

emphasizing the celebrities who were in attendance. Finally, the coverage wrapped up

with a lengthy interview with Wood’s good friend Thomas Thompson, who talked about

how wonderful she was and her lust for life and how devastated Wagner felt about his

wife’s death.

The coverage involved many aspects of the Wood case, and producers believed its

success was because they told the facts and did not get into too much salacious gossip.39

Segment producer Helaine Swerdloff-Ross partly credited her close association with

Robin Leach and both of their friendships with Wagner for allowing “ET” to perform the

intense, thoughtful coverage that included interviews with all of the relevant parties,

including celebrities who might not speak to other news organizations. “From that point

on in my mind,” she recalled, “we gained a lot of legitimacy.”40 That was reflected in the

fact that the national networks were now coming to “ET” to ask for footage of the

drowning and some of the interviews that had been done with officials, Wagner, and

Walken. The coverage also was garnering a much better reaction from critics. According

to Goldhammer, reviews of “ET’s” coverage were much less vitriolic, with nods to the

123 fact that hiring a newspaperman resulted in the show doing a much more credible

reporting job of entertainment news stories. “He [Bellows] and I looked at each other and

cracked up, I mean, because what the press wanted was they wanted their own in there

[inside ‘ET’]. So they got ‘em,” he reminisced.41

Getting the Feel of Things

With Wood’s death acting as Bellows’ baptism into the world of television news,

he quickly went to work on trying to bring a newsier feel to the program. Regardless of

his television inexperience, he believed the bottom line, be it for newspaper or television,

was accurately and compellingly reporting the news, and he was confident in his

knowledge of how to do that.42 He immediately jumped into the discussion over where

the show was headed and like Goldhammer, was of the opinion that “ET” could not be

the or “60 Minutes,” but it had to have a credible mix of both genres to

have credibility and attract celebrities and viewers to the program. “I felt the show should

be a mixture of the ‘MacNeil/Lehrer Report’ and People magazine,” Bellows said. “We

have to please the viewers as well as the critics.”43

To get the show a credible stature, Bellows and Goldhammer focused on covering

celebrity events and premieres as news events instead of just using them as a chance to

talk to the stars. Most of the staff vividly remembered Bellows’ motto for achieving this:

“When we go to a party we are not there to taste the shrimp.”44 It meant reporters were there to find the news behind the events, not just to report which celebrity showed up and what they were wearing. Reporters should be asking celebrities’ tougher questions about what they thought had occurred in Wood’s death, drug problems, and the latest studio

124 conflicts among other things.45 As part of an effort to build this tougher style of reporting,

Bellows began to bring in reporters with more investigative reporting skills and news

backgrounds. These reporters focused on more investigative pieces, pieces that Bellows

noted delved into the entertainment industry’s shadowy corners, such as drug problems,

sexual sleaze on cable TV, and the career problems of black actors in a white-dominated

business.46

Robin Leach was not keen on this harder angle philosophy, although he followed

it to some extent. He recalled telling Masini at one point that people did not want to hear

celebrities talking about Hollywood issues. They wanted to see Suzanne Somers in a

bubble bath, preparing for a stage role in a Shakespeare play, not hear her talk about the

greatness of Shakespeare; or they wanted to learn what Ryan O’Neal was thinking after several well-publicized physical fights with his girlfriend , not just his

thoughts on fighting related to the latest pro-boxing match.47 Segment producers also

tried to inject the harder questions into their feature interviews, but they did not always

find it an easy task.

Reporter Catherine Mann remembered one of the biggest issues she faced was

trying to find the news angle of a celebrity story without offending the celebrity. For

example, during an interview with actor , she recalled asking him what

he thought about criticism that his movies were too violent and not a good influence on

children. “No matter how I approached it, straight out or sugar coated, in sixteen different

ways, he did not want to answer and eventually walked out,” she remembered.48 She managed to get enough to put her piece together but said it was awkward when she tried to address the violence issue without having Stallone actually commenting on it. Segment

125 producer Swerdloff-Ross found her reputation on the line several times thanks to the “ask harder questions” philosophy, even though she understood what Bellows was trying to do. “Every story had to have a news hook,” she recalled, “that’s what Bellow’s taught me

and I never forgot.”49 The trick was finding a way to slip tough questions into a lighter interview, to find that one piece of information that would hook the audience. She remembered getting on the bad side of managers and agents because an “ET” reporter would ask a question that had specifically been forbidden by the star or his or her manager. Her most memorable example occurred during an interview with one of the stars of the hit television show “.” The actor being interviewed had been

in the media for personal problems, and in order to get the interview, the reporter

Swerdloff-Ross was working with had promised not to ask questions about that situation.

However, the reporter went ahead and asked the questions, and as Swerdloff-Ross

recalled, “All hell broke lose and I had to go head to head with Jim [Bellows].”50

Music producer Ken Furman faced the same challenges when dealing with the musicians he attempted to get on the show. While music fell third on the list of important things to cover, behind television and movie celebrities according to the “ET” hierarchy, stories still had to have some relevance or a hook.51 Just like movie and television stars,

rock stars and musicians also had darker sides and Furman believed getting that type of expose was not always beneficial in helping establish the program. The example he gave involved the rock group . Right before the Grammy Awards one year, one of the band members was arrested for using drugs. Furman said he could not be sure the story was totally accurate, especially since the musician in question had not been convicted. He told Bellows it might to not run the story for that reason but also because he was

126 pretty certain that if “ET” ran with it, the program would not get any interviews from

Toto, the hot band of the moment. But the decision was made to go ahead and run it, and

Toto refused to come on the show or give any interviews to “ET” after sweeping the

awards that year.52

As reporters and producers tried to find the news hook in celebrity events while still keeping the glitz and glamour, Bellows began to work on the format of the program with the director and writers. “My marching orders were to make it look like a newscast, there’s no question about that,” recalled director Steve Hirsen.53 In an effort to do this, a

more solid format and structure were created for the program. The lead story would be

the most important story of the day, usually an investigative or harder-edged piece about

the industry and/or celebrities making news. Flick had the job of writing the lead stories, and fellow producers credit him with helping establish the show’s pattern and rhythm.54

He said he simply did what he was told: write a compelling beginning and end to the

show. “I didn’t go to the parties,” he said, “I didn’t care to meet the stars, they had plenty

of people to do that, but I wrote well and that’s what I did.”55 After the lead story, there

would be the news of Hollywood and the entertainment industry, followed by the features

about celebrities, most being promotional pieces involving behind-the-scenes video of

movie and TV shows as well as interviews. Most of these stories were gathered by

writers, who spent a good deal of their mornings reading industry trade magazines and

newspapers as well as wire copy to find the latest happenings in the entertainment world.

Many staff members also spent the early part of the mornings calling contacts and

sources, trying to get confirmation of whatever had been reported in another source.

127 “Developing our own sources was key,” said writer Paskay. “We couldn’t always rely on

papers and magazines for our news.”56

Staffers also would find inspiration for stories by watching the morning news programs each day. Particularly important were Rona Barrett’s gossip reports that aired daily on ABC's “Good Morning America.” Hirsen remembered being leery of this in the early days, when he and Flick would arrive in the newsroom and see all the staff gathered around the TV. “We would go, ‘Oh, My God, what happened?’” he recalled, “And then

we realized they were watching ‘Good Morning America’ and the Rona Barrett report.

Flick and I looked at each other and went, ‘What have we gotten ourselves into?’”57

Ironically, Barrett had no love for “ET.” Despite being a gossip and entertainment

reporter she said in a December 1981 Washington Post article that she thought “ET” was

a wonderful idea but horrendously executed. “It perpetuates the myth that Hollywood is

silly, that Hollywood has no substance, and what’s the purpose? There’s no point of view

on that show,” she told the reporter.58

Once the stories were gathered from the numerous sources, along with a list of

everything that had been pre-produced for the day, Bellows, Goldhammer, Flick, Hirsen,

Paskay, fellow writer Dick Adler, operations manager Mike O’Gara, and anyone else on

the news staff lucky enough to be invited, settled down at a large table to wrangle out what stories were important enough to make that day’s show. As a part of this process,

they had a daily document called the “ET Situationer.” This was a twenty-to-thirty page

document that would show everything the show was doing that day, complete with

detailed descriptions of feature pieces from all of the reporters and segment producers,

along with the itineraries of the crews of photographers, editors, and other assistants,

128 spelling out specifically where they would be at all times of the day. Assistant operations

manager Ed Meyer was in charge of putting this document together and said it was an

arduous process. “I had to find out every story that was being done, solve any problems,

technical or otherwise, that might come up with the story, and try to calm all the egos.”59

The story selection process was never a dull one, according to those who sat in on these meetings. Everyone involved had strong opinions on what stories would work and where they would fit into the program.60 When the decisions were made, everyone went

to work on their specific areas. Hirsen and his crew dealt with the production process,

including graphics and camera shots; segment producers went off to work on finalizing

and editing their pieces; Flick removed himself to work on writing the lead and close of

the show; and Goldhammer, Paskay and Adler began to craft everything else for the

program. Along with creating a rundown and selecting the story order for the day, a good

part of this process also involved writing the internal copy for some of the stories that the

co-hosts would read while video played as well as the teases for upcoming stories.61

Paskay said that while they usually left the writing of the segment feature pieces to the

producers and sometimes the reporters, there were times when they would step in and

write those as well.62

While the writers and producers worked to get the show’s content together, the post-production staff was frantically trying to get the chosen pieces edited as well as the rest of the video needed for that day’s show. Cheri Brownlee was in charge of all post- production and recalled having to spend most of her day overseeing editors and planning out editing schedules for the fifteen to twenty pieces produced each day. She said in an effort to get organized, she once put up a huge board with all of the stories and the time it

129 would take to edit each piece. Ironically, that was the day that the Paramount executives,

Diller, Eisner, and Frank came to see what she was doing, looked at the board, and

demanded to know why it took so long to edit the show. “I erased my board and said I’m

never going to do that again,” she laughed.63

While Brownlee worked through the editing process, director Hirsen and his

production crew were attempting to figure out what graphics, camera shots, and music to

use to help make the day’s program look appealing yet still credible to viewers. He was

very careful in choosing what type of video or graphic effect went with each story. For

example, he rarely chose to dissolve (a video effect that fades out one piece of video

while fading in another) between pieces unless it was an obituary, when he would fade to

a black screen out of a photograph of the deceased before going to the commercial break.

The use of double boxes that flew in and out of the screen helped co-hosts move between

pieces in a more creative way than simply cutting from one piece to another. In addition,

he said the flips and spins of the on-screen graphics helped alert viewers that there was a

definite end to one segment before another began.64

After years of directing local and network news programs, Hirsen said he had a

pretty good feel for the look that “ET’ was attempting to establish. “The look of ‘ET’ was slicker, featuring a more Hollywood style of effects,” he recalled. “I felt we had a

reasonably good feel for what it was supposed to be without insulting the masses.”65

Graphic designer John Ridgeway felt confident by the fourth month of production that

the show had developed the beginnings of a good brand, thanks to its graphic design and look. He noted that people had begun to “brand,” or recognize and associate entertainment news, with the “ET” logo and the signature .66 However,

130 debate arose over the unique theme song. Writer Paskay remembered having to fight to

keep the theme because Diller hated it and demanded a change after the show’s first few

months. Paskay, after looking at the composer’s contract, told him that the contract

Paramount had signed stated the theme could not be changed in the middle of a season.67

He also told Diller that the show was just beginning to be recognized by its signature

theme. In fact, segment producers noted that when reporters went into the field to do

interviews, they often found celebrities would hum or sing the beginning of the theme

song. To illustrate this Paskay edited clips of the different stars from the interviews

singing the theme and sent it to the executives at Paramount. Needless to say, the theme

remained.68

Death and Credibility

With the more newsy format and slicker graphic look in place by early 1982,

“ET’ was emerging as a player in the entertainment and news world. Celebrities were

definitely taking notice of the program and what it was doing for their business, and the

Hollywood community seemed to be responding well. Having gained some media

credibility for the coverage of Wood’s death, and the probing questions now being asked

of celebrities during interviews, “ET” was constantly striving to make this mix and style

of content work. Another defining opportunity to do this came again as the result of a

celebrity tragedy. This time it was the death of actor John Belushi from a drug overdose on March 5, 1982.

John Goldhammer and Rich Frank vividly remembered the day Belushi died.

Frank was having lunch in the Paramount commissary with fellow executives Eisner and

131 Diller when he got the call that something had happened to Belushi. He got off the

telephone, looked at his companions, and rose to leave. “I said, ‘I have to leave,’” he

recalled. “‘That’s our beat, we have to cover this better than anybody else ever.’”69

Goldhammer had received a call from a confidential source, telling him that Belushi had

died of a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles, but his source was

adamant that the information could not come from him. The staff had to find two other

sources to confirm his death. With that in mind, he called the one segment producer still

at the studio that Friday afternoon.70 Vicky Gordon clearly remembered that call from

Goldhammer. She had been sitting alone in her office when he called and told her that

she had to confirm what was happening with Belushi. Gordon used her contacts and

called his manager, but it was his assistant that answered the telephone. “I said, ‘I’ve just

heard something terrible. I’ve just heard that John Belushi has died, and I need you to tell

me it’s not true,’” Gordon recalled. “And she said, ‘I can’t.’”71 A second call to Belushi’s

close friend, actor Chevy Chase, whom Gordon had worked with on a story before,

provided a second source confirmation and she and her fellow producers began their

mission to cover the story as comprehensively as possible.

Associate producer Bill Olsen remembered the lucky positioning of segment

producer Jim Zeigler, who happened to be shooting a piece on the latest National

Lampoon movie and heard the news that afternoon from the cast and crew, who were friends of Belushi. He immediately headed for the Chateau Marmont and ended up being the only photographer on hand when the coroner brought out the body bag.72 Meanwhile, researchers and other staff members attempted to gather all of the information, pictures, and video that they could find to put together an obituary and other related materials to

132 help tell the story of the life and death of Belushi. While researchers worked at the “ET”

studios, Gordon and a camera crew had set out to get yet another angle, the first interview

with Chase, Belushi’s confidant.73 He died on a Friday morning, which meant that by the

time “ET” had been notified and confirmed the death, it was already early afternoon and the day’s show had been recorded and sent out. With no easy way to feed breaking news updates at the time, or in time to make much of the east coast airings, that meant all of the

coverage had to be put together quickly, and a late taping of the weekend program would

be the first chance to report the story. The coverage focused on telling the story of

Belushi’s life and death as well as dealing with the rumors surrounding it, including the fact that he had been partying with several famous actors on the night before. Over the next week on the program, there were stories and interviews with his friends and family,

“Saturday Night Live” cast members, and, of course, the coroner and police officials declaring he had died of an overdose. While Wood’s death had been an early turning point in the program’s history, Frank, Goldhammer, and Bellows all said that it was how

“ET” covered Belushi’s death that fully put the program on the map in the news world.74

But while the industry and now recognized “ET” for its news coverage, critics still picked its principles apart. A 1982 review in the Los Angeles Times noted, “It’s a puff show that you can fill with more has-beens than you ever dreamed of.”75 Despite the trend towards more newsy entertainment stories, and some good

reviews for coverage of events such as Belushi’s death, it was still an uphill battle

working the balance of news credibility and glitz and glamour. One of the ways that

Bellows accomplished this was through more in-depth, investigative pieces on the shadowy side of the entertainment industry. For example, one early series took an

133 investigative look into what went on behind the scenes at the National Enquirer. The series was put together by documentary producer Joe Saltzman after Bellows asked him to delve into the relationship between the National Enquirer and celebrities by talking to those who reported for the tabloid, some of whom were respectable , writing anonymously because the tabloid paid well.76 Saltzman delivered, managing to get the media shy tabloid to let “ET” crews into its offices along with total access to reporters,

publishers, and editors. Bellows said the four-part series was a great success and “gave

‘ET’ enormous credibility as a serious player in the world of journalism.”77

Another aspect of the show that “ET” was beginning to get noticed for was the

obituaries on the stars when they died. “We really specialized in death,” recalled

Swerdloff-Ross, “and as funny as it sounds, that, too, gave us a lot of credibility.”78

Paskay remembered the lengths to which producers, himself included, would go to get

video to use in the obit pieces. When he was first hired, he had begun to create an

obituary library, gathering materials on older celebrities that he thought might die in the

near future. The goal was to be prepared with video clips and footage to use when a death

occurred. However, this did not work all of the time. His most memorable example was when actor died in December 1981. Paskay had some older pictures of him, but no video of the TV show for which he was most known, “Dragnet.” “You can’t do an obit without having video of that program,” he recalled. “It just wouldn’t make sense.”79

However, “Dragnet” had been off the air and was not in syndication, and thus the situation called for desperate measures. Eventually, Paskay said he remembered that the

Los Angeles Police Department loved the show and had told him once that they showed

134 episodes to recruits at the police academy. He made a call and found the LAPD had

numerous episodes on tape and happily sent over several tapes of the program.

On the technical side of the obituary production, director Hirsen recalled his

entire crew going into what he called “funeral mode” when a celebrity died. The goal

would be to come up with creative dissolves and graphics, music transitions, and styles to

flow in and out of the obituary pieces. Having spent so much time in the news world, he

said he knew pretty quickly the best way to use camera shots, graphics, and other

production techniques to showcase the obituary when it aired in the program. He also

added he had gotten fairly comfortable with doing obituaries since celebrities were

always dying.80

Despite the growing prominence of “ET” through publicity, investigative and feature reporting, and stellar obituaries, producers had mixed feelings on what this change towards more hard-edged entertainment news was doing to the program. To

Swerdloff-Ross, the change made it harder to attract guests because stars who had begun to come to the show for publicity were backing off now that they could not control the questions. “We went from nobody wants to do the show, to it being a publicist’s dream, to being a news show and no one wanted to do it again,” she said.81 Shauna Zurbrugg, one of the show’s original researchers and producers, thought the change worked because the program was allowing reporters with a news background to bring their experience to covering entertainment news in interesting ways.82 Bellows, however, continued to push forward with his goal of making the program more news credible. With him now firmly ensconced as managing editor, and the show having a somewhat set structure and style,

Paramount intensified its search for a fulltime producer, thus allowing Goldhammer to

135 return to focusing on his executive responsibilities. Finally, in April 1982, nearly three- quarters of the way through the first season, a decision was made, and Vin Di Bona joined the “ET” team as the new show producer.

136 Notes Chapter 5

1. Interview, Helaine Swerdloff-Ross, April 2, 2008.

2. Telephone Interview, John Goldhammer, January 9, 2008.

3. Ibid. Goldhammer was frustrated by the debate, but he stuck to his belief that despite the Paramount need for good critical review (to continue to sell the program), the only way to appease everyone involved was to balance the newsy content with the glitz and glamour. This caused friction at times with his colleagues and bosses at Paramount but nothing he said he could not handle.

4. Telephone Interview, Bruce Cook, April 3, 2008.

5. Telephone Interview, Steve Hirsen, April 9, 2008.

6. Telephone Interview, Helaine Swerdloff-Ross, April 2, 2008. It should be noted that Friendly and Goldhammer had the title of “producer” of “ET.” The title “executive producer” would not be established until George Merlis took over and took on the title of EP in 1983.

7. Telephone Interview, Dixie Whatley, May 5, 2008.

8. Ibid. Whatley said that while she was anchoring the weekend newscasts at KTLA, her bosses there had no problem with her being the “ET” weekday anchor because “ET” aired on KTLA in its first season. However, when “ET” moved to KTLA’s biggest rival station in LA for its second season, she was asked to leave the weekend anchor position because of the station conflict.

9. One of the difficulties with early celebrity interviews was that they were conducted in homes thus, stars had to go out and do something, such as walk the dog, garden, etc. to give the producers opportunities to have video other than just the sit-down interview. So, getting access to stars on set, actually doing their job, was a big thing in the early years.

10. Telephone Interview, Ken Furman, April 2, 2008.

11. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

12. Vernon Scott, “‘Entertainment Tonight’ and Tomorrow,” United Press International, April 23, 1982 from: http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/ results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3739893217&format=GNBFI &sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3739893223&cisb=22_T37398 93222&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=8076&docNo=2 (accessed on May 2, 2008).

137 13. “Progress Report on Entertainment Tonight,” Broadcasting & Cable, November 2, 1981, 48-49.

14. Telephone Interview, Steve Paskay, April 8, 2008.

15. See Interview, Al Masini, December 7, 2008; Telephone Interview, Steve Paskay, April 8, 2008; and Telephone Interview, Goldhammer. All three men explained that getting the program into the 7 p.m. timeslot, especially in bigger markets, was tough during the first year because it was an unknown commodity. Station managers in New York and Los Angeles, despite being entertainment heavy cities, were not sure how it would play with their audiences and decided to be safe by putting the new program into the early afternoon timeslot.

16. Telephone Interview, Vicky Gordon, April 23, 2008.

17. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

18. Telephone Interview, Paskay.

19. Telephone Interview, Bob Flick, April 10, 2008.

20. Telephone Interview, Robin Leach, December 27, 2007.

21. Jim Bellows, The Last Editor: How I Saved the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the LA Times from Dullness and Complacency (Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2002), 1-3.

22. Ibid., 249.

23. Ibid., 251.

24. Goldhammer knew what he wanted the show to be, but he also knew that after meeting Bellows, that he was the man to bring the show the credibility it needed. Goldhammer also had no problem with letting Bellows take over as managing editor, although he was still doing the daily production job at this time and was involved in news making decisions.

25. Jerry Buck, “TV Talk: Jim Bellows and ‘Entertainment Tonight,’” The Associated Press, December 30, 1981. http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/ results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3694308839&format=GNBFI &sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3694308846&cisb=22_T36943 08845&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=304478&docNo=1 (accessed on April 29, 2008).

26. Telephone Interview, Flick.

138 27. Telephone Interview, Catherine Mann, April 9, 2008.

28. Telephone Interview, Bill Olsen, April 26, 2008.

29. Bellows, “The Last Editor,” 252.

30. Ibid.

31. Telephone Interview, Jim Bellows, April 1, 2008.

32. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

33. Bellows, “The Last Editor,” 252.

34. Telephone Interview, Al Masini, December 4, 2008.

35. Telephone Interview, Paskay.

36. Telephone Interview, Bruce Cook, April 3, 2008.

37. Telephone Interview, Bellows.

38. The analysis of the December 5, 1981, “ET” show was conducted February 21-22, 2008, at the UCLA Film and Television Archives in Los Angeles. A beta tape of the episode was watched and analyzed for descriptive information.

39. See Telephone Interview, Goldhammer; and Interview, Masini. Both explained that the “ET” coverage of Natalie Wood’s death was informative and interesting to viewers because it gave them the details of what happened, explored (in a non salacious way) the facts of the mysterious death, presented what others were saying about it, and included celebrity reaction, both at the funeral and with sound from her personal friends and eventually Robert Wagner. It was full, comprehensive coverage that they said could not be found in the same amount on any national, cable, or local newscast at the time.

40. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

41. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

42. Bellows, “The Last Editor,” 252.

43. Ibid., 256.

139 44. See Telephone Interview, Olsen; Telephone Interview, Paskay; and Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross. Olsen even remembered Bob Flick writing the motto in permanent ink above his desk in the “ET” newsroom.

45. Bellows, “The Last Editor,” 256.

46. Ibid., 255.

47. Telephone Interview, Leach.

48. Telephone Interview, Mann.

49. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross. She admitted that while it was tough to always find the news angle to a puff piece at the time, she realized it needed to be done and specifically credited Bellows with helping her realize that the main point to telling any story was to find a hook. This knowledge, she says, helped her throughout her career.

50. Ibid.

51. See Telephone Interview, Shauna Zurbrugg, April 9, 2008; and Telephone Interview, Furman. Both Zurbrugg and Furman, as music producers, admitted that the executives did not see the music scene as being as important as the movie and television industry. In the early years, there were struggles to get musicians on the program, but Furman said they usually managed to get some big names that the executives agreed were making news (such as The Who, Billy Joel, and Duran Duran). Both Zurbrugg and Furman also attributed this to the fact that MTV was just getting started and the focus on musicians had not escalated to what it would be in the next few years.

52. Telephone Interview, Furman.

53. Telephone Interview, Steve Hirsen, April 9, 2008.

54. See Telephone Interview, Cook; and Television Interview, Paskay.

55. Telephone Interview, Flick.

56. Telephone Interview, Paskay.

57.Telephone Interview, Hirsen. Hirsen, coming from a news directing background at CBS and NBC news, said he felt an immediate kinship with Flick, both having paid their dues and spent their early careers dealing with hard news. This kinship was especially felt as both tried to get their minds around the entertainment bent that “ET” was going to take on news.

140 58. Tom Shales, “Some Enchanted Rona: The Woman Who Made TV Safe for Hollywood ,” The Washington Post, December 3, 1981.

59. Telephone Interview, Ed Meyer, March 19, 2008.

60. See Telephone Interview, Paskay; and Telephone Interview, Olsen. Both Paskay and Olsen, along with other producers, said people would always be arguing that stories they thought were important or the different types of entertainment news that should be covered during the day’s show. Many of the feature pieces were already scheduled, so a good deal of this debate ranged over the other stories of the day, which included everything from Box Office returns, to movie premieres, and other entertainment industry developments.

61. Telephone Interview, Paskay. He noted that he was particularly proud of the teases they wrote for the show, which had to be quick and enticing, to convince people that they should stick around because some important piece of entertainment news was coming up after the break. The task was difficult, however, because as he remarked, people were not used to watching entertainment news so they had to be convinced to stick around.

62. Ibid.

63. Telephone Interview, Cheri Brownlee, April 10, 2008.

64. Telephone Interview, Hirsen.

65. Ibid.

66. Telephone Interview, John Ridgeway, April 23, 2008.

67. Telephone Interview, Paskay. This discussion also brought to light the question of what exactly a season would be for “ET,” since it aired daily and was following a daily newscast format. It was eventually determined that the mid-September of each year would be the start of a new season, based on the fact that the show premiered around that time in 1981.

68. Ibid.

69. Telephone Interview, Rich Frank, January 28, 2008.

70. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

71. Telephone Interview, Gordon.

141 72. Telephone Interview, Olsen. Being the only one there at the time, Ziegler’s footage is the only thing that exists of the moment Belushi’s body was brought out. Everyone wanted the footage and sudden was asking “ET” to provide it. Olsen says Ziegler still gets royalties today anytime any media outlet uses that clip.

73. Telephone Interview, Gordon. An addendum to the Chevy Chase interview was that he initially talked about Belushi’s drug problems and struggles. However, midway through this interview, his lawyer called and said to stop talking about anything that connected drugs to Belushi. Chase asked Gordon to blank the tape, but she stated she was not allowed to do that, so she promised to start over and never use the forbidden part of the interview. She put the piece together for the weekend show and left, the tape marked with a huge red X in the video library. Someone needed the tape that weekend for the next week’s coverage, and the entire Chase interview aired. Gordon says Chase was extremely disappointed in her and “ET” and would not come on the program for a while.

74. See Telephone Interview, Goldhammer; Telephone Interview, Frank; Interview, Masini; Telephone Interview, Cook; and Telephone Interview, Paskay. Most of the staff credited Belushi’s death, along with Woods, as the two biggest moments of news making in the first year of the program.

75. Bellows, “The Last Editor,” 257.

76. Ibid., 261.

77. Ibid., 262.

78. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

79. Telephone Interview, Paskay.

80. Telephone Interview, Hirsen.

81. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

82. Telephone Interview, Shauna Zurbrugg, April 9, 2008.

142 Chapter 6: Settling In

“There was nothing like this show when it started. We owned the format. We owned the whole notion of entertainment news coverage.” 1

Leonard Maltin, “ET” Movie Critic

By April 1982, midway through the first season, John Goldhammer had been the fill-in producer on “Entertainment Tonight” for six months. Along with his producing job he also continued in his capacity as executive vice president of development for

Paramount. Working two jobs for six months was beginning to take its toll on

Goldhammer, who often found it tough to know which job he was doing when. He remembered times when Paramount head Michael Eisner would call and Eisner’s secretary would tell Goldhammer that his boss wanted to speak to his executive vice president, not the producer of “ET.”2 Despite the stress, he said his producing months

were a wonderful time, but by April he was ready to hand the daily producing

responsibilities over to someone else. “I was dying” he recalled, “and I needed to get

back to being an executive.”3 That was fine with executives Eisner, Barry Diller, and

Rich Frank, who had been searching for months for a producer to take over the head job.

The qualifications for the new producer were that he must be able to handle the

pressure of producing a daily show but also work hand in hand with General Manager

Jim Bellows to continually develop the program’s newsy look and feel. Bellows had

established the harder-edged entertainment news philosophy that had helped appease some of the critics, but there was still a long way to go. The Paramount executives finally found their producer in a former colleague of Goldhammer’s,Vin Di Bona. Di Bona had

143 been producing documentaries for KCBS in Los Angeles and Westinghouse and knew

Goldhammer through professional circles. Bellows, Di Bona, and the dedicated staff

would work together throughout the last six months of the first season to more clearly

define and implement the type of program “ET” would be and what impact it would have

on the entertainment and news worlds. This chapter examines how “ET” progressed

throughout the final six months of the first season, gaining more of a sense of self and a sense of purpose. The progression came about thanks to a new producer, the introduction of several familiar faces, and a clearer mission for where the program was headed in the future.

A New Face

As the search for a producer to replace Goldhammer was coming to an end,

Paramount was satisfied enough with what the show had done in its first eight months to

renew it for a second season in late April 1982. “ET” was airing in 117 cities across

America and drawing almost 14 million viewers, according to an April 23, 1982 United

Press International [UPI] feature story.4 UPI Reporter Vernon Scott spoke kindly of the

show, stating, “while ‘Entertainment Tonight’ might not encourage the world to forget

’60 Minutes’ it is a lively examination of Hollywood- shenanigans and often

catches superstars off guard.”5 He also gave “ET” credit for keeping its stories quick and

concise and its feature pieces to around three minutes, which was a good thing as he

compared the attention span of the show’s audience to that of a cocker spaniel.6 Several days later, the Washington Post gave a nod to “ET” and its celebrity appeal by mentioning it in an article about how celebrities sought media attention. Phil ’s

144 talk show was named the top program that celebrities wanted to appear on, followed by

the morning news programs, ’s show, and finally “ET” and its counterparts

like “PM Magazine” and the “Merv Griffin Show.”7 Los Angeles Times TV critic Howard

Rosenberg also had remarked on the “ET” celebrity appeal, although in a much more

critical manner in his March 10, 1982, TV column. “Even the occasional worthwhile

segments and guests are only trivialized by the show’s apparent determination to ruffle

no feathers and keep celebrities happy enough so they remain willing to come on the

show and fill time,” he remarked.8 Bellows refuted these types of claims from media

critics, stating that while the hard-edged stories were important, the lighter fluff was a

natural component of the program as well. “Naturally we are going to do something with

the star, producer, or director of a new project” he said, “Some of it is puff but that’s

what interests people.”9 Despite his main goal of bringing harder news credibility to the

program, he said he never forgot the fact that there had to be a little glitz and glamour in

the mix as well.10

With the critics still harping on the fluffy content of “ET” despite the efforts of

Bellows, Paramount executives knew their next producer had to be someone who could work well with him to increase the show’s hard-edged content while still keeping it

attractive to celebrity guests. A former colleague of Goldhammer was finally deemed the

right man for the job and Di Bona’s tenure with the program began. They had worked together at Westinghouse Broadcasting and had maintained a friendship through the years. Di Bona was a documentary producer in Boston for a time before he moved to Los

Angeles to handle the Westinghouse production units for the company at the local affiliate, KCBS. With Goldhammer’s blessing and the support of the Paramount

145 executives, Di Bona reported to work in April 1982 with a specific mission: give the

show a more newsy look, and bring coherence to the special assignment pieces that were appearing in the show.11

Once settled in, Di Bona and Bellows began to brainstorm about how they could make the show reflect the harder edge of Hollywood news, yet still keep the entertainment flavor for which the program was becoming known in celebrity circles. “It was always tough,” Di Bona said,” trying to keep a story newsworthy but at the same time popular.”12 In an effort to do this, both men tried to develop more investigative reporting pieces and news feature segments that would attract attention and hopefully build the program’s credibility. “We are constantly upgrading the show with quasi-news features, they aren’t exactly earthshaking but which are of high interest to viewers,”

Bellows said in the 1982 UPI interview.”13 Those features, mostly created by Di Bona,

included things such as “Twenty-Five Years of TV in Twenty-Five Days,” which

featured twenty-five television shows and their impact on the industry, stretched over

twenty-five days; and “The Best Years of ,” which showcased the

best moments and clips from the program. He said he felt these pieces gave the show

more of a stature with the viewing audience and the Hollywood community.14 The pieces

also played on the nostalgia that many felt for the television and movie stars of earlier

years, something that several segment producers felt was an important part of covering

Hollywood in those days.15

The reporting and producing staff of “ET” also had begun to feel that they knew

what had to be done to get a story on the air that would appease their bosses. Segment

Producer Helaine Swerdloff-Ross remembered covering numerous Hollywood parties

146 with an eye to getting more than just the glitzy celebrities in attendance. “We’d toss out a

question to a star, for example, about Natalie Wood’s death, or drug issues in

Hollywood,” she recalled, “So we would try to get another piece and more information

out of a Hollywood party story.”16 But sometimes reporters’ views of what was “news”

still conflicted with editors and producers. Segment producer Susan Haymer vividly

remembered covering the Cannes Film Festival with reporter Robin Leach when riots

broke out and medical students started throwing bags of blood at celebrities on the red

carpet. She said Leach immediately stopped his celebrity interview and went to see what

was happening. She ran after him and when he stopped, she asked him why they were

covering the riot because it did not seem to be the type of story that “ET” would be

interested in. “Robin simply said, ‘We’ve got to cover it,’ and that was it, we covered it”

she recalled.17 Leach remembered the difficulty that he had in convincing “ET” producers

that the story would fit with the program’s content. “I remember trying to tell the editors

back at ‘ET’ that this was a major story of American movie stars being under attack. This

was WAR in a hundred-point type with exclamation points!” he recalled. They did not

seem to want to listen, but eventually, the story did run. “But I just scratched my head

when I hung up and said, ‘They don’t get it,’” Leach sighed.18

Reporter Catherine Mann said her attempts to bring more investigative in-depth

stories to the program were not always comfortable ones. She recalled a piece that she put together on the shady side of consulting firms, the focus of which was the highly visible firm of Frank Magid and Associates. However, Magid handled all of the consulting for

“ET” and Paramount and Mann remembered it being extremely uncomfortable to ask probing questions about the firm’s business practices. But because of Bellow’s insistence

147 that those types of probing questions needed to be asked, she did it. “We eventually did the story with a lot of consultants including Magid,” she said, “and we made them look awful because we were ‘in the news now’ and couldn’t just sugar coat things.”19

Associate Producer Bruce Cook also remembered some of the more industry-oriented pieces that the staff began to put together during this time as well. Considering that news of the business side of the entertainment industry was something everyone involved with

“ET” believed should be covered to some extent, an effort was made to make these industry-related stories appealing to the public. Examples of these types of stories included issues involving ticket pricing and how it affected the average moviegoer, movie and business dealings and financial problems, and unfair contracts and business practices among celebrities and studios.20

One of the things that Bellows and Di Bona needed to create harder-hitting news

pieces was someone who actually had some experience doing this type of reporting.

Thus, they made the decision to hire Scott Osborne to be the show’s investigative

reporter. He had spent years working in television news and was reporting for one of the local Los Angeles stations.21 Osborne remembered getting the call from Di Bona and

Bellows, who asked him if he would meet them for lunch to discuss a business

proposition. Over lunch, the two men asked Osborne to come and work for “ET.” “I said,

‘You know I’m a news guy,’” he recalled telling both men. “I don’t know what business I

would have there.”22 They told him that they wanted to create more depth and substance in the show and thought doing more investigative reporting would help achieve that.

Osborne, after some consideration, decided to take a chance on “ET” and went to work in late April 1982. He immediately began to search out harder-edged, industry-based stories.

148 He delved into the behind-the-scenes world at the television and movie studios, including

some of the more controversial issues, such as substance abuse in Hollywood and legal

battles between celebrities and studios.23 His pieces usually led the show and could stand

alone or be reported as two-or-three part series. “He did some real journalism,” said

director Steve Hirsen of Osborne. “I think it made the show more legitimate.”24

One of Osborne’s stories that eventually put “ET” news coverage into the national

spotlight, occurred only months after he had been hired. While director John Landis was

shooting Twilight Zone: The Movie in July 1982, a helicopter crash on set caused the deaths of three actors, two of whom were young children.25 The next morning,

Osborne was covering a story about a new video game in the area where the accident happened, and when he heard about the tragedy, he called his assignment editor at “ET” and said he thought they should do the story. Since it was a Friday, the editor told

Osborne if he could come up with something, maybe they could get it onto the weekend show that would tape that afternoon.26 So, Osborne headed to the scene to cover what he could, which was basically the aftermath of the accident and the reactions of the local authorities. He then rushed back to the studio to get the story together in time for the afternoon taping, and it aired over the weekend. Over the next few months, he followed the story as lawsuits were filed and blame was passed around for who was responsible for the accident.27 He put together numerous pieces on the events and people surrounding the accident, and kept viewers in the know about what was happening with the case as it progressed.

As Osborne covered the shady corners and industry business from Hollywood,

Bellows decided to bring in another well-known reporter to help beef up the show’s daily

149 news coverage. He hired reporter Barbara Howar, a writer who had worked with him at

the Washington Star, to be an “ET” correspondent based out of New York. Bellows said

Howar had a unique point of view to her reporting, being able to make political and

society news sound interesting, and wanted to see that applied to covering stories from

the Big Apple for “ET.”28 In his memoirs, Bellows recalled Howar’s response to his invitation to come work for “ET.” “She said ‘Why in God’s name would I go chasing

after a bunch of movie stars with a ?’ ‘For the money’ I said. ‘And the

fun.’”29 At first, Howar was not keen on the idea, but a few weeks later, after her friend

John Belushi died and his death made media waves, she admitted she wanted to give the

job a try. ‘The era of celebrity journalism has begun,” she told Bellows.30 Howar began to

tackle the same type of stories Osborne was reporting from Los Angeles, only focusing

on the stories unique to the entertainment world of New York and Washington.

While these investigative pieces were becoming more standard fare for the show,

Di Bona was working to get the “ET” brand and logo cemented in the public mind. One

important effort that helped this process along was getting reporters to sign off with their

name and a specific reference to “ET News” so viewers would know who was reporting

and for what show. Thus, he made it mandatory that every reporter, no matter what the

content of the piece was, had to end a produced piece with “so and so reporting for

‘Entertainment Tonight.’”31 Another tool to build the “ET” brand and bolster the

understanding that it wanted to be a news show was getting microphone flags, the plastic

or wood blocks placed around the top of the microphone, that had an “ET News” logo on

them.32 Associate segment producer Ed Meyer remembered being told by his bosses

around this time that everyone had to use the words “ET News” as much as possible

150 when out on stories or talking about the program.33 Bellows, Di Bona, and the staff were now working day and night to get Hollywood and the audience to consider “ET” as a news show as well as an entertainment program. However, in the business of covering the entertainment industry, there were some steady constants that “ET” could not do without each week, one of which was about to get a makeover.

Reviewing Maltin

Movie reviews were an important element when trying to cover the entertainment business, especially since Hollywood was constantly putting out films and looking for ways to attract an audience. The reviews also were another tactic to gain the trust of the audience by giving them information and recommendations that they needed to know about upcoming films in their local theaters.34 “ET” had a movie reviewer but the

Paramount executives and Bellows decided they wanted someone else who could bring more knowledge and credibility to movie reviews.35 They eventually found their man, but it would be a long and interesting road to hiring Leonard Maltin, who would become one of the most respected and longest running staff members at “ET.”

Maltin was a freelance writer working in New York City who published a yearly guide to the best movies, and was doing other writing projects, as well as teaching film classes now and then. He had no experience with television other than being interviewed on programs as an author but that led to his first dealings with “ET.” He had been doing the rounds of television shows to promote a new book that he had written when he got a call from an associate producer at “ET.” The producer had seen an interview that he had done on NBC’s “Today Show” about his new book called Great Movie Comedians, and

151 told him that he thought he might be someone who would be good for the program.

Maltin was then asked to come to Los Angeles to talk more. He agreed thinking he was

going to be asked to do some feature stories for the program.36 When he arrived at the

“ET” studios, he immediately met with Bellows, who told him they were looking for a new film critic and would he mind recording several reviews on the next day. Despite being a little confused, Maltin wanted the work and quickly agreed. He was introduced to writer Steve Paskay, and the two began to craft the reviews that he would tape. After signing an AFTRA agreement saying he would be paid scale for doing the two reviews,

Maltin reviewed ’s newest film Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid and the movie

musical Annie before heading back to New York. He recalled Di Bona telling him after

the tapings that he liked Maltin’s style and would hire him then and there, but that it was

up to the Paramount executives in the end. Di Bona then assured Maltin that he would be

hearing from them within a short period of time.37

Maltin went on with his life as he awaited word from Paramount that week and

headed out to a classic movie festival in Columbus, Ohio, for the weekend. He vividly

remembered walking around the dealers’ room (an area where people could buy classic

movie posters and other movie memorabilia at the festival) when a stranger approached

him. “He said, ‘Hey, you looked good on TV last night,’” Maltin recalled. “I said, ‘What

was I doing? A movie review?’ And the guy says, ‘Yeah, I think you were.’”38 It turns

out “ET” had run one of his movie reviews on Friday’s program. Confused but happy,

Maltin returned to New York to find his answering machine full of messages from friends

and family, upset that he had not told them that he was going to be on TV. “One friend

said, ‘[‘ET’ co-host] Ron Hendren said he’d like to welcome new film critic Leonard

152 Maltin,’” he remembered from the message.39 Maltin called “ET” on the next day and

asked if he had gotten the job but was told no because the show was still waiting to hear

from Paramount. Maltin went back to work but was not surprised to get a call from “ET”

again in the next week. They asked him to come back out to Los Angeles to tape a few

more movie reviews.40 After quickly seeing several movies in New York, he headed back

to Los Angeles to tape the reviews, a process he continued for nearly a year. “That was

the way I was hired, although I wasn’t officially hired for a long time,” he

recalled with a laugh.41

Maltin’s movie reviews during the first season of “ET” brought what Bellows

described as an “astuteness” to the program, which he thought was sorely needed in a

movie critic.42 Maltin credited his success to keeping to the basics of news writing and

writing in general: having a good lead, a good premise, good exposition, a good punch line, and a catchy ending. While television was not a medium with which he had much

experience, he said he learned quickly how to put together a good review that fit with the

“ET” style. One lesson that he vividly remembered in reviewing for television was that

image trumped sound every time. No matter how bad he thought a movie was, the only

promotional clips that the media were given usually contained the few exciting or action-

packed scenes in an otherwise boring film. “When you saw this exciting footage,” he

noted, “after the audience heard me say the movie was dull and laborious, my words were

meaningless.”43 Another aspect Maltin had to work with was the fact that Bellows wanted him to rate each movie on a scale from one to ten. Maltin had done this for his yearly movie guide but was not a fan of the process because he thought it was rather arbitrary and not as important as explaining what worked or did not about a movie. However, he

153 said he soon found out that Bellows was right. “People would stop me all the time and

say, ‘You know, I watch your reviews, and I know what number you’re going to say

before you say it,’” he reminisced. “I took it as a very high compliment because it meant

the tone of my review was indicating exactly how I felt.”44

Promotional Consideration

Another issue that movie reviews in general brought to the forefront for the “ET”

staff was how to deal with the various studios that wanted to be promoted on “ET,”

especially their parent company, Paramount. The issue of how much coverage to give

their parent studio compared to the other studios in Hollywood had always been a consideration in “ET” coverage. But as movie and television reviews became an important staple of the program, questions sometimes arose over what type of coverage certain studios and projects received. Maltin said it was only a problem for him one time,

after he had given a bad review to the Paramount-produced movie 2. He recalled someone at Paramount calling “ET” to ask what was going on and why “their” critic was

knocking the movie. Maltin said “ET” told Paramount that he was simply doing his job.

“I think they even had that presence of mind to say, ‘Did anybody else like it?’” Maltin

recalled. “So, it wasn’t like I was gunning for them [Paramount] or showing favoritism

for them. And that was the only time that happened to me.”45

Writer Paskay remembered fighting Paramount several times during the early

months of the show over what movies would be profiled or covered. The most

memorable experience that he recalled was when Paramount released : The

Wrath of Kahn in the summer of 1982. Local television stations across the country had

154 covered the movie opening, including the fact that fans were standing in line for hours for

the premiere. Paskay recalled Paramount sending “ET” a local Kansas City television

station’s footage of avid fans at the premiere that he then fashioned a story around.

However, on the next day, Paramount said it wanted “ET” to cover the story with its own

cameras. “I said, ‘We’ve covered that story already,’” Paskay recalled, “and there was a big explosion about it and ultimately we lost and ended up covering it again.”46 Paskay

also recalled occasionally getting a call from Paramount asking why he did not review

more Paramount-produced TV shows in his “What to Watch” weekly feature. He

explained he wrote about what he thought was worth watching, and if the program favored one TV show over another, or one network or producer over another, it would be shooting its credibility in the foot.47 However, Paskay said while these types of conversations occurred, they did not happen often.

Segment producer Swerdloff-Ross believed Paramount productions had some advantage in coverage because producers always heard about new shows that Paramount was producing. She remembered doing a five-part series on the Paramount-produced television miniseries “The Winds of War,” which would probably have gotten only one feature story if it had not been for its affiliation with Paramount. However, she added that she did not get complaints about favoritism because “ET” really prided itself on going after everything and everyone in the industry, no matter what the .48

Rich Frank found it tricky finding a balance in covering Paramount productions, but not

impossible, and added he thought “ET” did it well. “We had to walk a very fine line,” he recalled, “We couldn’t take advantage of Paramount or ignore Paramount.”49 In general,

the feeling among the “ET” staff was that while the program would cover Paramount

155 releases in general with a few exceptions, they would not give their parent company any

special treatment.

With favoritism seeming not to be a major concern to “ET” producers and

writers, Di Bona continued to work with Bellows to broaden the content on the program.

Along with investigative pieces about the shadowy side of the entertainment industry

mixed with celebrity promotional and feature pieces, and various movie and television

program reviews, there was another element to be considered that did not get as much

prominence or review but arguably was an important element in early “ET” content:

musicians and the .

Making Music

Music and musicians had been a part of “ET” from the start, but as noted before, in the pecking order of “ET” news coverage, music and musicians in general took a backseat to the movie and television celebrities.50 Music segment producer Ken Furman

remembered constantly fighting to get new and different music acts featured on the

program. “Paramount had a love hate relationship with music,” he said. “I used to have to

fight them all the time to get them to put people on that were breaking acts.”51 He said

that Paramount was a mainstream studio, and he believed it did not understand what

music group or musician was going to be the next big thing, especially some of the lesser

known and foreign artists. The program had no problem putting Billie Joel’s newest

video on and managed to get interviews with well-known names such as Barry Manilow

and the Rolling Stones, but up and coming bands like Duran Duran took a bit more

effort.52

156 Covering music events and concerts made up a good part of the music coverage

that “ET” provided each day. Segment producer Shauna Zurbrugg said it was always a

challenge to get musicians to relax on camera and open up about their lives and their

music, especially since “ET’ was competing with the newly created MTV network.

“When you’re competing with music ,” she recalled, “and trying to give some life

to an interview with basically kids who wanted to gain approval from those around them,

it would get very starchy.”53 Then, there was the issue of getting video from musicians to

use in the feature pieces. Music videos existed, but were not extremely popular,

especially since MTV had just started and also was trying to find its feet in the music

video market. Usually, an “ET” piece on a musician featured a mix of concert footage, or film from a music shoot, mixed in with interviews and behind-the- scenes footage at concerts or at musicians’ homes. Furman preferred to use video of concert footage whenever it was possible to bring some excitement to the story.54 These

music and concert videos also found a place at the close of the show. It became almost

routine to close the show with “more” from whomever the musician interviewed that day

had been, with the “more” usually being concert footage or a music video over which the

credits rolled. Many times the videos would run for at least a minute, sometimes a minute

and a half depending on how the show had timed out that day.55

As the “ET” music coverage became more established, and artists felt more

comfortable appearing on a television program, “ET” found itself with another musical

advantage: it showcased a more diverse variety of artists than MTV, especially African

Americans. MTV was playing music videos constantly, but it was not playing African

American artists in the early 1980s. “They didn’t play it,” said Furman, “because they felt

157 like black artists didn’t fit their audience.”56 He produced several pieces on the issue that featured interviews with recording artists Stevie Wonder and Lionel Ritchie, who were extremely offended by MTV’s policy. Furman then invited MTV co-founder Robert

Pittman onto the program, where he defended the policy despite the criticism. “I kept the heat on them [MTV],” Furman added, “because I really felt that the policy was nasty and wrong.”57 At the same time, Furman noted that “ET” was developing a good reputation with musicians because they knew that they would be welcomed on the program, even if they were not mainstream artists. Of course, there was the challenge of getting producers to agree to pieces on the artists, but Furman and Zurbrugg both said that they felt pretty good about the musical guests and segments they put together during the program’s first season.58 As that season progressed, pieces on musicians and the recording industry found a place on the daily program, and the diverse mix of television, movie, music, and industry news began to come together.

Making it Work

As the end of the first season neared, the show was finding firm footing in

Hollywood and was making inroads in its effort to gain credibility. Along with the content side of things, the technical side of “ET” was evolving as well. The production crew was getting more adept at creating a flashy, informative looking show, and getting the program put together and up in time for the noon satellite feed. One of the success stories that many at “ET” remembered as making them extremely proud in a technical sense was yet another celebrity death when passed away in August 1982.

“We really got to do something different and make the show feel different,” said Hirsen,

158 who directed that day’s program and counted it among his favorites during his years with

“ET.”59

What made the coverage of Fonda’s death so special, according to Hirsen, was the

obituary and other feature pieces that were quickly put together on the actor along with

the graphics and technical style that he and his production crew used to create and present

the program. One of the pieces that stood out to him in the show’s coverage that day was

a minute and a half video montage that one of his editors had created. The editor had

fashioned a unique tribute by piecing together pictures and video of Fonda wearing many

of the hats that he had worn in all of his different acting roles. The editor then set the

entire montage to the theme song from Fonda’s Academy Award-winning movie, On

Golden Pond. “We came out of that on a slow dissolve to black, then came up on a

picture of him with his birth and death dates,” he recalled. “It was just unbelievable how good a show I think we did that day.”60

Di Bona recalled another coup that “ET” had regarding the coverage of Fonda’s

death: a live interview with Bruce Gilbert, the producer of On Golden Pond. Fonda had

died overnight, so the “ET” crew had been scrambling to put things together for the late

morning show taping. Gilbert agreed to come on and do a live interview during the actual program taping. However, because of all of the last minute frenzy, the program did not start taping until 11:15 and Gilbert, because of unforeseen circumstances, did not arrive until 11:45. Di Bona remembered being frustrated and stressed as he tried to figure out how everything was going to work, much less make the satellite feed window. Because he knew “ET” needed the exclusive interview from Gilbert, he decided to split the taping of the show into three separate segments. Much like the premiere episode, the crew taped

159 the first seven minutes of the show and sent the two runners over to the satellite studios to

feed it out. While the first seven minutes was going out to affiliates, the crew was taping the next segment that featured Gilbert’s interview with the co-hosts. The runners then got

the second part of the show to take to the distribution center while the final segment was

being taped. When the last segment was done, it was quickly handed to the out of breath runners, who one more time dashed off down the street to make the end of the satellite window for the day. There had been no major mistakes during the taping, which was a good thing because there was no time to edit anything, so all three segments ran exactly as they had been taped. “Then we all went over to the and got drunk,” Di

Bona recalled with a laugh.61

Another technical consideration being worked out along with the content was how

to get the latest entertainment news and video from New York to Los Angeles in time to make each day’s taping. “ET” was produced and taped in Los Angeles but had a bureau

in New York City from which reporters such as Robin Leach sent out their daily stories

and segments, many based on the New York entertainment world. Leach, who ran the

New York bureau during the first few seasons, recalled how most of the New York

material got to Los Angeles during the first few seasons. Every night, he would load up a

courier with suitcases containing scripts and taped segments at about 6 p.m. in the

evening and put him on a plane that got into Los Angeles six hours later. The courier

would get off the plane, transfer the tapes to another courier who was waiting to take

them to the “ET” studios, and then get back on the plane and return to New York on the

overnight .62 This process was used because it was too expensive and complicated to

feed that amount of material daily to a satellite, not to mention the problem that occurred

160 with getting written scripts with the co-host introductions out to the west coast in time for

the day’s taping. This problem resulted in Paramount’s purchase of one of the earliest

versions of the fax machine. This basic and large machine was capable of sending one

page of script every six minutes between New York and Los Angeles. “We thought we’d

died, found salvation, and gone to heaven,” recalled Leach of the day that the machine

arrived.63

Dealing With Frustration

While everyone from all of the individual “ET” departments was pulling together

to make the program work and look credible on a daily basis, frustrations ran high. After all, this was a daily news program that operated under considerable stress from the

Hollywood community and their own personal pressure to fulfill a lot of obligations and expectations. Naturally, the pressure that the “ET” staff felt was relieved or dealt with in numerous ways, some of which were more memorable than others. Segment producers recalled the normalcy of yelling heatedly at someone for something that went wrong that day, but found by the next day in most cases, it had blown over and was not mentioned again.64

Writer Bob Flick was known for heated outbursts when frustrated. In one case, he

was upset that the “A” on his typewriter, a large, old-fashioned IBM model, did not work,

and he went to the man in charge of the money, Operations Manager Mike O’Gara, and

explained the problem. O’Gara apparently did not want to call the repair man for just one

non-functioning letter and asked Flick if he could not find a way to type around it.

According to fellow writer Bill Olsen, Flick went back into his office, picked up the

161 typewriter, and launched it across the newsroom like a bowling ball. As the typewriter hit

the wall, all of the keys fell off and the machine broke into pieces. He then asked O’Gara

if he could call the repairman now. 65 Those who witnessed this type of action on several

occasions said they learned to accept it as part of Flick’s personality and realized quickly

that no harm was meant to them. “Flick would, in the heat of the moment, be known to

throw a typewriter,” Hirsen recalled, “but he always made sure he wasn’t throwing it at

anybody.”66

Then there was the unofficial “ET” mascot, writer Steve Paskay’s hamster that sat

in a cage in his office and constantly was running in circles on a small wheel. Several

producers remembered making threats on the poor hamster’s life when they were dealing

with some decision that Paskay had made with which they did not agree.67 In general, the

staff said the best relief came in the form of Friday pizza parties and the tradition after

taping of getting drinks and food at the Brown Derby or other Hollywood restaurants that

were near the “ET” studios on . The “ET” staff developed close bonds and friendships, in many cases because most of them were young and single and spent most of their lives working on the program.68

Despite the normal frustrations that occurred, “ET” continued to define itself

through its content and production and was looking strong as it neared the end of the first

season. The dedicated team of producers, writers, and reporters were determined to make

the show a bigger, more credible venture, and there was the added potential with a new

season nearing, to sell the program to even more local stations. However, while much of

the focus of the producers and directors was the content and form of the daily news

program, the of “ET” also was beginning to get noticed in its own right,

162 thus creating an additional venue to report and cement the program’s entertainment news coverage reputation.

“Entertainment This Week”

The initial concept for “Entertainment This Week” was born out of money. The program was created to be an hour wrap-up of the week’s entertainment events given to local stations at no extra cost. Since local stations did not have to pay for the weekend hour of programming, Paramount kept advertising time to sell to its national advertisers, thus making the money needed to offset the costs of producing the weekday program.69

The hour-long program originally featured a replay of the best segments of the weekday show, wrapped around the latest entertainment news happening Friday afternoon or set to occur over the weekend. A major reason for this was the time constraints. The program had to be taped and put on the satellite by Friday afternoon so local stations across the country could have it to air on Saturday or Sunday.70 In some cases, the pieces that ran on the weekend show might be a fifth segment or part to a series that had run during the week or an occasional late-breaking Friday news event, such as the Belushi and Wood deaths and tragedy. However, most of the content each week was focused around the “best” of what had been seen earlier that week on the program with an occasional original, longer feature piece. While not extremely complicated, the program did well in its weekend time slots and continued to bring in the money needed to fund the weekday production.71

However, as “ET” developed its news reputation, the focus of the weekend show began to change slightly. Stories became more in-depth and original, not just rehashed or

163 repeated events of the past week. “It grew in stature and importance,” said weekend

producer Bruce Cook, “because we started doing special reports, longer pieces, multi-part

series, and even investigative pieces that were unique to the weekend show.”72 Many of the segment pieces also were longer in length, taking between four and six minutes to tell a story, and were usually interview heavy. Many weekend broadcasts would feature themed stories, or focus on a specific actor, such as Elvis Presley or a popular television program. The program followed the weekday format to an extent, opening with the latest news stories of the entertainment industry and then delving into the more focused investigative and feature pieces mixed in with other features and segments, such as the weekly television ratings and movies that were playing that weekend.73

But despite the growing original content, the program was still filled with the

news of the past week. One of the big challenges that producers said they faced was to

find ways to make the older news and stories fresh, so the program did not feel like

simply a repeat of the week’s entertainment news. This could be done sometimes by

changing introductions or adding information into tags on the end of the pieces.74

Differentiating the program also was difficult in the first season because the weekday co- hosts, Dixie Whatley and Ron Hendren, also were hosting the weekend program.

However, Di Bona and Bellows, working with the Paramount executives, decided that it might work better to separate the weekday and weekend shows a bit by bringing in separate co-hosts for the weekend. It was this decision that led to the hiring of talk show hosts Steve Edwards and Mary Hart, the latter who would become one of the most famous and most associated figures with “Entertainment Tonight.”

164 Mary Hart

Hart, by her own admission, did not set out to become one of the most famous faces in the entertainment news world. After graduating from college, she taught high school English while producing, directing, and anchoring a local cable talk show. The show eventually led to jobs on various news and talk shows in the Midwest and by 1979, she had left journalism behind and headed for Hollywood. “I didn’t want to report on the business,” she said in a 2002 interview with the New York Times, “I wanted to have my own show to be reported on.”75 After several years of minor acting jobs, she was hired to host the Los Angeles version of “PM Magazine.” Hart said in a 2005 interview in

Broadcasting & Cable that she remembered being at “PM Magazine” and watching the first few weeks of “ET” with the general manager and program director. “We sat around afterwards and said ‘Hummm, kind of interesting,’ and they both concurred it wouldn’t last,” she recalled.76 Shortly thereafter, she was recruited to co-host ’s first national talk show, which was canceled after four months, putting her back on the market.

Di Bona recalled getting Hart’s tape in the mail a short time later, looking at ten seconds of it, and knowing that he had struck gold. “I saw the bright eyes, the great , the terrific attachment with the camera, and her great legs,” he said. “How could you not know?”77 Goldhammer remembered meeting Mary when she first came to Los Angeles, when he had been program manager of local station KABC. He recalled her as being a

“quiet, unassertive little girl” when she was brought in to meet him, and he sent her on her way.78 Di Bona brought Hart’s tape to Goldhammer several years later when the show was looking to hire new faces, and after some debate among the “ET” executives and

165 producers, she was hired on a thirteen-week contract as a correspondent. “I wasn’t all that keen on the idea,” she told a reporter from Broadcasting & Cable, “but checked it out because I really wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do.”79 While she was doing correspondent stories for the program, Paramount had decided to break up the co-hosting duties between the weekday and weekend shows to bring more credibility to both programs.80 After her thirteen-weeks as a correspondent, Hart was asked to co-host

“Entertainment This Weekend” with Edwards. He was a talk show host working in Los

Angeles at the CBS-owned KNXT television station, and together, he and Hart became the new faces of “Entertainment This Week.”

Hart and Edwards continued their weekend hosting and occasional reporting duties for “ET” for several months until Paramount executives decided again to make another change. The Whatley and Hendren weekday co-hosting combination was not working well, and thus the decision was made to move Whatley to the weekend and put

Hart in as the weekday co-host. Whatley accepted her new job without too much of a fuss, although she admitted to feeling a little unsettled. However, she said she believed one of the reasons that Hart got the weekday co-hosting job, and deserved it, was because she was better at dealing with people, the executives in particular. “I wasn’t really good at that,” she admitted. “I was a newswoman, and I really didn’t know how to react to the entertainment world.”81 And while Whatley said it was tough losing her weekday co- hosting duties, she was glad it was to Hart. “If I had to lose a job to somebody,” she said,

“and that woman has been on the show for twenty-six years, I say if you’ve got to lose out to somebody, make it be the person who should have totally had the job.”82

166 With Hart and Hendren set for their co-hosting duties; reporters and producers putting together investigative and feature pieces that covered both the glitz and glamour and the more serious news of the entertainment business; a Hollywood look and feel to a news formatted show; and a producer and managing editor with clear cut goals on where the show was headed, “Entertainment Tonight” was ready to kick off its second season on September 13, 1982.

167 Notes Chapter 6

1. Telephone Interview, Leonard Maltin, May 1, 2008.

2. Telephone Interview, John Goldhammer, January 9, 2008.

3. Ibid.

4. Vernon Scott, “‘Entertainment Tonight’ and Tomorrow,” United Press International, April 23, 1982 from: http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/ results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3739893217&format=GNBFI &sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3739893223&cisb=22_T37398 93222&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=8076&docNo=2 (accessed on May 2, 2008).

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Curt Suplee, “Authors Angst: Publicize or Perish; Publishers Seek ‘Mediability’ From Their Writers,” The Washington Post, April 28, 1982.

8. Howard Rosenberg, “The Relentless Pursuit of Fluff,” Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1982.

9. Scott, “‘Entertainment Tonight’ and Tomorrow.”

10. Telephone Interview, Jim Bellows, April 1, 2008.

11. Telephone Interview, Vin Di Bona, February 13, 2008.

12. Ibid.

13. Scott, “‘Entertainment Tonight’ and Tomorrow.”

14. Telephone Interview, Di Bona.

15. See Telephone Interview, Helaine Swerdloff-Ross, April 2, 2008; Telephone Interview, Vicky Gordon, April 23, 2008; and Telephone Interview, Susan Haymer, April 7, 2008. All three producers said they felt that “ET” in its early years had a respect for older Hollywood stars and focused a lot of feature pieces on their long careers as well as their celebrity appeal.

16. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

168 17. Telephone Interview, Haymer.

18. Telephone Interview, Robin Leach, December 27, 2007.

19. Telephone Interview, Catherine Mann, April 9, 2008.

20. Telephone Interview, Bruce Cook, April 3, 2008.

21. See Telephone Interview, Steve Paskay, April 8, 2008; Telephone Interview, Cook; and Telephone Interview, Di Bona.

22. Telephone Interview, Scott Osborne, May 12, 2008.

23. Ibid.

24. Telephone Interview, Steve Hirsen, April 9, 2008.

25. Associated Press, “Copter Falls Killing Actor and Two Children On Set,” The New York Times, July 24, 1982. The film had been shooting a scene involving the helicopter and fire special effects when something went wrong, causing the helicopter to crash. Actor Vic Morrow was working with the two young children, and all three were violently killed when it crashed.

26. Telephone Interview, Osborne.

27. United Press International, “Warner Bros. Charged in Deaths of Two Children,” The New York Times, July 31, 1982.

28. Jim Bellows, The Last Editor: How I Saved the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the LA Times from Dullness and Complacency (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2002), 254.

29. Ibid., 255.

30. Ibid.

31. Telephone Interview, Di Bona.

32. See Telephone Interview, Paskay.

33. Telephone Interview, Ed Meyer, March 19, 2008.

34. Telephone Interview, Leonard Maltin, May 1, 2008.

169 35. See Telephone Interview, Di Bona; and Interview, Al Masini, December 3, 2007.

36. Telephone Interview, Maltin.

37. See Telephone Interview, Di Bona; Telephone Interview Maltin; and Telephone Interview, Cook. At this time, Maltin said he had no idea what they were going to do with his reviews or with him, but he was not too worried since he had been paid for the work.

38. Telephone Interview, Maltin.

39. Ibid.

40. Maltin recalled his wife telling him that she knew that “ET” would be calling again, even if it did not offer him a contract. She told him that when it realized it had run the two reviews he had taped, it would come calling, asking for more for the next week. Sure enough, “ET” did. (See Telephone Interview, Maltin).

41. See Ibid.; and Telephone Interview, Cook.

42. Bellows, The Last Editor, 259.

43. Telephone Interview, Maltin.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Telephone Interview, Paskay.

47. Ibid.

48. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

49. Telephone Interview, Rich Frank, January 28, 2008.

50. See Telephone Interview, Ken Furman, April 2, 2008; and Telephone Interview, Shauna Zurbrugg, April 9, 2008.

51. Telephone Interview, Furman.

52. Ibid.

53. Telephone Interview, Zurbrugg.

170 54. Telephone Interview, Furman.

55. This comes from an analysis of “ET” daily shows airing during 1981 and 1982. The analysis was conducted February 21-22, 2008, at the UCLA Film and Television Archives in Los Angeles. Beta tapes of the episodes were watched and analyzed for descriptive information.

56. Telephone Interview, Furman.

57. Ibid. Despite all of this pressure from the media and musicians, it was not until 1983 that MTV finally broke the color barrier when it put ’s “Billie Jean” video into rotation. It became a huge hit, and the door was opened to African American artists on MTV.

58. See Ibid.; and Telephone Interview, Zurbrugg. Both admitted that the pressure at times to focus on only the “big name” musical acts and musicians was intense, but both felt that they got a chance to bring on more up and coming artists and this helped some foreign pop and rock groups take off big in the United States.

59. Telephone Interview, Hirsen.

60. Ibid.

61. Telephone Interview, Di Bona. Di Bona also recalled another after-effect of scraping to get that day’s program on the air. He fell asleep in the middle of a meeting with Barry Diller later that afternoon. He was forgiven, however, because everyone was happy with how the show turned out.

62. Telephone Interview, Leach.

63. Ibid. Goldhammer and Masini also recalled being impressed with how the fax machine helped keep communication lines open between New York and Los Angeles, and they made good use of it.

64. Telephone Interview, Zurbrugg.

65. See Telephone Interview, Bob Flick, April 10, 2008; Telephone Interview, Bill Olsen, April 26, 2008; and Telephone Interview Hirsen.

66. Telephone Interview, Hirsen. Flick, according to other staff members, was known to be extremely outspoken about things and this type of occurrence, though rare, was known to happen during the course of each season. He simply said he did what he thought was right and tried to avoid confrontation whenever possible, but added it was not always possible.

171 67. Telephone Interview, Olsen.

68. All of those interviewed for this dissertation mentioned the fact that they found the people that they worked with to be one of the best benefits that they had in doing the program. Many of those friendships have lasted through the years and, according to everyone, led to some interesting parties.

69. Telephone Interview, Cook.

70. See Interview, Masini; Telephone Interview, Frank; and Telephone Interview, Cook.

71. Telephone Interview, Olsen.

72. Telephone Interview, Cook.

73. Data gathered from watching episodes of “Entertainment This Week” at the UCLA Archives in Los Angeles, California. Beta tapes of the early episodes were watched between February 21 and 22, 2008.

74. See Telephone Interview, Olsen; and Telephone Interview, Cook.

75. Michael Gross, “Television/Radio: Famous for Tracking the Famous,” The New York Times, June 23, 2002.

76. Paula Hendrickson, “To the Hart of the Matter,” Broadcasting & Cable, September 12, 2005, A4.

77. Telephone Interview, Di Bona.

78. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer. Goldhammer admitted to being unsure of what to do with her or where she would fit in at KABC, because she did not have a heavy news background, but he added she had a pretty face.

79. Hendrickson, “To the Hart of the Matter.” In an interesting coincidence, Hart had been interviewed by “ET” a few weeks earlier after the cancellation of Regis Philbin’s show, so she was familiar with the program but not thinking along the lines yet of working for it.

80. See Telephone Interview, Di Bona; and Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

81. Telephone Interview, Dixie Whatley, April 5, 2008.

82. Ibid.

172 Chapter 7: Seasoned Pro

“Entertainment Tonight,” now in its second year, may be achieving the news credibility that eluded it at birth.”1

Jerry Buck, Associated Press, 1983

Season two of “Entertainment Tonight” kicked off on September 13, 1982, with a familiar lead story: complete coverage of the Emmy Awards ceremony that took place on the night before. But that was where the similarities to the season-one premiere ended.

Mary Hart and Ron Hendren now sat behind a news desk with a monitor behind them, looking much like the anchors and sets one would see when watching a local television newscast. “ET” coverage that day featured a recap of the previous night’s main winners and some red carpet video, but then it quickly launched into a feature on the behind-the- scenes preparations that had gone into the broadcast. The rest of the show consisted of: the latest movie and television project developments in the industry, a longer investigative piece by reporter Scott Osborne on the dangerous jobs of Hollywood stuntmen, several celebrity interviews about their upcoming movies, and movie critic

Leonard Maltin’s feature story about the impact that the addition of sound had on early

Hollywood cinema.

Hart and Hendren delivered the stories in a calm and informative manner, giving the impression that they were reading important news, even if it was about celebrities touting their newest movie or television venture. The graphic design and overall look remained the same, as directors used graphics and artwork to illustrate stories and then found creative camera moves to add a sense of movement between stories. The show looked and felt more like a local television newscast as it entered its new season,

173 complete with investigative pieces and industry-related stories. However, the celebrity

factor remained obvious, because there was no shortage of Hollywood stars promoting

their latest productions on the season-two premiere.2 “ET” was putting into practice the news philosophies and procedures that it had developed and refined during its first

season. The question was whether the program could continue to keep to its harder-edged

entertainment news coverage while still establishing itself as the place of record for

entertainment news and features. This chapter examines how the program evolved

throughout its second season, as critics and supporters alike took aim at the program, and

a shakeup in the production staff once more set “ET” to questioning who and what it was

trying to be.

Not Quite Making Waves

By the second season, producer Vin Di Bona felt the show was doing well in

reporting the facts and information about entertainment news in a respectable way. “We

didn’t spin stories,” said Di Bona. “We were pretty accurate with what was going on.”3

Writer Steve Paskay also felt more comfortable with the show’s direction. “We were

reporting stories,” he recalled. “We weren’t just flashing something on screen for thirty

seconds about the shoes someone was wearing on the red carpet.”4 Producers and

reporters were now scoring bigger celebrity interviews and delving into longer

investigative pieces on the industry, while writers were bringing informative and

interesting news about movies, television, music, and the entertainment industry to the

public. It also was during the second season that the media began to take more notice of

“ET.” The program had received criticism and praise throughout its first season but was

174 not featured much in magazine and newspaper articles. Critics had taken note of the program, but had not, it seemed, felt the need to review or comment on the program.5

However, as the second season progressed towards November sweeps, the program

began to catch the eye of the media.

A September 5, 1982, article by Tony Schwartz in the New York Times asked

people to give “ET” a chance. “You won’t learn much watching it,” he said, “but where

else on television can you get a two-part interview with , nightly live reports

from Hollywood cocktail parties, and movie openings?”6 added its opinion of

“ET” on October 18, 1982. Reviewers Harry Walters and Cavazos were not

extremely impressed with the first season, calling the show the “lap dog” of the

entertainment industry and adding the staff seemed determined to “foster the prevailing

air of hero worship.”7 However, they credited the show with some “visible reforms” in

season two, mainly because of the work of managing editor Jim Bellows. “Besides

pruning some of the puffery,” the article noted, “Bellows has infused ‘ET’ with more

hard news.”8 Several months later Associated Press Writer Jerry Buck admitted “ET” was

coming into its own in the news world. In a January 2, 1983 article, Buck praised “ET”

for how it dealt with entertainment news coverage, crediting much of this to Bellows. “It

has a harder edge to its daily news coverage of the entertainment industry,” Buck wrote,

“and it has shed most of the fluff that threatened to lift its feet right off the ground.”9 He also stated that “ET” would never be able to drop its lightweight features about celebrities because the glamour and glitter were needed to balance out the harder news and keep people interested.10

175 Despite the ups and downs of the first season, the Academy of Television Arts

and Sciences found “ET” good enough to nominate it for its first Emmy in the category

of Best Informational Series. Its competition included: ABC’s “Barbara Walters

Specials,” and three PBS shows, “Creativity with ,” “ Show,” and

“Middletown.” 11 “Creativity with Bill Moyers” won the award, but everyone involved

with “ET” was proud to have earned a nomination. “It was a good feeling,” remarked

Bellows, “even though I didn’t expect us to win.”12 The program might not have won an

Emmy, but it was holding its own in the ratings in many markets. For example, during

November 1982, “ET” was drawing a steady rating of 10 or 11 in its nightly syndicated

slot in the Washington, D.C., market, coming in a strong third behind the

“Family Feud” and the television program “M*A*S*H.”13 The average daily audience,

including the weekend program, was estimated to be around 11 million while the total

viewing audience by the end of 1982 was estimated at more than 20 million. Viewers

were watching the program on one of 129 affiliated stations that had picked up the

program by its second season. That number was slightly up from the 117 stations that

aired the program during its first season.14

The New York audience for “ET” also was growing, thanks in part to a timeslot

change. As mentioned before, the program was airing on an independent station in the

New York market in a late night timeslot. But in January 1982, the program moved to

7:30 p.m. on the ABC network’s station WABC. WABC Vice-President and

General Manager William Fyffe said in a 1983 New York Times article that within the

first few weeks of airing in the earlier timeslot, “ET” attracted 15 percent more viewers than the show that had previously aired in the same timeslot.15 Gaining the New York

176 audience helped the show grow in stature and was a big boon to getting stories, according

to New York Correspondent Barbara Howar. She had spent most of her time during the

first season complaining to Bellows that she had to beg stars to appear because “nobody

in New York is watching us in the middle of the damn night.”16 But while New York

audiences were warming up to “ET,” the struggle was ongoing with the Los Angeles

audience. The program was still airing at 4:30 p.m. on local independent station KTLA,

and the show would not gain a heavy Los Angeles audience base until it made the change to a later timeslot almost a year later.17 However, with “ET” getting more attention in the

media, Bellows, Di Bona, and the rest of the “ET” staff continued to find ways to keep

the program filled with the right mixture of harder-edged entertainment news and

celebrity fluff.

Growing in Stature

That mixture was becoming easier to find since reporters and producers were now

used to the style and content that Bellow and Di Bona were aiming for with stories. The

entertainment industry was beginning to realize that “ET” was going to report the behind-

the-scenes stories going on at the big studios, even the less glamorous ones. Different

aspects of the industry also were coming under scrutiny in “ET” investigative reports.

And in most cases, celebrities knew what to expect when they were interviewed by an

“ET” reporter, and were willing to play the game, especially if it meant they would get

some promotion on the program. However, Associate Producer Bruce Cook remembered

having to fight hard for some lighter celebrity stories. “What the producers didn’t understand at the time,” he said, “was that Hollywood agents and managers didn’t care

177 about anything but promoting. So, sometimes you had to put ‘y-star’ on the program in

order to get ‘x-star’ to agree to do the show. So, some stories were , but

there was a reason for them.”18

While getting celebrities to do the program was getting easier, segment producer

Helaine Swerdloff-Ross recalled a huge challenge developing as a rivalry for celebrity bookings grew between “Good Morning America” [GMA] and “ET.” ABC’s morning news program had always been heavy on celebrity interviews, especially when it came time to promote a product.19 She was attempting to get the same celebrities to promote their product on “ET” and recalled getting yelled at by upper management if a

star appeared on “GMA” before coming on “ET.” For example, she had booked actor

John Travolta to promote his newest movie as part of the actor’s promotional tour.

However, because of scheduling, he appeared on “GMA” a few days before he appeared on “ET.” “Barry Diller was furious,” Swerdloff-Ross said. “I was called in and told, literally, ‘You get these people on ‘ET’ first or you’re gone.’”20

However, dealing with pressure from Paramount sometimes could be nothing compared to dealing with the pressure of stars and their attitudes, according to some of the “ET” staff. Segment producers remembered getting thrown out of some Hollywood parties because: they were asking guests too many questions; celebrities simply avoided or ignored those questions and thus nothing could be found to report; or celebrities actually talked about and answered the probing questions until the “ET” staff-member

was kicked out by the actor’s agent. While some celebrities shunned the publicity and

“ET,” others accepted the program and treated the staff with courtesy and respect, much

as any news journalist would be treated.21

178 Co-host and reporter Dixie Whatley remembered an interview with actor Gregory

Peck. She was frustrated with the fact that many of the celebrities on whom she did stories were rude or acted high and mighty around her, a lowly reporter. Peck, however,

spent the entire interview showing Whatley and her crew around his home, taking them

through his stables, and serving them tea and cookies, all while talking about his latest

project. “He made me aware of what a star truly was,” she recalled, “that a star didn’t need an entourage, a star didn’t need to act the part for reporters, moreover that a star did not need to act like a jerk around reporters. He was a lovely, lovely man.”22 Segment

producer Susan Haymer felt that while some stars could give “ET” a hard time, she

believed the program dealt well with Hollywood, especially with older stars such as Peck.

“I think we had more respect for older stars especially. We didn’t do as much scandal

about their lives,” she said.23

In fact, instead of using scandalous pictures or rumors about celebrities old and new, many times the program ran simple still photographs of the stars at various events in what producers called its “paparazzi segment.” Segment producer Ken Furman recalled the popularity of this daily feature, which showcased black and white candid pictures of celebrities out on the town. Most were pictures of evening-clad stars attending movies or shows, smiling or laughing with their wives, girlfriends, or families, or simply taking a coffee or lunch break. The photographs were shot by different paparazzi across the county, and Furman said he had more pictures than he had ever expected to use on a daily basis. “No one thought that segment would work, or be popular,” he said. “But we were getting at least 200 photographs a day for a while, and it was very popular with viewers and celebrities, and lasted a long time.”24

179 As celebrities seemed to get more comfortable with “ET,” occasionally questions

arose about what could be used on air. For example, reporter Catherine Mann recalled an

interview that she did with actor Robert Mitchum, who was starring in the television

mini-series “The Winds of War.” He came into the interview, asked his assistant to get

him a straight scotch, and proceeded to do the interview with the glass in hand, constantly

being refilled. Mann, at the end of the interview, followed a process that producers had

designed in which reporters would ask celebrities a “question of the week.” That week’s

question asked what the stars thought about well-known actors doing commercial voice-

overs and taking those jobs away from struggling, unknown voice actors. “And Robert

leaned in, close to me,” Mann remembered, “and said, ‘I think they’re a bunch of . . . .’

and then he did the hand signal for jerk off. It was graphic and unbelievable, although we laughed for about five minutes.”25 Later that day when she was putting the piece together,

not using the controversial clip, she remembered someone from Paramount came over

and confiscated the tape. “Today, that video would have been all over YouTube,” she

remarked, “back then, though, they didn’t want to take chances.”26

Another challenge that arose when dealing with celebrity interviews and having to

find a harder news edge to them was video. Jackie Burke, a personal assistant to Di Bona,

recalled the difficulty of getting video of celebrities doing something other than sitting

and talking to an interviewer. In most cases, when shooting pieces on celebrities, the interview was filmed one day, and the other video, or b-roll, was shot on the next day.

This created interesting continuity problems and often resulted in dull video of celebrities

walking their dogs, gardening, or doing something around their home. If there was

something a bit edgier about the story, it was tough to tell it when showing the stars doing

180 some inane, mundane task that had nothing to do with the issue at hand.27 Even when

stories had a lighter focus, it was difficult to get any interesting video. “It also was a

challenge to get video of celebrities because there weren’t as many premieres back then,

or red carpet events,” Burke said. “They didn’t run Hollywood the way they do now with

a premiere or two every week.”28 However, when there were red carpet premieres to cover, “ET” was usually one of only a few crews that would appear and want to get

video. Segment producers enjoyed this, especially when they were allowed past the restraining ropes and could go up to celebrities and interview them. “They would treat us nice at awards ceremonies,” said segment producer Susan Haymer. “It was nice when we could be on the other side of the ropes and celebrities would actually come talk to us for a while.”29

As producers covered movie premieres, movie critic Leonard Maltin continued to review and rate them. By the second season however, he was finding a few opportunities to branch out from this single task. Initially, the producers did not want him to be

anything but a critic and were leery of him being seen in any other role. “[Jim] Bellows

felt that it adulterated somewhat my role as critic,” he remarked, “to be seen wearing another hat on the show.”30 Finally, though, Maltin convinced producers that his

experience and interests in the entertainment industry would fit into the show, and he was

allowed to do several feature pieces. The first one that he recalled doing focused on the

importance of sound being added to films and the legacy that gave to the .

Maltin said in addition to introducing the audience to his love of classic Hollywood, these

pieces allowed him to learn how to edit. “It was invaluable training,” he said of the

181 process. “It allowed me to be a bit more creative with video and sound, something that

made the pieces more appealing to an audience.”31

Creative storytelling on “ET” was now centered on the celebrity, although what

news edge that story took, be it hard or soft, was often dependent on the questions asked

and the way the story was pieced together. Production and graphic designer John

Ridgeway said the producers had finally figured out that no matter how newsy a story

was going to be it had to be centered around the star. “They covered stories that were

really more newsworthy in the early years,” he said, “and they understood that would pull

in more viewers if they expressed those stories by showing the stars.”32 This fell back on

the mantra that glitz and glamour sold, and as Bellows and Di Bona preached, you had to

have a mix of both in the storytelling.

Dealing with News

As all of these elements came together each day, there was still debate among the

staff over what should be considered entertainment news and thus receive coverage.

Maltin recalled thinking that many people in the decision-making process at “ET” did not

seem to be extremely enamored of entertainment and therefore he thought were not quite as aware of what should be covered unless it was already out there in the media. He would often joke with his friend who worked for USA Today that his friend should pitch a story idea to the newspaper, which could print it and then Maltin could point to the printed copy, thus a verified source, and “ET” would run with it on the next day.33 Many of the segment producers said their daily routine often included reading Billboard or

Daily Variety from cover to cover, not only to make sure that they were aware of what

182 was happening in the entertainment world but also to find stories that they thought had

enough news value that they could be pitched to producers.34 Writer Bill Olsen

remembered continually combing the United Press International and Associated Press

wires to find credible entertainment stories, as well as perusing all the industry

publications for stories that he could pitch in the daily meeting. He said usually if a story

was reported in one of those sources, and “ET” news staff and researchers could confirm

it, then it usually found a place in the show. Other times, if reporters had story ideas, they

might have to spend a lot of time pitching them or find some way to at least prove that

the story was important. Printed or published entertainment stories seemed to be one way to accomplish this.35 Despite this view, producer Di Bona noted that by now most of the

news staff had developed good contacts and were able to come up with interesting stories

that had been confirmed by the celebrities or their managers. “We had a great staff who

had made great contacts,” he said. “We were finding stories a lot on our own.”36

Many of these heated discussions over what was to be covered also involved working with the ideas and views of the executives at Paramount and the representatives of the show’s partners at Cox, Chris-Craft, Taft, and TeleRep, the “suits” as they were called by the staff. Director Steve Hirsen remembered conversations where everyone referred to the executives and partners who visited to observe the show as “moles,” who would report everything going on behind the scenes at “ET.” The term came about because one visiting representative’s last name was Moles. “The name seemed fitting,”

Hirsen recalled, “because they were always sneaking up on us, and we’d be summoned to the lot every now and then to hear what these guys were thinking, and we called them the

‘mole meetings.’”37

183 Research

One important element that came into its own during the second season was the

“ET” research department. The department employed more than a dozen researchers by

early 1983. Shauna Zurbrugg, who helped create the department, recalled the effort that

went into making sure that “ET” had as much information as possible about as many

celebrities as possible.38 Mid-way through the second season, the research department had

numerous files of manila folders, containing still pictures, personal information, career

details, celebrity charities, and all of the other information someone might need when

going out to talk to a celebrity. Researchers kept on top of the movie, music, and

television charts, making sure that they had the latest tidbits of information about what

celebrities were doing and where. Being so knowledgeable, she said it became part of the researcher’s job to not only provide research but also to suggest possible stories that “ET”

might cover if something interesting came up.39 That directly led to her becoming a

segment producer during the second season.

Fellow staff members appreciated the thoroughness and completeness of

information that the research department provided. Segment producers such as Bill Olsen

and Helaine Swerdloff-Ross said they relied heavily on the background material and

information packets that the department put together for them before an interview. This

type of information was key in helping producers and reporters figure out not only what

questions to ask but in some cases helped determine what celebrities might be at what

event. 40 Writer Bob Flick also had high praise for the research department and its head,

Sharon Smith. “Sharon vetted stories better than anyone at anyplace I’d ever worked,” he

recalled. He said his job was made easier knowing that he could count on Smith to

184 provide accurate, truthful, background information on celebrities and entertainment

issues.41 Reporter Catherine Mann said she could not have survived her interviews

without the background sheets and possible questions that the research department

provided to everyone before they left on a story. Many times she only had the car ride

over to the interview to familiarize herself with the topic or celebrity and the detailed

research sheets were all that she had to go on.42 As a writer, Olsen noted that the research

department was good at hunting down small details that could make or break a story as

well as information that might not be easily accessible, such as celebrity birthdays.

“They’d use all kinds of means to get those birth dates,” he said, “even if it was pulled off

an old expired driving record or license.”43 This information was used on the celebrity

birthday feature that ran at the end of each show, which featured a picture of the celebrity

and what age that they were turning that day. However, while popular with the audience,

the gimmick was not pleasing to everyone in Hollywood. “We had people calling us,” he

remembered, “saying, ‘I was up for a job, but they found out I was forty-eight thanks to

your birthday segment and I didn’t get the job!’”44

Good Morning George Merlis

As “Entertainment Tonight” evolved throughout its second season, its format and

style seemingly steady, Bellows found himself longing to get back into hard news. “After

two years in the soft-news latitudes of entertainment, I was getting fed up,” he remarked

in his memoirs. “I was hungry to bite into hard news again.”45 He was proud of what he

had done to help bring “ET” news credibility, but he felt it was now time for him to move on. ABC was looking for someone to develop a new news magazine and approached him

185 about the job. He decided to take it and announced he was leaving in early 1983 and

Paramount executives began an intensive search for someone to replace him. They were

looking for someone with a similar news background who could keep “ET” on the course

that had been set, and it just so happened that the former producer of “Good Morning

America” [GMA] and the “CBS Morning News” was in the market for a new job.

George Merlis had spent five years as executive producer of “GMA” in the mid

1970s, helping the program become a strong competitor to NBC’s “Today Show.”

However, by the late 1970s, he was becoming unhappy with the direction “GMA” had

taken. “It wasn’t a heavy duty journalism show by any means, but they [ABC] wanted to

make it even less so.”46 When he announced he was leaving ABC in 1981, he had been

approached by Paramount about being the executive producer “ET,” which was in

development. However, unwilling to take a chance on a venture that was so unsure and

still in the planning stages, he instead moved over to produce the “CBS Morning News.”

He spent the next year and a half working on the program but found himself again unhappy with the chaotic atmosphere of the news department at CBS. “It was a

particularly turbulent time at CBS,” he remarked. “I had this perpetual image of Ed

Murrow spinning in his grave.”47 So, when Barry Diller came back to him and asked him

to take over the executive producing job at “ET,” with the mandate that he continue to

make the show more journalistic, he agreed.

Merlis moved to Los Angeles with two goals in mind for making “ET” even more

news oriented than it had been under Bellows. He believed the show should be

approached as what he called “consumerist journalism,” covering the things interesting to the consumer of entertainment and from the true journalism standpoint, there were good

186 hard news stories going on in the entertainment business that influenced and affected the

business itself greatly.48 Despite coming from a news background, he had an interest in

entertainment news, because he was a fan of movies and television. Making the transition

easier was the fact that “GMA” in the late 1970s had started doing more entertainment

stories in its second half hour, so he had an idea of what to expect with “ET.”

Once on the job, he kept a close eye on the types of stories reported, looking at

every piece and giving the producers thoughts on what he liked or thought should be

changed. He recalled that some of the producers and reporters were not fond of having

their work so closely examined, but knowing he was watching, they took care to put

together pieces with which he would not find too much fault. He remembered one

reporter, who had spent two days in Hawaii interviewing actor on the set of

“Magnum P.I.,” coming back with a twenty-minute . Merlis looked at the tape

and found nothing worthwhile or interesting on it. But the reporter heard he had screened

the tape and leapt into action. “That reporter scoured the archives and used what he had

to produce the most brilliant piece,” he said.49

Stories like that peppered Merlis’ early months with “ET” as he worked to build

on the credibility that Bellows had instilled. Investigative reporter Scott Osborne was

impressed with Merlis’ style and credited him with getting “ET” started in the right

direction. “He could ask questions and say, ‘This story needs this angle’ or ‘Don't do

this,’” Osborne recalled,” and inevitably he was right because he had a newsman's eye.

He could cut through the fog and get to the essence of the story.”50 While Osborne and

some of the staff worked well with Merlis, others were not as fond of his vision. Segment producer Swerdloff-Ross said she found it difficult to work with him because she did not

187 see eye to eye with him on how or what stories should be covered.51 Segment producer

Zurbrugg remembered her frustration at trying to book many of the music industry’s rising artists who were not American because she said Merlis thought they were hard to understand and were not as important as other entertainers.52 He justified this by saying that when you looked at what the actual consumer was interested in, movies and television were of more interest that musicians, no matter what the nationality. “We weighted the news judgment in terms of the subject matter that was of most interest to the viewers,” he said.53 It turned out that they did not have to work with Merlis for long.

Several months after he took over, Zurbrugg and Swerdloff-Ross were let go. That same day, producer Di Bona was fired as well. Merlis then took over the producing reins at

“ET.” At the same time, with Merlis taking on many of the jobs that Bellows had as managing editor and Di Bona had as head producer, Paramount executives changed the position of head “ET” producer to executive producer and Merlis became the first show producer to assume that title.

He now began to focus on mixing the stories to make the program feel more like what he felt would be a sort of daily newspaper, with an even mix of hard and soft entertainment news. “It was easier to mix stories on ‘ET’ because there was much less hard news to cover, and it was hard at times to find real news,” he said. “So, we did a lot of what I would call business news and industry news.”54 He added that the “ET” reporting and production staff played a huge part in creating the story mix and giving the program a newsy look. “We had several segment producers who were excellent, and a terrific production crew that made the program sing, and, of course, there was Mary

[Hart]. Mary was totally professional and a delight to work with.”55 As for the harder-

188 edged news pieces, while they were something Merlis encouraged, he knew it would be

difficult to increase the number being done because “ET” did not have an infrastructure

built to handle a large amount of hard news coverage, although they tried. He was extremely impressed with Osborne and credited the reporter with bringing to light some

of the most important and interesting entertainment industry news, especially celebrity

trials.

Osborne remembered the first celebrity trial in 1983 that put him and “ET” on the

map: the producers of the Twilight Zone movie were sued over the accident that had

killed actor Vic Morrow and two young children in July 1982. “ET” was the only news

organization to have a camera at the trial every day, and Osborne found the material more

and more compelling as of the accident emerged. “The kids were employed

illegally,” he recalled. “They should not have been working that late at night nor been

around special effects that had the potential to be dangerous.”56 As these types of stories

emerged, he used them to make the less exciting video of the trial and testimony seem

more interesting, stressing all of the strange and illegal things that had been involved with

the accident. At the same time, the networks were beginning to take notice of Osborne's

reports. “The networks were actually picking up our footage,” he recalled, “and all of a sudden we found ourselves being quoted on the nightly news.”57 Co-host Hart remembered knowing “ET” had arrived on the news scene for good on the night that Tom

Brokaw credited “ET” on the “NBC Nightly News.” “We had credibility in the eyes of not just the public but everyone in the business,” she said.58

“ET” built on its reputation of covering entertainment trials with another highly

publicized case that both Osborne and Merlis vividly recalled as an unforgettable moment

189 in their tenure with “ET.” CBS’s “60 Minutes” was being sued by an African American

doctor, whom the program had accused of running an insurance scam in a piece that had

aired in 1979. Doctor Carl Galloway claimed the report was false and the information

that had used, a form with the doctor's signature on it, was faked.59 During

the course of the trial, Osborne, with the judge's permission, aired a video clip on “ET”

that had already been presented as evidence in the trial. It showed Rather chasing an

African American man around the clinic parking lot, yelling questions about the insurance scam. Rather believed the man was the accused doctor, but he was not.60 “ET” ran the clip and earned the ire of Rather, whose foolish chase had now been seen by anyone who watched “ET.” The coverage also earned a mention in a June 1983 article in the Washington Post, which analyzed how hard the media had been on Rather and CBS

News during the case. CBS News Senior Vice President Gene Mater claimed “ET” had not reported all of the facts about the video clip despite his requests for a clarification.61

Osborne said the story came back to haunt him when he was in New York a few weeks later, doing a feature piece on journalist . An old friend who was producing at CBS stopped him in the hallway and told him he had better leave before

Rather came into work. “He said, ‘For God’s sake, don’t let Rather see you,’” Osborne remembered. “I asked him why and he said, ‘He saw that thing you did on him and he’s livid. He’ll probably kill you if he sees you.’”62 Rather’s anger appeared long lasting

when several weeks later, Merlis gave the video of Rather to a New York-based investigative program that he said was not a direct competitor of “ET” but was trying to get off the ground as an investigative news show. A reporter for that show decided to

stake out the CBS News building to get Rather to discuss the clip. “Rather came out of

190 the building and was immediately accosted by this other reporter,” Merlis said, recalling

what happened, “but it was obvious Rather thought the reporter was Scott [Osborne].”63

Rather went up to the reporter, got in his face, and pulled the microphone close. “He said,

and excuse my language here, he said ‘Now listen to me, and listen to me good. Fuck

You!’” Osborne recalled.64 The investigative news program ran that clip, and made it available to “ET” a few days later. Merlis ran the clip with the swear word bleeped out, and found himself on the receiving end of some nasty telephone calls from his former bosses at CBS. “I said, ‘Wait a minute, if you had this on me, you'd run it,’” he remembered. “I told them, ‘If Dan Rather had a tape of me saying fuck you, you'd run it even though I'm nobody.’”65 Osborne said when the clip of Rather swearing at the wrong

reporter aired he knew that news organizations were beginning to take “ET” seriously.

“Rather responded, even though it was to the wrong person, to a story we had done.

Obviously it had an impact.”66

“ET” might not have been making major waves on a daily basis, but its second season had brought it into the eye of the media and helped establish it as a credible source of entertainment news. But that credibility still did not extend to media critics. As the program entered its third season in September of 1983, it was attracting more media scrutiny. An August 1983 article by John Corry in the New York Times analyzed the program’s 500th episode as a non-stop whirlwind of frivolous information, calling it

“wham, bam, and we’re off on a new item.”67 The article also stated other networks were

showing an interest in duplicating the “ET” format but added the overall message of all

of these types of shows was that there was no message. “What we see is what we see and

there is no point in thinking about any of it. Everything is all the same,” he wrote.68

191 Several months later, the New York Times ran another article examining the importance

of covering Hollywood parties. “To be a success,” the article stated, “a party should

receive a visit from ‘Entertainment Tonight.’”69 It went on to describe a party that “ET”

had thrown to draw attention to the 500th show, noting the gimmick used to attract people to the party was that “ET” had agreed to donate the first 500 shows to the University of

California at Los Angeles and thus held the party on the university campus.70 Esquire

magazine also did a feature article on “ET” in its September 1983 edition. The article

recapped the show’s history up to that point and lauded it for its short, two-and-a-half

minute stories, “little plays” it called them that were “making up the television news we

know these days.”71 Merlis explained in the article that the short spots, and using many of

them, contributed to making “ET” an appealing watch for viewers.72 When questioned

about what type of story “ET” covered, John Goldhammer, who was a Paramount

executive to the show, told the reporter that there was no such thing as hard or soft news.

“We don’t do soft news,” he said. “We do entertainment news.”73

As the third season kicked off, its coverage of entertainment news and the

presentation of that news resulted in three Emmy nominations. The show was up for the

statuette in the categories of Best Informational Series, Outstanding Individual

Achievement in Informational Programming, and Outstanding Individual Achievement in

graphic design and title sequences.74 The show again did not win any of the categories,

but the staff was happy with the nominations. “I was extremely proud of the graphic

design nomination,” said designer John Ridgeway. “We worked hard to make the

graphics, especially the introduction to the show, visually appealing and cutting edge.”75

192 “It was a huge honor just to be recognized for what we’d done,” said associate producer

Bruce Cook.76

With several Emmy nominations, and what seemed to be a strong base of

reporting, producing, and directing, the program entered its third season with high hopes

of overcoming the still critical media. “‘Entertainment Tonight,’ is not raising us or

informing us in a lasting or enlightening way,” wrote Peter Kaplan in the 1983 Esquire

article, “but it is showing us how much indiscriminate information we can absorb and

how fast.”77 That fast absorption seemed poised to continue as the program churned out

pieces about , Jimmy Stewart, or the latest celebrity promoting a product,

mixed in with Osborne’s investigative pieces and trial coverage. The program was doing

well enough to attract another “GMA” producer into the fold; in November 1983, Jack

Reilly, the former senior producer of “GMA,” came on board as a co-producer.78 “ET” seemed to be on a roll with nowhere to go but up. However, just two months later a controversial series that upset the Hollywood industry would result in yet another major staffing change and direction for “Entertainment Tonight.”

193 Notes Chapter 7

1. Jerry Buck, “‘Entertainment Tonight,’” Associated Press, January 2, 1983 from: http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/ docview.do?doc LinkInd=true&risb=21_T3748553859&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo= 1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3748553862&cisb=22_T3748553861&treeMax=true&treeWidth =0&csi=304478&docNo=7 (accessed on May 8, 2008).

2. This information comes from an analysis of the “ET” second season premiere on September 13, 1982. The analysis was conducted on February 21-22, 2008, at the UCLA Film and Television Archives in Los Angeles. A beta tape of the episode was watched and analyzed for descriptive information.

3. Telephone Interview, Vin Di Bona, February 13, 2008.

4. Telephone Interview, Steve Paskay, April 8, 2008.

5. This is evidenced by research through media databases that turned up relatively few feature articles or reviews on the program during the 1981-82 season. More articles appeared as the show neared its second season and are mentioned later in this chapter.

6. Tony Schwartz, “Pipe Dreams and Fond Wishes for the Coming Season,” New York Times, September 5, 1982.

7. Harry Waters and Sandra Cavazos, “The ‘ET’ of the Small Screen,” Newsweek, October 18, 1982, 106.

8. Ibid.

9. Jerry Buck, “‘Entertainment Tonight.’”

10. Ibid.

11. Academy of Television Arts and Sciences from: http://www.emmys.org/ Awards/awardsearch.php (accessed on May 12, 2008).

12. Telephone Interview, Jim Bellows, April 1, 2008.

13. See John Carmody, “Now Here’s the News,” Washington Post, December 9, 1982; and John Carmody, “Now Here’s the News,” Washington Post, December 17, 1982. Finding detailed ratings data from smaller markets is difficult because Nielsen and Arbitron did not have accessible detailed records of syndicated programming during the early 1980s (at least not that they were willing to give the researcher for this project). Calls to both ratings agencies were made but neither agency was able to provide recorded

194 data of that time period. Paramount executives were consulted as well but no one could find the specific market by market numbers or market breakdowns for the early years.

14. See Bedell, “‘Entertainment Tonight,’ Television’s Newszak,” New York Times, January 18, 1983; and Jerry Buck, “‘Entertainment Tonight;’” and Vernon Scott, “‘Entertainment Tonight’ and Tomorrow,” United Press International, April 23, 1982 from: http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/resuts/docview/ docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3739893217&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEA N&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3739893223&cisb=22_T3739893222&treeMax= true&treeWidth=0&csi=8076&docNo=2 (accessed on May 2, 2008).

15. Bedell, “‘Entertainment Tonight:’ Television’s Newszak.”

16. Jim Bellows, The Last Editor: How I Saved the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the LA Times from Dullness and Complacency (Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2002), 258.

17. See Interview, Al Masini, December 6, 2007; and Telephone Interview, Leonard Maltin, May 1, 2008. “ET” would not move to a later timeslot until early in its third season.

18. Telephone Interview, Bruce Cook, April 3, 2008.

19. Telephone Interview, George Merlis, April 11, 2008. “Good Morning America” when it began in the mid-1970s was run by the ABC News entertainment division not the news division like the NBC and CBS morning news programs.

20. Telephone Interview, Helaine Swerdloff-Ross, April 2, 2008.

21. See Telephone Interview, Susan Haymer, April 7, 2008; Telephone Interview, Vicky Gordon, April 23, 2008; and Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross. These three producers all remembered different stories of being told to leave celebrity parties because the hosts did not want their famous guests ‘harassed’ by the media.

22. Telephone Interview, Dixie Whatley, April 5, 2008.

23. Telephone Interview, Haymer.

24. Telephone Interview, Ken Furman, April 2, 2008. 25. Telephone Interview, Catherine Mann, April 9, 2008.

26. Ibid.

27. Telephone Interview, Jackie Burke, May 6, 2008.

195 28. Ibid.

29. Telephone Interview, Haymer.

30. Telephone Interview, Leonard Maltin, May 1, 2008.

31. Ibid.

32. Telephone Interview, John Ridgeway, April 23, 2008.

33. Telephone Interview, Maltin.

34. See Telephone Interview, Gordon; and Telephone Interview, Haymer.

35. Telephone Interview, Bill Olsen, April 26, 2008.

36. Telephone Interview, Di Bona.

37. Telephone Interview, Steve Hirsen, April 9, 2008.

38. Telephone Interview, Shauna Zurbrugg, April 9, 2008.

39. Ibid.

40. See Telephone Interview Steve Paskay, April 8, 2008; Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross; Telephone Interview, Bill Olsen. Many times if a charity was hosting an event, the researchers would know which celebrity would be in attendance, based on their research into what charities the celebrities supported. This allowed researchers to say with some certainty that “ET” might get a certain celebrity here but not there.

41. Telephone Interview, Bob Flick, April 10, 2008.

42. Telephone Interview, Mann.

43. Telephone Interview, Olsen.

44. Ibid.

45. Bellows, “The Last Editor,” 262. 46. Telephone Interview, Merlis.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid.

196 49. Ibid.

50. Telephone Interview, Scott Osborne, May 12, 2008.

51. Telephone Interview, Swerdloff-Ross.

52. Telephone Interview, Zurbrugg.

53. Telephone Interview, Merlis.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid.

56. Telephone Interview, Osborne.

57. Ibid.

58. Susanne Ault, “‘ET:’ The Business Behind the Buzz,” Broadcasting & Cable, July 2, 2001, 16.

59. Yardena Arar, “Videotape Shows Rather Chasing the Wrong Man,” Associated Press, May 12, 1983, from: http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/ lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3782272661&form at=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3782272664&cisb=2 2_T3782272663&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=304478&docNo=14 (accessed on May 18, 2008).

60. Ibid. One month later CBS won the lawsuit when a jury declared the program had not displayed a blatant disregard for the truth.

61. Tom Shales, “Rough on Rather: The Trials of ’60 Minutes’ in Court and on Camera,” Washington Post, June 12, 1983. The article also condemned ABC’s “Nightline” and CNN for their constant broadcasts and focus on Rather’s part in the case.

62. Telephone Interview, Osborne.

63. Telephone Interview, Merlis.

64. Telephone Interview, Osborne.

65. Ibid.

66. Ibid.

197 67. John Corry, “On Gossip, Glitz, and Real Stuff,” New York Times, August 21, 1983.

68. Ibid.

69. AlJean Harmetz, “Giving Hollywood Party is a Serious Business,” New York Times, October 12, 1983.

70. Ibid.

71. Peter Kaplan, “‘ET:’ The Latest Assault,” Esquire, September 1983, 245.

72. Ibid.

73. Ibid.

74. Academy of Television Arts and Sciences from http://www.emmys.org/ awards/awardsearch.php (accessed on May 12, 2008).

75. Telephone Interview, Ridgeway.

76. Telephone Interview, Cook.

77. Kaplan, “‘ET:’ The Latest Assault.”

78. John Carmody, “The TV Column,” Washington Post, November 11, 1983.

198 Chapter 8: Moving On

“There may be no business like show business, but there’s good business in show- business news.”1

Richard Stengel, Time Magazine

By early 1984, “Entertainment Tonight” was firmly established in the television

and entertainment world. A 1983 article in Time magazine by Richard Stengel called the

show “the hottest, and certainly fastest-paced, syndicated show on television . . . . It is

about as light, nourishing, and addictive as the popcorn one hungers for while watching

it.”2 The show, now well into its third season, could be seen in 141 local markets across

the country, averaging a weekday and weekend combined audience of nearly 21 million and holding its own among the game shows and syndicated series that provided the

program’s main competition.3 Executive Producer George Merlis and co-producer Jack

Reilly were working hard to make sure the program had the most important, compelling,

and consumer-driven entertainment news. Merlis thought the staff had succeeded in

making a half-hour program of consumer-based entertainment news that people were

interested in and would watch. “The glitter of the stars got them in the tent,” he said, “and then we gave them the information they needed.”4 Giving viewers that information had

become easier as celebrities now knew about the program and were willing to use it for promotional purposes. Segment reporters and producers found the growing recognition made it somewhat easier for them to get the big name interviews and stories. “People in

Hollywood were now watching,” said investigative reporter Scott Osborne. “It shifted

some degree of perception about the show and that was good for us.”5

199 However, reporting Hollywood news was not always pleasant, and after Merlis

oversaw a controversial series that upset some major Hollywood studios, Paramount had

had enough. Merlis left and Reilly took over the executive producing role. Under him the

program established a stable format from 1984 to 1986 that would take it well into the

future. This chapter explores how “ET” evolved after Merlis’ departure, the work that

Reilly and his team put into the program that firmly established it in the show business world, and how this set the stage for the program’s future. When Reilly left at the end of the fifth season, “ET” was the major source for entertainment news and responsible for firmly establishing the genre of entertainment news on television.

Good Bye George, Hello Jack

By mid-January 1984, well into the show’s third season, “ET” was known for its feature reports on celebrities and its more investigative pieces on the shadier side of

Hollywood. Merlis and Osborne were excited about the five-part series on drug use in

Hollywood that they had just finished. The series looked into the cocaine culture in

Hollywood, which involved not only celebrities using cocaine but what the major studios did or did not do to foster these practices. “There was nothing unusual about these practices,” said Osborne. “There was a high use of cocaine in the industry, and if you couldn’t find a drug story, you just weren’t trying.”6 “ET” was doing well in the ratings in

the weeks before the series was set to air, and both Merlis and Osborne were hoping the in-depth series would boost the ratings even more, while providing more evidence that

“ET” was covering hard-edged entertainment stories.7 The program aired the first part of

the series on a Thursday in late January, and on the next day Merlis was fired. In a

200 statement to the Associated Press on January 23, Paramount credited him with

“increasing the news credibility of the show and expanding its investigative capability”

but said no more on the firing.8 He believed it was because there was too much fallout

from the first piece, which got some studio heads in Hollywood, including Paramount,

extremely angry at the program. “We reported the truth,” he said, “but too many people

too high up got burned by it.”9

With Merlis gone, Paramount put the remaining four parts of the series on hold,

not wanting to shake things up even more. However, when the local media started

speculating that the industry-upsetting series was the reason he was fired, Merlis said the

program had no choice but to air the final four segments, which it did a few weeks later.10

An Associated Press article by Fred Rothenberg that appeared later that week featured a

statement from a Paramount spokeswoman about the cocaine series, putting what

appeared to be a more balanced outlook on the story. She said the series would

“generalize that cocaine abuse exists at every major studio. Studio heads, including

Paramount’s Barry Diller, will have the chance to comment.”11 President of Paramount

Television Domestic Distribution Randy Reiss added his thoughts on the splashy

investigative pieces that the program produced, summing it up with the statement, “It’s

somewhat exploitive, but that’s good. This is TV.”12 Rothenberg complimented “ET” in

the article, praising it for taking the entertainment industry seriously by reporting on the

darker issues that did have an impact on what was going on in Hollywood.13

With Merlis gone, Paramount made his co-producer, Reilly, the executive producer and tried to defer some of the speculative publicity that Merlis’ departure had

caused. Aside from glossing over the reason for his departure, executives stressed that the

201 program was still dedicated to providing viewers with all of the entertainment industry news that they needed to know and was now focusing on what could be done to make this process even better. “My concern,” said Reiss, “was what can we add to make this a broader show? How can we make it even more credible? I don’t want to make it hard news, but more intelligent news. We’re not ‘60 Minutes’ you know.”14

Reilly fit the bill for what Paramount wanted. Like Merlis, he was coming off a news career that included producing “Good Morning America” [GMA] and executive producing “” and “The David Frost Show.”15 He had joined the

“ET” staff in November 1983 and had spent several months working with Merlis, so he was well versed in how the program had been operating. The staff spoke highly of

Reilly’s news judgment and style, although he rarely talked to the media, believing that he worked best doing what had to be done and not worrying about justifying anything he might do to the media.16 Writer Bill Olsen said that while the former executive producers of “ET” had done well to bring up its news credibility, it was Reilly who got the show settled and set into the format that it would follow and grow for the next twenty-four years. “We’d gotten slicker at doing the show and doing stories with Reilly’s help,” said

Olsen. “We also had some experienced people who had been there a long time and knew how to do a story.”17

When out reporting, Osborne recalled liking how decisive that Reilly was in regard to his stories. One example was how Reilly responded to a piece that Osborne put together on the popular “Movies of the Week.” These made-for-television movies that aired each week took the latest news headlines or scandals and made them into movies that the networks aired. After researching a number of these movies, Osborne realized

202 that in most cases the movies presented a misrepresentation of what had actually happened. He wanted to do a piece that exposed this and looked at why such liberties

were taken, and so he pitched his idea to Reilly. “Jack looked at it and said, ‘We’re going

to get in trouble with this,’” Osborne recalled. “He said, ‘I think that a point of view like

that is probably a little bit more than ‘ET’ can really handle.’”18 Osborne, despite being

irritated at the time, said he respected Reilly’s news judgment and admitted he was

probably right about the content of the piece, especially after past experiences at “ET” with upsetting the Hollywood machine.19 Under Reilly’s direction, segment producer

Susan Haymer enjoyed being able to do more in-depth celebrity pieces on the weekday

shows, which involved going to the homes of stars and putting together five-to-six minute

feature pieces that delved into the lives and careers of Hollywood stars such as Eva Marie

Saint and Lucille Ball.20 Co-host Mary Hart also felt that “ET” under both Merlis and

Reilly had increased its news credibility. In a May 1984 article for the Washington Post, she told reporter Michael Hill the program had developed its news sense by reporting the news about celebrities and the Hollywood industry that people wanted to hear. “It’s more of a legitimate news show now, we have to have that balance between entertaining and informing.”21

Promotion: Inside & Outside

At the same time “ET” under Reilly was promoting its message of presenting

informative, intelligent entertainment news, some in the media were beginning to

question how programs such as “ET” were being manipulated by Hollywood. One case of

this manipulation could be seen in the controversy generated by the series on the

203 Hollywood cocaine industry, but other tools that gave a heavy hand to studio promotion

were developing. New York Times reporter Sally Bedell Smith examined the issue in her

January 1984 column. She focused on the development of electronic press that

studios sent to media outlets. The kits contained video clips of a movie or television

program, pre-produced interviews with the stars that were conducted by people at the

studio, and written copy that touted the product. She argued that this type of material,

provided free of charge to the press, raised a question of journalistic integrity: should the

programs, such as “ET,” tell the audience that the material being used was promotional

and that the reporters for the program had nothing to do with the filming or

interviewing?22 However, one of the creator’s of the electronic press kit, Gordon

Armstrong, said in the article that he believed the kits simply helped programs promote material that was of interest to audiences. “They [news programs] know that well-done

entertainment news interests the public,” he said, “and we are giving them professionally

produced material that you can’t buy.”23

The media kits were helpful, according to the “ET” staff, especially since they

provided more video to use in stories. Before the kits, most celebrities were interviewed

at their homes, and the video would show them bowling, walking a dog, or doing something else, some times not related to the story topic. Now, there were video clips

from movies and television programs to help tell the tale. Although those were good

resources, “ET” reporters said they always preferred getting their own interviews, where

they asked the questions, to having pre-produced ones that came in each electronic press

kit.24 Movie critic Leonard Maltin also found the electronic press kits beneficial because

they provided more movie clips that he could use in his reviews, but he said he had to be

204 careful about which clips he used because many times if he thought a movie was bad, the only press clips sent would be of the one or two exciting scenes in the otherwise boring film.25 Hollywood, it would seem, with the success of “ET” and the growing popularity of entertainment news coverage, was becoming more savvy about how it could promote its wares on television.

As for promoting “ET,” that job fell in part to the co-hosts, who spent many of their weekends visiting smaller markets around the country, trying to convince them that buying “ET” would be beneficial. In a 2002 interview, Hart recalled those publicity trips were a hard sell, especially trying to convince local stations about the appeal of the lighter fare that the program presented when paired up with local or network news.26

Selling “ET” in syndication might have been a tough job but satellite syndication was off and running. Thanks in part to the satellite network that “ET” started as well as CNN and other cable operations that were building up their satellite distribution systems, first-run syndicated programs were booming. These were programs that were being created for syndication instead of airing first on the networks. A May 1984 article in Business Week touted the market for first-run syndication as being the fastest growing area in television programming. It also noted that “ET” had grossed more than $30 million in advertising revenues and license fees in its second season alone. The financial benefits to programs such as “ET” that aired in first-run syndication were a highlight of the selling process as well: because stations only needed to commit to a year’s worth of programming, it cost less to buy the program.27 As for what it cost to buy a season of “ET,” no one could remember exactly how much it cost but said it varied from market to market, keeping in mind that, according to Rich Frank, “ET” was in the top tier of syndicated shows at the

205 time.28 With the growing popularity of syndicated programs, an easier distribution process, and an increasing financial benefit, no one at Paramount regretted getting into

the business with programs such as “ET.” “We got into the syndication business because

it’s a more direct way of dealing with stations,” said Barry Diller in a June 1984 article in

Business Week. “We’re less susceptible to the vagaries of the three networks.”29

Reilly’s Years

As “ET” found itself moving along a steady path in the syndication world and with Reilly as executive producer, the program moved into its fourth season in September

1984, but still with some changes. Several months before the season kicked off, “ET” found a new home for its production process. The program had been shot at the Merv

Griffin- owned studios on Vine Street for its first three years, but earlier that summer, it moved to a new studio on the Paramount lot. This was accompanied by a satellite uplink at the studio, which eliminated the need for tapes to be run up Vine Street and across

Sunset Boulevard by the show runners. This relieved some of the pressure on the staff because they did not have to worry as much about making sure that the show tape made it to the satellite on time.30

Changes also were happening on the co-hosting front. Ron Hendren’s $700,000-a-

season contract had run out at the end of the third season and he wanted more money to

sign on for the fourth.31 Paramount executive John Goldhammer remembered trying to

hammer out a deal with Hendren’s agent, who remained firm on the salary increase. “His

agent said, ‘You don’t understand, Ron Hendren is to ‘ET’ what David Hartman is to

‘GMA,’” recalled Goldhammer. “And we went, ‘What?’ And they stood firm and we

206 stood firm, and the next week Ron was gone.”32 With his departure, Paramount decided to hire talk show host Robb Weller to co-host with Hart. In the press that followed

Hendren’s leaving, Paramount made sure to credit him with helping get the show off the ground but spun his departure a bit differently. “Ron Hendren made a contribution to

‘ET’ during its first three years,” said Vice President for Programming Frank Kelly in a

1984 Associated Press article. “However, we felt there was a need to take the series to an exciting new plateau, and we believe Weller better suits our future needs.”33 Hendren did not comment to the media on the firing. Weller had been a co-host of the New York- based program “Two on the Town” before coming on board at “ET.” He was initially set to co-host “Entertainment This Weekend” as Paramount executives were looking to change things up on the program, but when Hendren’s contract talks could not be resolved, he graduated to weekday co-host.34

Another new face was added to the mix in the fourth season as former newswoman Leeza Gibbons joined the staff as a reporter and the host of “Entertainment

This Weekend.” She started her career as a television news reporter but quickly realized her heart was more in entertainment and feature reporting. When she left the news business for the entertainment world, a former news director told her, “‘You’ll never get another job in this business, you’ll never be taken seriously, what you’re thinking about doing is going to derail your entire career,’” she remembered.35 Undaunted, she headed for Los Angeles and found work hosting and reporting for entertainment and talk show programs such as “PM Magazine” and “Two on the Town” with Weller before being hired by “ET” in late 1984.

207 Gibbons said her news background helped her in her entertainment reporting because she always thought of herself as a news reporter whose beat was entertainment.

She added that a news background came in handy in several situations, such as when she covered the premiere of the movie Rambo: First Blood Part II in Israel in 1985. While at the hotel, she heard gunfire from the nearby Jordanian border. “Being from a news background, my instinctive reaction was to shoot it,” she said. “We were racing through

Bethlehem, feeding this tape out at the same time, focusing on the violence in real life that occurred where the movie took place, and I thought it was an interesting juxtaposition in a hybrid kind of way between news and entertainment.”36 She and her reporting style were popular with her co-workers and the executives at Paramount who had hired her. “Leeza is one of the sweetest human beings in the world,” said

Goldhammer, “and she was good at what she did.”37 Writer Bill Olsen also remembered his enjoyment at working with her on a feature piece about the usually reclusive musician

Bob Seger. “In her unique way, she got him to open up, and the piece was just fantastic,” he recalled.38

Gibbons loved reporting but enjoyed hosting the weekend program as well because she said it allowed her to do longer stories and pieces, including the occasional theme show. She remembered some of her best interviews that aired on the weekend show, when she was allowed to delve deeper into the life of a celebrity. “Literally, at that time, no one said no to us,” recalled Gibbons. “I went tap dancing with Sammy Davis

Junior, interviewed the reclusive Bette Davis, and so many other Hollywood legends. It was a rare treat to be able to spend time with them and have more time to tell their stories.”39 Theme shows on the weekend also were a popular way to attract attention and

208 yet make the weekend show look different from the weekday newscast. For example,

weekend producer Olsen recalled the hour-long tribute that the program did on the fiftieth

anniversary of Elvis Presley’s birth. Olsen remembered not really liking Elvis until he got the opportunity to research and produce the program. “I met some fantastic characters and was able to tell some great stories about Elvis in that hour,” he recalled.40 However,

critics were not quite as happy with the more focused, hour-long tribute style of

“Entertainment This Weekend.” “‘Entertainment This Weekend’ Salutes Elvis covers the

hits and the myths,” wrote Richard Harrington of the Washington Post in a 1984 review,

“but it does so in an annoyingly superficial manner.”41

Gibbons was proud of how “ET’ covered stories, and fond of Reilly. She credited

him with bringing good journalistic standards to the program. “He took entertainment

news seriously,” she said, “and made sure we were responsible and respectful, that we

honored our word, that we didn’t use any ambush tactics, and all those skills which are

news skills in general.”42 His belief in journalistic reporting on entertainment news was

something that script supervisor Jackie Burke said the entire staff understood. “We always knew there were different angles to take when it came to writing. You didn’t have to be as rigid as hard news, but you certainly had the journalistic basis there.”43 Reilly’s

skills at creating reliable, interesting entertainment news also could be seen in the format of the program, which had months earlier begun to cut stories and features down to two to two-and-a-half minutes instead of the traditional three to three and a half minutes. The

goal was to keep the program moving and to put more stories into a daily show.44 Under his tenure, Maltin’s movie reviews also become a thing of the past. “They stopped having me do reviews about four years after I came,” he said. “I think it was because I had given

209 a bad review to Yentl, and thus its star, Barbara Streisand, refused to talk to ‘ET.’ I

suspect that started them thinking that maybe we can’t have somebody knocking the

same people we’re trying to get on camera.”45 To that end, Maltin began doing more

feature pieces and interviews about movies and celebrities.

With show business news, especially celebrity gossip, seeming to attract a steady

audience, “ET” headed into the November 1985 ratings period wondering how well celebrity gossip might fit into the program.46 Reilly and the executives at Paramount

decided to hire noted gossip Rona Barrett to see if she would fit in with the

“ET” style. She was a known entity on the Hollywood circuit, having done gossip reports

for “GMA” in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as hosting several short-lived

gossip-type programs for the networks. Initially, when “ET” first went on air, she was

heavily critical of the program, condemning it for its light, meaningless reporting. “I

think it’s awful,” she told the Washington Post in December 1981. “It’s a wonderful idea but very horrendously executed.”47 But by 1985, her tune seemed to have changed, and

she began her stint on “ET” in late 1985. She brought her unique gossipy style to the

program, but producers and executives soon realized it did not fit with where they wanted

to move the program. “We tried, and it didn’t work because Rona wanted to be Barbara

Walters,” recalled Goldhammer.48 By April 1986, Barrett and “ET” had parted ways, and

the idea of pure gossip segments on the program had been discarded. Thus, the program

then returned to its steady diet of behind-the-scenes celebrity features and promotional

pieces; industry news and major events, peppered by investigative reports and weekly

series pieces.

210 A Typical Show

Like past years, the show usually opened with some type of longer piece on a

celebrity or event, something making news, or a big industry event. Then, there was

industry news and investigative pieces mixed in with features on celebrities and the

products that they were promoting. The graphics were continually moving on and off

screen, and there was a sense of constant movement between stories. Then, the program

usually ended with a music video or concert footage of a musician or celebrity. The

general feel of the show was fast paced and informative, and the story count had greatly

increased from the first few seasons.

For example, the show on July 22, 1985, opened with video of Bruce Springsteen

in concert and then did a two-and-a-half minute package on fans that had lined up for

days to get tickets to a show. The focus of the package was on how devoted fans were

and how much money and time they would spend on a celebrity or musician they

enjoyed. Next was an on-camera story about the re-issue of E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial in theaters, which had made $8 million leading into the past weekend. The next block of stories focused on celebrities raising money for charity. A two-and-a-half minute package

on actress Brooke Shields raising money for relief efforts in Africa showcased the star at

a Monte Carlo-style benefit night. That was followed by a forty-second piece that had the

co-hosts reading over video of singer selling his horses to raise money

for charity; and another two-minute package on celebrities attending a “How to Host a

Murder” party in New York City, with the benefits going to a local children’s charity,

finished the block of stories.

211 The show then did a series of three on-camera stories, each with a boxed graphic appearing over the anchors’ shoulders and each running about twenty-five seconds. The first story explained the Federal Appeals court throwing out the television “Must Carry” rules; the second detailed a corporate merger among smaller entertainment companies; and the third was about the new Miss Black America, who had been crowned on the night before. The focus then shifted back to features, with a two-and-a-half minute piece on celebrities attending an event at Vassar College, where they talked to film students about their craft, and a two-minute piece on the upcoming release of the movie PeeWee’s Big

Adventure. Next co-hosts told viewers what new videos were appearing in video stores that week and what new books were on bookstore shelves. The segment wrapped up by announcing various celebrities who were celebrating a birthday on that day.

The final segment of the show featured a minute-and-a-half piece on singer

David Lee Roth doing a live radio interview promoting his band’s (Van Halen) newest release. That segued into a three-minute feature piece on actress Victoria Principal, focusing on her recent marriage and her attempt to balance a movie career and a home life. Then it was on to the second of a month-long series called the “Masters of Terror,” which focused on seminal Hollywood horror films and was hosted by actor Vincent

Price. Today’s focus was on the impact that the release of the 1931 version of

Frankenstein had on cinema and horror movie history. After that, there was a co-host reading copy over video of the Thirtieth International Juggling Convention and a full- screen graphic list of the ten sexiest men in America, the number one of whom was John

Candy. The final element of the show was the traditional scene of Hart and Weller sitting

212 on two overstuffed chairs, teasing the stories coming up on the next day and closing with

a music video of musician .49

It should be noted that since the program began with Marjorie Wallace co-hosting

in 1981, each show ended with the co-hosts sitting in the overstuffed chairs, chatting with

each other about the next day’s show, while the deliberately showed the

female co-host’s legs. While this tactic was not heavily publicized until Hart’s legs were

insured for $1 million in the late 1980s, it was no secret that the female co-hosts were

expected to show off their legs in the final shot.50 Director Steve Hirsen said it was

usually standard practice for the final on-camera shot to feature Hart or Gibbons’ legs to

some degree, although it was not overtly or salaciously done.51 Hart told Washington Post

reporter Tom Shales in a July 1986 article that she did not mind the leg shots. “I know

that people don’t watch the show just for my legs. People watch because they enjoy the

show,” she said.52 Gibbons did not think much about the leg shots although she admitted

it affected her wardrobe during her time there. “I don’t think I wore pants on ‘ET’

throughout the 1980s,” she reflected.53

Business Matters

The fourth season of “ET” passed with relatively little drama with the program continuing to hold steady in the ratings, thriving on the balance of hard and soft

entertainment news that it had achieved under Reilly’s reign. It continued to do

investigative pieces balanced by significantly more features on celebrities and their lives.

The shady side of the business was exposed as were the ongoing celebrity trials and court

cases, but by the start of the fifth season in September 1985, the program had achieved a

213 more even mix of topics, although its bread and butter were still celebrity features and industry news. Critics were accepting of the program in its current form although most still saw it as little more than light, fluffy fare. Working Woman magazine reviewed the program in January 1985 and found it fodder for Hollywood gossip and news of relatively little impact. “They [‘ET’] are not harmful or dangerous but like potato chips they contain no nutrition—no solid food for thought,” the article remarked.54 However,

audiences had an appetite for this less solid fare of “ET” after the February 1985 ratings,

“ET” ranked as the fifth most popular syndicated television program behind “Wheel of

Fortune,” “M*A*S*H,” “Three’s Company,” and “Jeopardy.”55 By August 1985, “ET” had moved up to the number two-ranked syndicated television show with an average nightly audience on weekdays and weekends, of 16.5 million viewers. This was more than the combined audiences of “CBS Morning News,” “The Today Show,” and “Good

Morning America,” according to a 1985 Newsweek article.56

Independent stations were by now outspending affiliates in efforts to acquire programs such as “ET,” according to a June 25, 1985, article in the New York Times.57

Advertisers also had jumped at the increase in syndicated programming ratings. A June

27, article in the Times reported that national advertisers were spending between $500

million and $1 billion a year to buy time on programs such as “Wheel of Fortune” and

“ET.”58 Much of this advertiser interest was because of the audience that the programs

attracted: 18 to 49 year olds, the demographic over which advertisers salivated. “The

audience was young, you always wanted the 18 to 49 year old audience,” said “ET”

creator Al Masini. “They were who the advertisers wanted, they were who stations

wanted, and they were who the material most appealed to. We had great 18 to 49

214 numbers.”59 Newsweek also noted that advertisers liked “ET” because it cost them 10 to

20 percent less to reach relatively the same size audience as network advertising prices,

which could run up to $100,000 for a thirty-second primetime spot.60 And the “cash-plus-

barter” system, which combined the cash and barter system of selling the program that

“ET” had started, was continuing to grow in popularity. New York Times reporter Richard

Stevenson wrote in an August article that more and more companies were using the

system to sell advertising time on shows such as “Wheel of Fortune” and off-network

reruns of programs such as “Fame” and “M*A*S*H.” The article also mentioned the fact

that many of these syndicated programs, including “ET,” were improving in quality.61

By July 1985, “ET” could be seen in 158 local markets, mainly on independent stations, across the country.62 “ET” also was gaining notice in the media for the influence it had on creating a new market for televised entertainment news. Reporter Peter Kaplan said in an August 1985 article for the New York Times that “ET” “irrevocably changed television and added a new word, ‘infotainment,’ to the vocabulary of the medium.”63

Kaplan defined “infotainment” as “soft news gilded with a video style” and credited it in

becoming the definition for certain types of programming.64 Newsweek featured an article

that credited “ET” with sparking “a booming new market for Hollywood studios, local

television stations, and the publishing business” and used the term “infotainment” as a

way to classify what “ET” did.65 United Press International reporter Vernon Scott noted

in a July 1985 article that show business mania was raging across the United States as

more and more people were interested in learning about celebrity gossip from television

as well as news from the entertainment industry, such as box office numbers, television ratings, and behind-the-scenes features on stars.66 However, he said that only “ET” had

215 succeeded in devoting an entire nightly program to the topic. Hart explained that as the country prospered economically, people had more time to devote to movies and television and the latter was picking up on that need to know. She also pointed out that

“ET” tried not to be repetitive in its story coverage and therefore tried to have an even mix of fluff and industry news, something for which viewers seemed to have an insatiable appetite. “They can’t seem to get enough,” she said. “There are some hot stars out there these days.”67

There was concern during the early months of 1986 because the program had dipped in the ratings and some affiliates were considering dropping the show. An article by Tom Shales in the Washington Post on February 11, reported that WABC in New

York had decided to replace “ET” with a revived version of the game show “Hollywood

Squares” because “ET” continually ranked fourth in its timeslot behind “Wheel of

Fortune,” “The New Newlywed Game,” and “M*A*S*H.”68 In Chicago, the program was moved from the NBC-owned station WMAQ and sent to a smaller UHF station,

WFLD, which had originally aired it in its first season. Shales suggested that the reason for the ratings dip, aside from the insane popularity of game shows, was that “ET” had made itself so marketable that it was now seeing competition from local newscasts across the country, which ran entertainment segments or stories on their daily programs.69

Along with the shakeups in New York and Chicago, “ET” also was beginning to get minor competition from similar programs that were beginning to pull in viewers. For the past five years, “ET” had pretty much been on its own in the entertainment news market, challenged only by magazine shows such as “PM Magazine” and CNN’s

“Showbiz Today,” which patterned itself after “ET.”70 In March 1986, UPI’s Scott again

216 wrote about the popularity of this type of “infotainment” and suggested there was even

more of a market for programs such as “ET.” He noted that especially popular were the

now regular features on these programs, including “ET,” that dealt with competitive

ratings, corporate mergers in television and movie studios, and the ever growing number

of awards shows that were being televised.71 Newsweek, several months before, also

noted a glut of entertainment-type programming on television and worried that this would cause problems in the long run for “ET” because it would not be able to hold onto its uniqueness.72 However, despite the popularity of show business news on television and the ratings worries, “ET” still remained distinctive in its style with no clear competition to its half-hour, all-entertainment news format. And aside from the problems in New

York and Chicago, the program drew a steady number of viewers and usually ranked second or third in its timeslot in many of the local markets where it aired each week.73

The show also was doing well in the Los Angeles market, and by November 1986 “ET”

had been moved to the slot directly after the network news, replacing a half hour of local news programming.74

The program also saw a huge boon from a glowing endorsement from one of the

biggest names in the news business at the time: CBS veteran anchor and reporter Walter

Cronkite. In a July 1986 article for the Washington Post, he told the reporter that one of the best news shows on air was “ET.” “You’re more likely to get the five Ws in an

‘Entertainment Tonight’ story than you are in some others,” he said. “For goodness sakes, they [other news programs] don’t give me the five Ws! The who and what maybe, but I can’t find out when and where. And the how? Forget it.”75 That review stuck in the minds

of many “ET” staffers, who recalled how pleasant he was to their show. “Cronkite was a

217 big fan of ‘ET,’” said writer Olsen, “We called him ‘Uncle Walter’ because he was always so great to us and would always do interviews with us.”76 Writer Bob Flick also remembered Cronkite’s review and took pride in the fact that the respected journalist thought “ET’ was reporting and writing things right.77 Several other noted newsmen,

Mike Wallace and also had expressed their “addiction” to “ET,” according to a 1985 Newsweek article.78

Despite the support of Cronkite, producers and executives at Paramount were concerned about how to increase ratings and provide more competition to its syndicated rivals. So, “ET” decided to change things once more as it neared the beginning of its sixth season. At the end of July 1986, it was announced that CBS Sports reporter John Tesh would be replacing Weller as weekday co-host of “ET” in August. Weller would co-host

“Entertainment This Weekend” with Gibbons, but Tesh would now be paired up with

Hart.79 He had spent his early years at Julliard studying music but then had decided to become a physician and changed his major to chemistry, going to college on a soccer scholarship. While in college, he worked on the station, and when a friend suggested that he should apply for a job at a commercial station, his news career began.

Tesh went from radio to television news, covering a variety of stories from investigative pieces to sports events. After spending time in the news and sports divisions at television stations in both Nashville and New York, he was asked by a Washington Post reporter in

1986 about why he decided to move to “ET.” “I left the news because I wanted to try something else . . . . and quite frankly, I didn’t want to be covering ice skating when I was fifty-five years old anyway,” he said.80

218 With a new face on the anchor desk and a determination to bring ratings up and

hold its place in the growing field of syndicated programming, “ET” prepared for the

start of its sixth season. However, in early September, executive producer Reilly

announced he was leaving to take over the executive producer position at “GMA” on

December 1. At the same time, it was announced that “GMA” anchor David Hartman was remaining with the program after some intense contract negotiations. When asked by

John Carmody of the Washington Post if this had anything to do with his decision to return to “GMA,” where he had produced before “ET,” Reilly simply said he could not comment and gave no other information on his decision to leave.81 Executives at

Paramount once more had to begin a search for an executive producer who could fill the

shoes of those who had come before but also find a way to help bring a new feel and

hopefully increased ratings for the now five-year-old program.

By this time, many of the executives with Paramount who had been around for the

start of “ET” had moved on to other jobs. Frank and Diller were gone, and former Taft

Broadcasting Vice-President for Programming Lucie Salhany had taken over as president

of Paramount. She was determined to see “ET” continue to expand its reputation and

increase its ratings, according to Masini. “Lucie was instrumental in keeping the program

going throughout her years at Paramount,” recalled Masini. “She really kept that show

together.82 “ET” segment producer Ed Meyer recalled feeling excited about the changes

that the program was hoping to implement as it began its sixth season. He said he was

glad to see some effort being made to spice up the program, which he felt was still

interesting but had become “methodical, with the same type of story plugged into the

same Mad Lib.”83

219 That effort to find an executive producer who could deliver on taking “ET” into its next stage of development resulted in the November 1986 hiring of a news director from New York City, David Nuell. He had spent most of the 1970s working at WRC, the

NBC-owned station in New York City, as a news producer, a station manager, and

eventually the news director. In a November 1986 article in the Washington Post,

reporter John Carmody said Nuell was regarded as a “solid newsman, which suggests

‘Entertainment Tonight’ will continue with its mix of entertainment business news and

lighter features, a formula it abandoned for a while last year but has since returned to.”84

With Nuell in place as the new executive producer, a new regime at the reigns of

Paramount, and a brand new co-host, “Entertainment Tonight” was set for a fresh look

and attitude that would lead it into the future.

“ET” could not have gotten to this point in time without the hard work and efforts

of the more than 200 people who worked day and night to get the show off the ground

and establish its format, content, and reputation. The first five seasons set the standard

and the stage for not only the future of “ET” but for the future of entertainment news on

television and the influence it would have on broadcast news for years to come. The

tireless efforts to produce a mix of hard-edged entertainment news along with feature

pieces and celebrity stories had resulted in a program that was able to withstand the fickle

television market, advertising dollar, and critical reviews, and to prove that entertainment

news was a viable, desirable property no matter what a station’s affiliation. Along the

way, the program had a huge impact on how local, national, and cable news thought

about entertainment and the importance it played as well as in how it helped create and

expand a distribution system that would become the lifeblood of stations in the future.

220 The next chapter examines this influence through the stories and memories of broadcast

news directors who lived through these initial years of “ET” and the influence they say it had, or did not have, on their news content and programming.

221 Notes Chapter 8

1. Richard Stengel, “Turning Show Biz into News,” Time, July 4, 1983, 42.

2. Ibid.

3. See Sally Bedell Smith, “How Hollywood Manipulates Television,” New York Times, January 30, 1984; and John Carmody, “The TV Column,” Washington Post, November 15, 1984.

4. Telephone Interview, George Merlis, April 11, 2008.

5. Telephone Interview, Scott Osborne, May 12, 2008.

6. Ibid.

7. See Telephone Interview, George Merlis; and John Carmody, “The TV Column,” Washington Post, January 26, 1984.

8. “Merlis Out as Executive Producer of ‘Entertainment Tonight,’” Associated Press, January 23, 1984 from: http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/ results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3805442026&format=GNBFI &sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3805442031&cisb=22_T38054 42030&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=304478&docNo=6 (accessed on May 22, 2008).

9. Telephone Interview, Merlis.

10. Ibid.

11. Fred Rothenberg, “Entertainment Tonight Does More Than Stargaze,” Associated Press, January 30, 1984 from: http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/ lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3805442026&form at=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3805442031&cisb=2 2_T3805442030&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=304478&docNo=1 (accessed on May 22, 2008).

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

222 15. Richard Huff, “Exec Producer Reilly to Leave ‘GMA,’” Variety, March 5, 1993, 10.

16. Jack Reilly was not available for an interview because of health issues. However, his son, Christopher Reilly, said in a phone conversation on May 21, 2008, that his father had always been reluctant to talk to the media and that was why there are hardly any interviews or comments that he gave to the media during his time at “ET.”

17. Telephone Interview, Bill Olsen, April 26, 2008.

18. Telephone Interview, Osborne.

19. Ibid.

20. Telephone Interview, Susan Haymer, April 7, 2008.

21. Michael Hill, “Mary Hart: ‘Entertainment Tonight:’ On the Air Fan Magazine,” Washington Post, May 27, 1984.

22. Bedell Smith, “How Hollywood Manipulates Television.”

23. Ibid.

24. See Telephone Interview, Haymer; and Telephone Interview Osborne.

25. Telephone Interview, Leonard Maltin, May 1, 2008.

26. See Michael Joseph Gross, “Famous for Tracing the Famous,” New York Times, June 23, 2002; and John Carmody, “The TV Column,” Washington Post, April 24, 1984.

27. “First Run Syndicators Tune in on TV’s Big Bucks,” Business Week, May 7, 1984, 78.

28. Rich Frank, email message to author, May 21, 2008. Frank, Paramount executive John Goldhammer and creator Al Masini could not remember or track down documents that covered what markets paid for the program. No one currently at Paramount returned my calls or emails asking for their records.

29. “How Paramount Keeps Churning Out Winners,” Business Week, June 11, 1984, 149.

30. See Telephone Interview, Olsen; and Telephone Interview, Maltin.

223 31. See Telephone Interview, Al Masini, December 7, 2007; and John Carmody, “The TV Column,” Washington Post, September 14, 1984.

32. Telephone Interview, John Goldhammer, January 29, 2008. David Hartman was the longtime anchor on “Good Morning America” and had established a reputation as the face and voice of the program.

33. John Carmody, “The TV Column,” Washington Post, September 24, 1984.

34. See Telephone Interview, Masini; and Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

35. Telephone Interview, Leeza Gibbons, January 28, 2008.

36. Ibid.

37. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

38. Telephone Interview, Olsen.

39. Telephone Interview, Gibbons.

40. Telephone Interview, Olsen.

41. Richard Harrington, “Rocky Tribute to Elvis,” Washington Post, December 8, 1984.

42. Telephone Interview, Gibbons.

43. Telephone Interview, Jackie Burke, May 6, 2008.

44. Telephone Interview, Olsen.

45. Telephone Interview, Maltin.

46. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

47. Tom Shales, “Some Enchanted Rona: The Woman Who Made TV Safe for Hollywood Gab; Miss Rona on Miss Rona,” Washington Post, December 3, 1981.

48. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

49. This information comes from an analysis of the July 22, 1985 edition of “ET.” The analysis was conducted February 21-22, 2008, at the UCLA Film and Television Archives in Los Angeles. A Beta tape of the episode was watched and analyzed for descriptive information.

224 50. See Gross, “Famous for Tracking the Famous;” Telephone Interview, Goldhammer; and Telephone Interview Olsen.

51. Telephone Interview, Steve Hirsen, April 9, 2008.

52. Tom Shales, “The Fresh Perked Mary Hart: The Long Legs and Fast Quips of ‘ET’s’ Chipper Host,” Washington Post, July 10, 1986.

53. Telephone Interview, Gibbons.

54. “Show Biz Fascinates Public,” Working Woman, January 1985, 116.

55. John Carmody, “The TV Column,” Washington Post, April 17, 1985.

56. Kim Foltz, Penelope Wang, and Janet Huck, “The Stars of the Bottom Line,” Newsweek, August 26, 1985, 42.

57. Thomas Hayes, “Hot Independent TV Stations,” New York Times, June 25, 1985.

58. Geraldine Fabrikant, “Slow Start for TV Ad Season,” New York Times, June 27, 1985.

59. Telephone Interview, Masini.

60. Foltz, Wang, and Huck, “The Stars of the Bottom Line,” 42.

61. Richard Stevenson, “Bartering for TV Ad Time,” New York Times, August 3, 1985.

62. See Hayes, “Hot Independent TV Stations;” and Vernon Scott, “Show Bizmania,” United Press International, July 15, 1985 from: http://www.lexisnexis.com/ us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3825623993&fo rmat=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3825623996&cisb =22_T3825623995&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=8076&docNo=6 (accessed on May 23, 2008).

63. Peter Kaplan, “America: The Newest Infotainment,” New York Times, August 17, 1985.

64. Ibid.

65. Foltz, Wang, and Huck, “The Stars of the Bottom Line,” 43.

66. Scott, “Show Bizmania.”

225 67. Ibid.

68. Tom Shales, “On the Air: Fighting the Ratings Skids at ‘ET:’ Poor Ratings Imperil the Show-Biz Journal,” Washington Post, February 11, 1986.

69. Ibid.

70. See Sally Bedell Smith, “CNN Raising its Identity Quotient,” New York Times, December 19, 1984; and Vernon Scott, “Infotainment Soars,” United Press International, March 8, 1986 from: http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/ docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3825959919&format=GNBFI&sort= BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3825959925&cisb=22_T3825959924 &treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=8076&docNo=4 (accessed on May 23, 2008).

71. Scott, “Infotainment Soars.”

72. Foltz, Wang, and Huck, “The Stars of the Bottom Line,” 42.

73. Jennifer Lieffers, “WTMJ-TV Tops Arbitron and Again,” The Business Journal-, June 23, 1986, 9.

74. Mark Schwed, “Networks and the News,” United Pres International, November 29, 1986 from: http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/results/ docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3836155005&format=GNBFI&sort= BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3836155008&cisb=22_T3836155007 &treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=8076&docNo=1 (accessed on May 23, 2008).

75. Stephanie Mansfield, “Walter Cronkite, Loving It the Way It Was: Five Years After Weighing Anchor He’d Like to be Less Retired,” Washington Post, July 29, 1986.

76. Telephone Interview, Olsen.

77. Telephone Interview, Flick.

78. Foltz, Wang, and Huck, “The Stars of the Bottom Line,” 42.

79. John Carmody, “The TV Column,” Washington Post, July 17, 1986.

80. Simi Horwitz, “There’s More To ‘ET’s’ Unlikely Co-Host Than Meets the Eye,” Washington Post, December 21, 1986.

81. John Carmody, “The TV Column,” Washington Post, September 8, 1986.

82. Telephone Interview, Masini.

226 83. Telephone Interview, Ed Meyer, March 19, 2008. A “Mad Lib” is a reference to a party game where people are asked to give adjectives, nouns, verbs, etc. to fill in blank lines in a story that is then read aloud. The filled in words then create a funny story.

84. John Carmody, “The TV Column,” Washington Post, November 25, 1986.

227 Chapter 9: Entertaining Legacy

“After ‘ET’ had been on for several years we realized that entertainment was news, that it could be news and was drawing exactly the people we wanted for news.”1

Mary Rogus, former news producer

When Al Masini came up with the idea for “Entertainment Tonight,” he knew he

had to create a program that would be appealing to independent television stations

looking for programming to fill schedules. He knew local newscasts were a key source of

revenue for television stations so it seemed fitting that an entertainment news program

would be an appealing sell. After all, he remarked, “there was nothing like it on television

at the time. It was a void I saw and knew could be successfully filled.”2 During the late

1970s and early 1980s, “PM Magazine” was the only entertainment-type, quasi-news program on local television; and it was more of a series of feature pieces surrounded by

taped host introductions from the field. It was not a full half hour devoted entirely to entertainment and the Hollywood industry. Most local newscasts in the early 1980s did not have any entertainment stories in them, in fact, the topic was not even considered unless it was something major, such as a celebrity death. But when “ET” arrived, resembling a local newscast but based totally around entertainment, it shook many in the

news world who had never considered that audiences might want to see these types of

celebrity stories on television news. In addition, “ET” was drawing a coveted audience:

females and younger viewers, who represented key demographics that local newscasts

wanted to attract.

228 Thus, “ET” changed the way broadcast news thought of entertainment stories. By

showing there was a market for this type of “news” coverage on local television, not to

mention that it was drawing a high demand audience, “ET” had a major impact on how

news organizations adapted and worked entertainment stories into their programs. The

program also set the stage for many of the copycat programs that would eventually fill the airwaves on cable and broadcast networks, as well as local syndication. While there are differing opinions on just how much of an impact “ET” had on local, cable, and network news programs, no one argues that the program had some kind of an impact on the news and entertainment industries. This chapter collects the memories and thoughts of those working in the news business during the early 1980s when “ET” was finding its feet and discusses what they believe the program did for television news in general. The opinions and views of those working at “ET” about what the program did for news and entertainment also are examined. Finally, what happened in the latter years of the program and its legacy, especially what it endured during its formative years to be able to survive for more than two-and-a-half decades, are examined to show how “ET” can claim a significant place in television history.

Television News Before “ET”

Before 1981, entertainment news on television had a limited range. Programs such as Edward R. Murrow’s “Person to Person” and “This is Your Life” had proven that people were interested in going behind the scenes of celebrity lives.3 Network morning

news programs such as “The Today Show” and “Good Morning America” featured more

celebrity interviews and segments by the mid to late 1970s, and “PM Magazine” was

229 providing local and national feature news segments that could be inserted into local

programs in markets across America.4 On the cable front, Ted Turner and CNN had just

emerged to begin the first cable news network and as part of the twenty-four-hour news

coverage had started an evening program called “People Tonight.” The program focused

on entertainment events and happenings in New York and Los Angeles.5 Local newscasts

contained feature stories but no entertainment news stories unless a celebrity died or

some important news-making event occurred.6 In general, entertainment news existed and

was reported here and there by the early 1980s, but no one had found a way to bring it to

the forefront of television, much less knew it had the potential to attract an audience that

was sorely needed. And while “ET” was the first to specifically bring a local news

formatted half-hour to television, CNN had given it a try several months earlier.

CNN

“Well, if you regard ‘ET’ as the grandfather of television entertainment news programming, then CNN is really the great grandfather in some ways,” said CNN’s first

president Reece Schonfeld in 2008.7 When CNN went on the air in 1980, it featured a 10

p.m., hour-long program called “People Tonight.” The network was a new venture, a

twenty-four-hour cable news operation, and during its first year like any new program, it

struggled to define the type of news coverage it could and would provide. Part of that

coverage included taking a look at the country’s arts, entertainment, and cultural world

through “People Tonight.” The program aired live each night and presented biographies

of celebrities, coverage of the latest plays and musicals opening on Broadway, and stories

out of Washington on political party news and social events among other happenings.

230 One of the program’s first reporters was a former newspaperman from Britain, Robin

Leach. “It was Robin’s first job,” said Schonfeld, “and he was wonderful.”8 Leach

recalled the excitement of being able to bring entertainment news and interviews to

television, despite the stumbling blocks that came from working with a format that had

not quite been developed yet. “It was radical television,” he recalled. “Until CNN,

everything was pre-packaged television. Now television became real, with blemishes and warts, because it was now live.”9

CNN also struggled with distribution as cable operations were only just beginning

to grow and needed to fill out channel lineups. While “ET” became the first program to

heavily distribute satellite dishes to local stations for them to receive the program, CNN

had by necessity put in about thirty satellite receivers at stations across the country but

not enough to cover the nation as “ET” had. CNN was delivered by local cable systems to

viewers so individual stations did not necessarily need satellites for delivery. The satellite

delivery method at CNN was something else it shared in with “ET:” it was

managed and run through Wold Communications. Schonfeld remembered when “ET”

was being proposed, owner Robert Wold asked if he minded that the company was going

to work with Paramount and put out a syndicated entertainment program by satellite. “I

told him no. I thought we could stand up to that type of competition,” he remarked, “that

we could do well, and being live, we could stay a day ahead of them. I made a mistake.”10

While Schonfeld said that mistake was having no set form or reputation for “People

Tonight” he also remarked that “ET” poached liberally from his staff at CNN. “They took some of our producers, guys from our Hollywood office, and Robin Leach,” he recalled.

231 “One of the greatest mistakes I made was letting Robin move onto ‘ET’ because we

couldn’t match the salary.”11

Schonfeld firmly believed that “ET” and “People Tonight” had different agendas

and did things in different ways. He likened “People Tonight” to the arts section of the

New York Times while he compared “ET” to a fan magazine. And while he thought there

was a place for entertainment news on television, he hoped that CNN would develop a

more cultured and refined way of covering stories that would appeal to the news audience

that it was trying to attract. “It was less glitzy and more about entertainment and the

entertainment business and those fooling around in Washington, and the cultural scene in

New York City,” he recalled.12 However, when anchor Mike Douglas was hired to anchor

the program in late 1981, Schonfeld said it became much more of an interview-type program with longer segments that could not compete with the “ET” style of covering different events and happenings in the entertainment world in short segments mixed with features and celebrity interviews. The program soldiered on, but it was obvious that “ET” had something that made it more attractive to an audience, not just because it was beginning to reach many more markets through its independent affiliation, unlike CNN which relied on the cable system distribution that was growing slowly.13

Schonfeld left CNN in 1982 but recalled by then that “ET” and “People Tonight”

would take stories from each other; the competition was gentle but acknowledged that

entertainment news was drawing audiences. “ET” may have gotten lukewarm reaction

from reviewers, but CNN had discovered through the audience that “ET” drew,

entertainment news had the potential to interest viewers. With “People Tonight” floundering, but interest in entertainment news growing, the question for CNN, Schonfeld

232 said, became how to incorporate more entertainment news into the overall CNN format to

help garner an audience. “It would never be wall-to-wall coverage of something in the

entertainment world,” he said, “but entertainment news began to work its way into the daily news coverage that we provided 24/7. It got an audience, that was the bottom line.”14 “People Tonight” went through several evolutions during the 1980s, including a

name change to “,” but it never could quite match “ET” for reputation and content.15

Network Newsmagazines, News, and FOX News Channel

“ET” had begun to draw attention to the fact that audiences were interested in

entertainment news, something that CNN had jumped on and eventually other cable

networks would follow. But the broadcast networks also were trying to grab a piece of

the entertainment pie, and according to some this occurred long before “ET” established a

formula for what worked and what did not. Throughout the 1970s and into the early

1980s, morning news programs had been making efforts to focus on not only news but

also feature and entertainment pieces.16 As “ET” segment producer Helaine Swerdloff-

Ross noted, there was a rivalry to book celebrity guests among the morning news programs as well as “ET” when it came on the scene.17

Entertainment news, while staying clear of CBS’s premiere newsmagazine “60

Minutes,” had become part of ABC’s primetime programming through “20/20” which took on a magazine style of reporting news events but also included stories and features on some of the big names in the entertainment business as well.18 Co-creator and

producer Dan Cooper recalled making sure the final segment of each show, which

233 featured a profile on a rock or popular musician, was promoted and teased throughout the

program. “We were called the ‘doctors of Teaseology’ by some of our colleagues

because we wrote so many different teases on the same story for one program,” he remembered. The final entertainment segment was so popular with viewers, that he remembered quite often being in the control room during the taping of the show and

getting a telephone call from ABC news president , who told him to

extend the teaser video that led into the final segment to give people more time to listen

to the interviewee’s music.19

This blend of news and one feature entertainment piece per show proved to do

well for “20/20,” so when “ET” came along, Cooper said he was not surprised the program worked, especially because he believed it had been conceived more as a promotional vehicle for celebrities and Hollywood than anything else. “It was supposed to be news about show business,” he said. “It was conceived as a televised version of the business of show business, a TV version of Variety or , and of what was going on with the personalities in that business.”20 His immediate thought was

that “ET” would not be able to survive against its prime-time access competition of the

phenomenally popular game shows such as “Wheel of Fortune” and “Family Feud” or

off-network sitcoms such as “I Love Lucy” and “M*A*S*H.” There also was the

problem that he foresaw with not offending celebrities or their agents. “‘ET’ had to be

very careful not to do that, or they wouldn’t have a show,” he said.21 As the show’s first

season got underway, Cooper also began to wonder if news from “inside” the

entertainment industry, news about the business side of Hollywood, would hold any

interest for viewers. This was especially interesting because, as he noted, box office

234 reports and weekly TV ratings were not things that many people were aware of since no

television programs were covering them. Magazines such as Billboard and Variety would print the lists, but on television, it was not something that would be seen on a newscast of any type. However, Cooper admitted that the daily and weekly “ET” box office and ratings reports proved extremely popular, and many local and cable newscasts were soon emulating them to some extent.22 “ET” movie critic Leonard Maltin agreed with Cooper,

saying, “ET” pioneered television coverage of box office numbers and ratings reports.

“No one had done it before and suddenly, because ‘ET’ reported it, people were

interested” he said.23

In terms of satellite delivery and the role that “ET” played in developing satellite distribution systems, Cooper said CNN most likely started things but “ET” added significantly to the mix and together both contributed to what nearly fifteen years in the future would help him launch the FOX News Channel. He remembered the biggest concern for those putting the new cable news network together was where video would come from and how it would be distributed and received from stations across the country.

Satellite systems, thanks in large part to programs such as “ET” and other syndicated newsmagazine programs such as “Hard Copy” and “A Current Affair,” were more developed and spanned a much broader area by the mid-1990s when FOX News Channel premiered. “It seems to me,” said Cooper about the impact of “ET” and its satellite system, “that it’s just part of what is the single most important thing in the business of cable, which is gaining carriage [from a satellite or cable provider]. If you can’t have carriage, you can’t have a cable channel.”24 Therefore, to Cooper, “ET” was just like

everyone else in the news business. Regardless of whether it dealt with cable or not, “ET”

235 had to develop a system to distribute its programming to stations that carried it or it would not be able to survive. Creator Masini and producer John Goldhammer agreed, knowing from the start that if they could not come up with a way to sell and distribute the program, it would never take off. “It was extremely important that we create this distribution system,” said Masini. “It was what would make or break the show from the beginning.”25

As for the overall impact of “ET” on network programs such as “20/20” or the morning news programs, Cooper believed it did not have a major impact on how entertainment news was covered by more traditional news outlets. “Entertainment news had always been out there, it was always of interest, especially when you look back to the fan magazines and movie and television mania of the 1940s and 1950s,” he said. “The new thing was bringing it to television.” However, he admitted “ET” set the model for the content and reporting style of future television spin offs such as “Access Hollywood” and

“Extra” and the more tabloid style news magazines such as “A Current Affair” and “Hard

Copy” that would emerge throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s.26

As for nightly network newscasts, it was extremely rare to see any type of entertainment story on any one of them during the early 1980s. If a famous person died, they might receive a graphic and a quick twenty-second on-camera reader or a short piece of video to mark their passing. But in general, the nightly newscasts had established audiences and reputations and clear missions about what they intended to do. “For almost a half century, covering the important news of the world was what ABC News, NBC

News, and CBS News did for a living,” wrote Lawrence Grossman in Columbia

Journalism Review in 1999. “They reigned as the kings of serious and responsible

236 , the pride of their networks.”27 While none of the then network

nightly news anchors were willing to be interviewed for this research, others who worked

in the business at the time said it was pretty clear that network news was not going to go

the route of entertainment news any time soon. “There was always more of a line

between news and entertainment in network newscasts,” said “ET” director Steve Hirsen,

who spend several years directing the CBS Nightly Newscast during the late 1970s. “It

was rare you would see any entertainment news other than perhaps a short, on-camera

obit now and then, although most times I would fight to get a minute and a half obit

on.”28 He said that most likely, you might have a little less of a problem covering a

celebrity death or major arrest on the nightly news today, simply because entertainment

news now is everywhere—on cable, syndication, and in local markets—and it attracts viewers, but he added that it would still be a relatively rare occurrence.

Network newscasts stuck to the hard news stories, in large part because they prided themselves in being the newscasts of national record. Cooper believed this was because they felt no need to report on the softer, entertainment news stories because they would usually appear on the newsmagazines or the syndicated programs such as “ET” that aired after their broadcasts.29 Cooper admitted, however, that entertainment news is something that probably appears more frequently today, although to a lesser extent in

national newscasts, because of the need to keep up with the cable and Internet news

venues that attract a good deal of the television audience that they are hoping to retain. In

general, Cooper said the impact of “ET” on national news programs has been not so

much in the content area as in the need to consider more carefully what types of things

can be done to attract an audience. In many cases, this includes dealing with how

237 syndicated programs such as “ET,” cable news networks, and technology, especially the

Internet, are drawing away television news audiences and what can be done to get them

back.30

Local Newscasts

While cable news networks, network newsmagazines, and morning shows were

finding more room for entertainment news in their programming as “ET” proved it was durable and attractive, local news, too, was beginning to see the benefits of having something entertainment related in their news coverage. Ohio University Associate

Professor and former television news producer Mary Rogus remembered her first impressions of “ET’ when it premiered. She had been working as a producer and a reporter at a television station in Roanoke, Virginia, and recalled being extremely

surprised at “ET” on her first viewing. She and her colleagues were unsure of why the

program, based around entertainment and what they considered more feature-type stories,

was being produced in what looked like a local newscast format. “The first surprise was, wait a minute, this is like the format of our newscasts,” she said. “The second thing that

became really clear was that it was not only like a local news format but it was a really

well produced local newscast.” As she moved into executive news producing in the early

1980s, she told her producers to watch “ET” to see how it put stories together, wrote copy, and produced what she considered to be excellent teases.31 It is interesting to note

that Masini, when creating the program, did not consciously fashion it after a local

newscast. However, most of the principles that he used, such as shorter stories that

flowed from one topic to another and the fast-pace he wanted for the show, were staples

238 in local newscasts across the country.32 This was not surprising since “ET” directors and

producers in many cases came from network news backgrounds.

Vice President of Operations and former KLAS-TV News Director Robert Stodal

had a slightly different view of “ET” when it premiered. He was working at KLAS in Las

Vegas when the program debuted. “Initially, it didn’t bother me,” he said. “In the early

days, they were doing a mix of successful movies, a little behind the scenes, and other

news, things that people were interested in but weren’t really competition for local

newscasts.” He said that KLAS newscasts had always prided themselves on covering the

community, of reporting the stories and events of significance to local residents. Most of

the time, this did not include entertainment stories unless they were related to something

involving one of the casinos or the entertainment industry in Las Vegas. He was not

against reporting entertainment news, especially being located in “Sin City,” but he

believed local newscasts should focus on the local communities and issues important to

them and become the place of record.33

However, by 1981, KLAS was expanding its news operation to provide newscasts at 5, 5:30, and 6 p.m. and develop a niche as the community source for news and

information. Contributing to this was the fact that “PM Magazine” aired in those blocks of news and did extremely well in the ratings; often times Stodal said Las Vegas had the

highest-rated edition of “PM Magazine” in the country.34 So when “ET” came along, he

said it was a natural choice to put into the station’s news niche, right after the nightly

news broadcast at 6:30. “It took off like a rocket,” recalled Stodal. “It wasn’t because it

was Las Vegas, it was because it was on a station where it fit the all encompassing news

and entertainment niche. It fit really well with our image.”35 KLAS’ current President and

239 General Manager Emily Neilson, who was working in management at the station in 1981,

recalled the general manager at the time being excited about the program because it

would be able to deliver fresh, topical information that would fit with that news niche that

the station wanted to portray. “We wanted something that would complement the news,

and a daily topical entertainment report was something new and exciting that did that,” she said.36 She said “ET” always did well in the ratings on KLAS, although she could not recall specific numbers. “‘ET’ skewed younger in the ratings,” she recalled. “Its

competition like ‘Wheel of Fortune’ skewed older, so that was a benefit for us to get a younger audience.”37 The program did so well that the station has kept the program for its

entire run and today still airs it nightly at 7 p.m.

WBAY’s current News Director Tom McCarey had a similar take to Stodal on the

impact that “ET” had on news coverage in the Green Bay, Wisconsin, market when it

premiered. He was working at the station at the time, although not as news director, and

recalled the program having little impact on the station’s local news coverage, which he

thought was more local event and community oriented. Like Stodal, he believed in

keeping the local news local and allowing programs such as “ET” to air in conjunction or

after newscasts. However, he said that if a celebrity died or something major happened in

Hollywood, it would probably be put into a newscast but would not receive a heavy

focus. In his view, the most important impact “ET” had on local news was on feature

reporting and the incorporation of lighter news stories into local news broadcasts. “I think

you were much more likely to see more feature material in local newscasts after the

advent of ‘ET’ and ‘PM Magazine,’ he remarked. “People were interested.”38

240 For Rogus, it was the realization that entertainment could be news and was being accepted as news by the audience demographic that was watching “ET” that particularly caught the attention of local stations. Nielsen ratings breakdowns, according to her, showed that “ET” was pulling in the coveted female and younger audience demographics that local news was desperately trying to attract.39 As more stations, such as KLAS attempted to start 5 o’clock newscasts, which were aimed at females, material was much more geared towards lighter, human interest, and consumer stories. The harder news would come with the traditional 6 o’clock newscasts and then the national nightly news.

And as “ET” began to draw the female audience, entertainment news also began to show up in television ratings research. “In our research, we’d say rank these topics from most important to least important in a local newscast,” Rogus said, “and prior to ‘ET’ entertainment news never even showed up in that research picture. However, after ‘ET’ we found that entertainment news really popped with women.”40 With a way to attract the coveted audience, local 5 o’clock newscasts throughout the 1980s began to incorporate entertainment segments or pieces into their shows, although according to Rogus, the pieces she ran were probably no more than a few minutes at most, and were filled with various entertainment or celebrity tidbits.41 Stodal said KLAS stuck to “PM Magazine” in its early evening news block and only put entertainment stories into local newscasts if they had some effect on the Las Vegas community. The ratings the station was getting were fine and what it wanted from its audience.42

While the extent to which “ET” had an impact on local, network, and cable news is something that can be debated among news personnel in every market, the fact remains it brought about new ways of thinking about entertainment news and where it fit into the

241 news business. Local newscasts during the early 1980s were beginning to put slightly more entertainment into their daily rundowns, especially during early evening shows. If local news did not want to go that route, “ET” was definitely regarded as a separate draw that complemented the news and information blocks that stations ran between 5 p.m. and

8 p.m. While time and technology have no doubt added new aspects to be considered about the impact of entertainment news on broadcast television, it was the formative first five years of “ET” that really started the broadcast news business on all levels thinking about where and when entertainment news could be used to their advantage. To that extent, what would happen to “ET” over the next twenty-three years also would play a large role in the legacy that many say that “ET” has left to television news and entertainment.

What Happened Next

With “ET” and its ratings appeal firmly established and being examined and incorporated by local and cable newscasts by 1986, the program continued to change and evolve. When David Nuell took over as executive producer in 1986 with John Tesh and

Mary Hart as the primary anchors, the program settled into a steady routine and feel that would keep it in the top ranks of syndicated programming for years to come. Electronic

Media magazine throughout the mid-1980s reported that “ET” constantly ranked in the tenth or eleventh position in the top fifteen syndicated programs each week.43 Keeping it there was its steady mix of entertainment news and features, which by now had backed away from focusing on heavy investigative pieces, although they did appear now and then. To help move the program forward, Nuell brought in his friend and former “GMA”

242 producer Jim Van Messel to co-produce “ET.” Nuell was not extremely popular with

some of the staff, and several people, including segment producer Susan Haymer, left the

program. She did not agree with the coverage philosophy and said her breaking point

came when she was told to stand outside a restaurant and wait for actress Tatum O’Neal

to come out, and then sing “Happy Birthday” to her for an “ET” piece. “That was the

final straw, I was out of there,” she said.44 However, “ET” weathered the staff shake-ups,

and its two main producers set out to bring up ratings and get the program back to a more

concrete mix of celebrity news, information, and glamour. “It was all about finding a

balance again,” said Nuell in a 1989 interview.45

In episodes of “ET” throughout the 1980s, it was clear that much more of the

focus had gone into features and behind the scenes pieces about movies and television.

Awards ceremonies and premieres also had begun to increase in frequency, with many

“ET” broadcasts during the mid and late 1980s focusing on red-carpet awards

ceremonies, preparation for the ceremonies, and interviews with celebrities about their

work and the honor of being nominated. Stories about what was going on in the

entertainment industry still permeated the show, along with the traditional box office and

TV ratings, but now there were more pieces focusing on network and cable programs as well as deals and issues involving studios. Behind-the-scenes footage also had increased with more interviews with celebrities on the sets of their movies or television programs.

Musicians and music features usually got one or two stories in the program, but the music business received less coverage than it had during the early years. The lone exception was that the show continued to close daily with credits rolling over music or concert videos. Overall, the story count was higher than in past years, with more short stories

243 placed between longer pieces, although most features still ran only about two to two-and-

a-half minutes. Teases off the top of the show also were growing longer, featuring up to five stories and pieces of video instead of the two stories that had headlined programs in the earlier years. But they were still sharply written, short, and to the point.46

Competition

One noticeable change during the late 1980s was the increase in the use of

“Exclusive to ‘ET’” as a banner graphic, or words read by the co-hosts and reporters in the copy.47 In the past there had been no need to boast that “ET” was first on the scene or

had an exclusive story because there was no major competing entertainment news

program on television. But by the mid-1980s, similarly formatted syndicated news

programs had begun to appear, and “ET’ was finding itself having to face off with

competition. The first real competitor, according to Masini, was “USA Today: The

Television Show.” “It really was the first show that made us sweat,” he recalled. “Even

though it didn’t last long, it made us rethink things and get on our toes.”48

In 1988, the Corporation decided to produce what would basically be a

syndicated, televised version of its popular daily newspaper, USA Today. According to

former “ET” managing editor Jim Bellows in his memoir, the show was a “guaranteed

hit” before it aired, having been sold without a pilot episode to 156 markets, having the

USA Today and Gannett brands behind it, and being touted as the program that would

knock “ET” off the air. “It was the most successful show in history,” he said, “that is until

it actually went on the air.”49 The program debuted in September 1988 and did exactly

what it set out to: put the stories from the newspaper onto television. However, the

244 program was not overly popular with viewers. Jeremy Gerard wrote in the New York

Times in October 1988 that the program “was greeted with Bronx from the critics

and ‘we’re not interested’ from the viewers.”50 The show’s first producer, Steve

Friedman, a television news veteran, said the program could not succeed because it simply could not marry television and print. “The two mediums are incompatible,” he said. “A lot of money has been flushed down the tube in trying to do it.”51 Within the first

few months of airing, Bellows was brought in to see if he could revamp the show and bring up the ratings, but he admitted to Paramount executive John Goldhammer and in his memoir, that it was an impossible mission from the start because the program was

trying to put a newspaper on television without considering the different medium.52 The show did nothing to stem the popularity of “ET” in the ratings, but Masini noted it forced

“ET” to start fighting for content with its new rival.53 The program went off the air in

1990, a victim of poor ratings and little critical acclaim. However, the era of the tabloid news programs was already well underway.

FOX Broadcasting had debuted its own tabloid news program, “A Current

Affair,” in 1986, but “ET’ had not seen it as much competition, according to Masini. “It was tabloid news, with some entertainment,” he said. “We weren’t that worried.”54

However, as time passed, “A Current Affair” had gained some clout, and a 1988 article in

Portland’s Sunday Oregonian stated it had scooped or beaten “ET” on several major stories in the past month and the “granddaddy of infotainment” should watch out.55 In the

article, Joe Saltzman, chair of UCLA’s School of Journalism, gave “ET” credit for its

impact on the news genre. “I think it has shown the news shows around the country how

powerful covering entertainment is, what appeal entertainment has,” he said.56 By the late

245 1980s, other tabloid news programs such as “Hard Copy” and “” also

would appear and attempt to draw away some of the “ET” audience.

The tabloid news programs coming into their heyday in the late 1980s, and “ET,”

despite being completely entertainment news based, was finding it a challenge to measure up to these newer, fresher programs that were not only covering news, but some of the same entertainment beats. Writer Bill Olsen noted that was when the “exclusive” or “first on the scene” phrases began to appear more and more in the copy. “We had to make sure people knew we were first, that we had stories before our competition,” he recalled.57

Producers Van Messel and Nuell said that they had to revamp and update “ET”

throughout the mid-1980s, including working out new graphic looks and designs as

competition encroached.58 Olsen, however, said change had always been a part of the

program, which updated its look every three years or so. “You had to keep up with the competition,” he added. “Change was a fact of life.”59

Critics were back to complaining about the style of reporting that “ET” had fallen into throughout the late 1980s. In September 1988, LA Times critic Howard Rosenberg

expounded on his frustration with “ET” coverage, claiming “throughout the years ‘ET’

has rarely been as good as it should have been . . . . but it has never been as bad as it is

now.” 60 He added the show had fallen away from what it used to be when it once “found

room for some talented journalists among its airheads and occasionally allowed them to

do interesting work that partially balanced the fluff.”61 Former “ET” reporter Eric Burns

noted the program now acted more like a for the industry while other critics

said it had abandoned its investigative emphasis in favor of softer pieces and tabloid

.62 Throughout all of this producers Nuell and Van Messel held firm to

246 their programming decisions. “What we’re looking for,” said Van Messel, “is celebrity

glitz and glamour, a cross section of TV, movies, music, and the arts in that order.”63

Amid increased competition and criticism, “ET” headed into the next decade still strong and popular in the syndication rankings. A December 1989 article in the

Washington Post credited Nuell and Van Messel with bringing “ET” through its middle ages, keeping the program abreast of its competition, and allowing it to change with the times.64 Changing with the times was becoming a normal routine as new syndicated and

network programs, as well as the proliferation of cable networks, added a new level of

competition to the market. In 1990, E! Entertainment Television hit the scene, becoming

the first twenty-four hour cable network devoted to entertainment news and

programming. However, Nuell was not too worried about the network, saying in a 1991

Newsweek article that “E! is just not adventurous to the point that we pay any

attention.”65 As its tenth anniversary dawned in 1991, he and his staff were confident that

the program would continue to advance and evolve and be able to withstand any competition thrown their way.66

The early 1990s brought higher ratings for “ET” with an average weeknight

audience of 11 million, which was equal to the audience who watched “NBC Nightly

News.”67 The staff liked what they were doing, with Hart and Tesh happily admitting

how far the program had come in what it covered and the format it had adapted. “We

have become an institution,” said Hart in a 1992 interview in the Times.68

However, a year later, critics were again taking “ET” to task for its more tabloid style of

reporting, accusing it of “sexing” things up and changing its focus. Van Messel and Nuell

countered the critics by saying the program had to change its focus as society changed,

247 especially with new cable networks and even more competition in the works. “We could

be in the business of doing stories that are really boring and that people don’t want to hear,” Nuell told USA Today reporter Jefferson Graham, “or we can cut a compromise and try to achieve a balance.”69

By 1993, Nuell had left “ET” and Van Messel had taken over the executive

producing duties. His biggest challenge yet was about to be unveiled as another

syndicated program was about to make its debut. The difference this time was that the program was nearly a carbon copy of “ET,” unlike the previous competitors. “Extra,” a production of Warner Brothers Television, was literally produced in the same style, fashion, and genre of “ET,” which was no surprise, considering Nuell co-created the program. Other than a different graphic look and music, the programs were identical to each other, covering Hollywood fluff, celebrity events, awards ceremonies, and behind

the scenes and promotional pieces on movies and television in the same fast-paced style.

“Extra” presented itself as a “companion,” not “competition,” to “ET,” according to a

1994 article that appeared in Time magazine. However, reviewer Richard Zoglin was not

impressed, stating that “Extra” had done something impossible, making “ET” look like

journalism.70 While “ET” did not get heavy ratings competition from “Extra,” the debut

of this near identical competitor meant once more that it was time to update the graphics

and develop an even keener sense of how to get a story “first” or “exclusively.”71 Tesh and Hart continued to co-host the program, but the actual content became much more tabloid based, reporting more on rumors and gossip about celebrities but, more importantly, leading off nearly every story with the words “we have an exclusive

248 interview” or “only ‘ET’ was first on the scene.” This showed their dominance and made sure their brand of being the entertainment news show of record remained intact.72

“Extra” and “ET” were soon joined by a third, nearly identical competitor when

NBC Studios debuted “Access Hollywood” in 1996. Like the two entertainment news shows before it, this program was NBC’s attempt to get into the entertainment news field, and not surprisingly, it resembled its two competitors to a tee. “Access Hollywood” also featured a familiar name as its executive producer, Van Messel, who had left “ET” in

1995.73 Now faced with a third syndicated competitor, and the growing clout of Internet technology which was providing even more ways to access news and information, “ET” decided to make major overhauls to its programming. Linda Bell Blue, a former news producer, had taken over the executive producing duties of “ET” in 1995, and she decided the program needed an updated look to make it younger and more competitive.74

At the same time that she began this process, co-host Tesh decided to leave the program so he could concentrate on his growing musical career. “I always considered myself a musician first,” he said on a 1996 edition of “ Live.” “When I had the opportunity to tour and record full time, and could actually support myself . . . . it just seemed natural.”75 With Tesh gone, weekend co-host joined Hart on the weekday anchor desk and the program got ready to kick off its sixteenth season with yet another updated graphic look and even more celebrity news and information crammed into its daily one half-hour.

“ET” continued to evolve with time and technology as it entered the twenty-first century, constantly working to keep itself at the top of the game against its two major syndicated competitors and the growing threat of the Internet. The program’s story

249 content became nearly all fluff and features and by the mid- had a much heavier

focus on fashion and style, something that the younger demographic seemed to demand

from research and ratings analysis.76 Heavy plugs for the “ET” website as well as

interactive materials followed most stories, and there was a much higher dose of celebrity

scandal and tabloid gossip reporting, most times leading the program. Much of this was

no doubt a direct result of increased competition and the changing news marketplace for

entertainment, local, cable, and national news organizations alike. Masini, now in his eighties, said he thought the program had evolved as it had to over time, although he is

worried about the result. “You can have some sizzle, but I think there has to be more

substance, more steak,” he remarked.77

However, despite the changes, the familiar, smiling face of Mary Hart continues to appear every weeknight, the see-through glass topped desk clearly displaying her still insured legs. The program focuses on the latest Hollywood gossip, celebrity “breaking

news,” and the latest information about movies, television, and occasionally music. “ET”

remains in the top fifteen syndicated programs each week despite the fact that the

audience for it has decreased somewhat. Now an average night brings in around 6 to 7

million viewers instead of the 11 million a night it received in its heyday, but it still is

enough to keep the program well above both “Extra” and “Access Hollywood” in the

ratings war although it has never quite been able to overcome the still popular game

shows “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy.”78 The show draws criticism from critics who

wonder about its tabloid style and the importance of the news it reports, but “ET” also is

held up as the standard, good or bad though it may be, that started the television

entertainment news genre of tabloid and entertainment news magazines.79 Robin Leach

250 reflected that part of why he believed “ET” has been such a success story is because it did

not give up but scrapped and fought its way constantly over the years to remain

relevant.80

Regardless of all that has happened in the past twenty-seven years, “ET” remains

a formidable force in the world of entertainment news. Not only did it develop the modern-day television satellite distribution and syndicated marketing systems but it set the precedent for how entertainment news is perceived today by those in the local, national, and cable industry. Those legacies are a result of the determination, vision, and

struggle that hundreds of people put into the program from 1981 to 1986. Those first five

years created television’s first entertainment news program and gave it the power to

transform and inform television news coverage of every genre from that point onward.

The principles and philosophies set up by the program’s original creators remain intact

today along with the ability that vision has allowed for the program to grow and evolve

over time, but never stray far from its main goal, to present the news of record in the

entertainment industry. While some today might argue about how well the program has

kept to that goal, the fact remains that something about what “ET” does on a daily basis

draws a steady audience despite the increased competition on all fronts. The genre of

entertainment news is fully cemented into today’s media society on all broadcast and

news levels, thanks in large part to what “ET” set out to do twenty-seven years ago. It is a

legacy that unquestionably will live on and evolve with the broadcast media for

generations to come.

251 Notes Chapter 9

1. Interview, Mary Rogus, May 29, 2008.

2. Interview, Al Masini, December 6, 2007.

3. See “Person to Person,” The Museum of Broadcast Communications, http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/persontoper/persontoper.htm, (accessed on April 29, 2007); and Mary Desjardins, “Maureen O’Hara’s Confidential Life: Recycling Stars Through Gossip and Moral Biography,” in Janet Thumm, Ed., Small Screens, Big Ideas: Television in the 1950s (New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2002), 119-120.

4. See Telephone Interview, George Merlis, April 11, 2008; Steve Barkin, American Television News: The Media Marketplace and the Public Interest (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 122; and Terry Ann Knopf, “Morning Becomes ‘Evening,’” Boston Magazine, April 1989, 76.

5. Telephone Interview, Reese Schonfeld, April 9, 2008.

6. Interview, Mary Rogus, May 29, 2008.

7. Telephone Interview, Schonfeld.

8. Ibid.

9. Telephone Interview, Robin Leach, December 27, 2007.

10. Telephone Interview, Schonfeld.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Telephone Interview, Schonfeld. “People Tonight” went through many format changes in the 1980s, including being renamed “ShowBiz Tonight” in 2005. The program still airs today, although its form is much more like what you would see on a CNN interview program, with fewer short, fast entertainment stories and more in-depth, longer interviews and analysis on entertainment happenings and events. It also airs at 11 p.m. at night instead of competing with the prime time access programs like “ET” or “Access Hollywood.”

252 16. See Telephone Interview, Dan Cooper, April 25, 2008; and Barkin, American Television News, 89.

17. Telephone Interview, Helaine Swerdloff-Ross, April 2, 2008.

18. Barkin, American Television News, 89-90.

19. Telephone Interview, Cooper.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.

23. Telephone Interview, Leonard Maltin, May 1, 2008.

24. Telephone Interview, Cooper.

25. Interview, Masini.

26. Telephone Interview, Cooper.

27. Lawrence Grossman, “Will Success Spoil Network News?” Columbia Journalism Review, 38:1 (May/June 1999); 58.

28. Telephone Interview, Steve Hirsen, April 9, 2008.

29. See Telephone Interview, Cooper; and Interview, Stodal.

30. Jonathan Morris, “The Fox News Factor,” Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 10:3 (Summer 2005); 56-79.

31. Interview, Rogus.

32. Interview, Masini.

33. Interview, Robert Stodal, April 15, 2008.

34. Ibid. Stodal noted the “PM Magazine” segments might often receive a 60 share when they aired, meaning that 60 percent of all households in Las Vegas that had a television were watching the program at that time.

35. Ibid.

253 36. Interview, Emily Neilson, April 15, 2008.

37. Ibid.

38. Telephone Interview, Tom McCarey, April 2, 2008.

39. Interview, Rogus.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid.

42. Interview, Stodal.

43. See “Syndication Standings,” Electronic Media, November 21, 1988, 14; and“Syndication Standings,” Electronic Media, December 12, 1988, 18.

44. Telephone Interview, Susan Haymer, April 7, 2008.

45. Michael Hill, “The Men Behind ‘ET’: It Wasn’t Exactly Broken, But They Fixed It,” Washington Post, December 31, 1989.

46. This information comes from a textual analysis of one or two programs from each year of “ET” from 1986 through 1990. The analysis was conducted February 21-22, 2008, at the UCLA Film and Television Archives in Los Angeles. Beta tapes of the episodes were watched and analyzed for descriptive information.

47. Ibid.

48. Interview, Masini.

49. Jim Bellows, The Last Editor: How I Saved the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the LA Times from Dullness and Complacency (Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2002), 279.

50. Jeremy Gerard, “TV Notes,” New York Times, October 13, 1988.

51. Bellows, The Last Editor, 281.

52. See Telephone Interview, John Goldhammer, January 9, 2008; and Bellows, The Last Editor, 282.

53. Interview, Masini.

54. Ibid.

254 55. Lewis Beale, “‘Entertainment Tonight’ to Face Formidable Competition,” Sunday Oregonian, July 31, 1988.

56. Ibid.

57. Telephone Interview, Bill Olsen, April 26, 2008.

58. Hill, “The Men Behind ‘ET.’”

59. Telephone Interview, Olsen.

60. Howard Rosenberg, “‘Entertainment Tonight’ Offers Marshmallow Journalism,” Los Angeles Times, September 8, 1988.

61. Ibid.

62. Beale, “‘Entertainment Tonight to Face Formidable Competition.”

63. Ibid.

64. Michael Hill, “The Men Behind ‘ET.’”

65. Emily Yoffe, “E! is For Entertainment—Twenty Four Hours a Day,” Newsweek, August 12, 1991, 58.

66. Amy Bertram, “‘ET’ Still Seeking New Frontiers as it Turns 10,” Electronic Media, September 16, 1991.

67. Kit Boss, “‘ET’—If Entertainment is Our Religion, and Celebrities Our Saints, ‘ET’ is Our Daily Mass,” Seattle Times, October 1, 1992.

68. Ibid.

69. Jefferson Graham, “‘ET’ Shows Sexual Prowess,” USA Today, October 2, 1992.

70. Richard Zoglin, “That’s Entertainment? ‘ET’ Gets a New Challenger and Show Biz Fluff Triumphs Again,” Time, October 3, 1994, 58.

71. Ibid.

72. This information comes from a textual analysis of one or two programs from each year of “ET” from 1990 through 1996. The analysis was conducted February 21-22, 2008, at the UCLA Film and Television Archives in Los Angeles. Beta tapes of the episodes were watched and analyzed for descriptive information.

255 73. See Telephone Interview, Bruce Cook, April 3, 2008; and Telephone Interview, Olsen.

74. Jim Finkle, “Behind the Scenes with the Execs Who Make the Hits,” Broadcasting & Cable, December 20, 2004, 14.

75. “,” CNN, April 11, 2000.

76. Chris Purcell, “Newsmags Brace for Change,” Television Week, July 19, 2004, 1.

77. Interview, Masini.

78. See David Kaplan, “Demo Delivery Stays on Par,” Broadcasting & Cable, September 12, 2005, A1; and Katz Television Group, “Programming Newsletter 2006,” http://www.katz-media.com/tv/TVProg/v23n1/newsletter.htm (accessed on April 27, 2007).

79. Interview, Masini.

80. Telephone Interview, Leach.

256 Conclusion

“The truth is that ‘ET’ can stay on just as long as CBS, NBC, and ABC news can be on. It’s forever, it’s entertainment news.”1

Al Masini, creator “Entertainment Tonight”

“Entertainment Tonight” continues to grow and thrive from the small program

that no one expected would last when it began in 1981. Twenty-seven years later, those critics can rest easily, if somewhat warily, over the success that it has become and the legacy it has left for television news and entertainment. That legacy to many is mixed as one examines the line between news and entertainment today and the role “ET” has played in changing it. In today’s media world, you are likely to see the latest scandal of a celebrity splashed over not only tabloid magazines and newspapers but cable news

channels, evening news magazines, local newscasts, Internet sites, and the network nightly newscasts. Entertainment stories are everywhere, and to many they have become news. With younger audience demographics still highly in demand, television news audiences on the decline, and the growing aspects of technology that make news of all kinds accessible at a moment’s notice striking fear in news departments on every level, entertainment news seems to be slipping into the broadcast news mix more often. That line between traditional “hard” news and “soft” news is being blurred by the increasing inclusion of entertainment stories and news programs and magazines devoted to the latest

Hollywood gossip, or ’s latest drinking binge, or the fact that the Sex and The City movie beat out the latest Jones film at the weekend box office.

257 This blurring line between news and entertainment is something those behind

“ET” have mixed feelings about, especially when considering the role that television’s

grandfather of syndicated entertainment newsmagazines played. “The line between news and entertainment doesn’t exist anymore,” said Paramount executive John Goldhammer.

“I’m very torn because I was one who helped create this monster.”2 Writer Bill Olsen

admitted to having conversations with friends in which they would debate if programs

such as “ET” were responsible for the . “On one hand, it was kind of fun to do this, to create a program like ‘ET,’” he noted, “but on the other hand, when I see how

frivolous some of the stuff has become, I feel a little ashamed or weird because we’re

pretty much responsible for inventing that.”3 Most of those who spent their early years

bringing “ET” to life said they had no doubt that “ET” helped create a market for

entertainment news on television and, by creating such a demand, inevitably had an

major influence on how cable, local, and even network newscasts viewed entertainment.4

“I think what everyone would tell you is that the regular news business sort of parodies the entertainment news business,” said segment producer Ken Furman. “There’s so much scandal and tabloid on local, cable and national new programs and magazines, it’s kind of reached epidemic proportions.”5 That’s not true for CBS’s “60 Minutes” said

its current executive editor and former “ET” segment producer Vicky Gordon. “The rule

here is what’s the story, how do we tell it, and it’s all about the news of the story. That’s

what this show is about; there’s no entertainment crossover.”6 Still, segment producer

Jackie Burke said that “ET” will always be known for contributing the idea to news that

celebrities and stars brought in ratings and partly made local, cable, and network news

take a long, hard look at how entertainment news could help them win the ratings wars.7

258 Former “ET” executive producer George Merlis shared his worries that there is

simply too much entertainment and not enough news in the news world today, blaming

that on the fact that “ET” started shortening people’s attention spans with shorter, faster-

paced stories with little substance, thus reducing the substance of news stories in

general.8 Coordinating Producer Bruce Cook said the impact of “ET” on the news media

might not have been a good thing because news has become nothing but a profitable and

promotional product. “America doesn’t trust news of any kind anymore,” he said,

“although that can’t be blamed entirely on ‘ET’ alone.”9 Reporter Scott Osborne, a

graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism where he had newsman Fred Friendly as

his mentor, said he should probably feel outraged at what passes for news these days, but he admits that if it gets people to watch, its not necessarily a bad thing.10 Weekend co-

host Leeza Gibbons agreed, saying that there is no arguing the fact that entertainment

news sells. “‘ET’ definitely had local news and cable and the networks looking at how we

do this type of coverage and not get tarnished,” she said. “The whole notion of celebrities

making news and becoming news has to be considered and taken into account when looking at society today.”11 And there is former Paramount executive Rich Frank, who

stated heatedly that he believes there is no journalistic integrity in either entertainment or

news today and admitted that “ET” had something, although not everything, to do with

that.12

The Legacy of “Entertainment Tonight”

The debate over the diminishing news and entertainment line notwithstanding,

one thing that everyone who worked on “ET” agreed about was that the program left a

259 legacy, although not necessarily a good one, to the television news business. “‘ET’

changed television, it was the first crack in stopping the dominance of network television,

it changed the way people looked at and networks controlled television,” said Frank.13

Writer Bob Flick noted that “ET’ totally changed how news, especially local news,

looked at entertainment. “These local casts wouldn’t have had a prayer’s chance at

having some of the stories that are on today ad nauseum, like the paparazzi chasing

young people and all that kind of junk,” he remarked.14 Co-host Dixie Whatley said one

thing “ET” did well was use a news format to cover things that traditionally were not

considered news. “In some ways, I think you could look at it as the first step in really

changing what the concept of news is,” she said, “and at some point, I think that’s to the

detriment of the news itself.”15 Segment producer Ed Meyer said the program completely

“screwed up the news” by making it necessary that newscasts today have to have a hook

to draw in a viewer, and the easiest hook, thanks to “ET,” has been a celebrity.16 Merlis said “ET” had created a successful way to provide consumerist entertainment news but, in doing so, had helped create a cult of celebrity into which most television news programs, entertainment or otherwise, have fallen.17 “‘ET’ opened the door pretty wide to

the culture of celebrity that has overtaken society,” said critic Leonard Maltin. “We

shouldn’t shoulder all of the blame for that, but we did have something to do with that

and I don’t think that’s healthy.”18

A healthier influence “ET” had on the news and entertainment industry lies in the

fact that it revolutionized satellite syndication distribution and syndication sales and

advertising processes. “There was nothing there, we literally created something that

didn’t exist—and without it, syndication as we know it would not exist today,” said

260 Goldhammer.19 By allowing local stations to buy satellite receivers, “ET” provided the means for stations to access new types of syndicated programs, many of which could be delivered on a daily basis. Not only did this process open programming doors to many independent stations, the fact that a distribution system existed allowed for the creation of new productions and programs, many of which could be provided on a daily basis.

“Programs like ‘Oprah,’ and ‘The View,’ would not be around if ‘ET’ hadn’t provided a distribution system for them,” said Frank, “there simply wasn’t a means to do this at the time. ‘ET’ created that means.”20 “ET” provided the foundations on which much of syndication is based and created the market for most of the daily news programs and talk shows that permeate the airwaves and fill morning and afternoon hours today.

And with these new programs available, syndicators could now begin to take advantage of the sales method “ET” employed, a cash-barter system. This system benefited both syndicators and local affiliates and independent stations, providing new ways for stations to afford competitive programs yet still allowing for syndicators to sell advertisers on higher combined ratings. “Most syndicated programs today are sold through cash and barter,” said Meidel, “you didn’t see that combination before ‘ET.’”21

This merged sales system has allowed many local stations to afford programs they might not have been able to in the past and in addition, use the idea of combined weekday and weekend ratings to bring in more money from advertising revenue. Both the satellite and sales contributions “ET” made to the broadcast industry are long and far reaching and no doubt remain as a very strong and positive part of its legacy.

Along with its impact on news content, the satellite system, and other technological breakthroughs in graphic and set design that “ET” created, it also left a

261 lasting legacy to the news business. “It was impactful in so many ways beyond merely

creating a new programming form,” said Goldhammer. “Because in creating a

distribution system it reshaped the way the business worked. It has populated the industry with talent from one end to the other, its impact goes way beyond entertainment news.”22

Director Steve Hirsen and graphic designer John Ridgeway both said “ET” set the bar for how information could be conveyed on a television newscast, entertainment based or otherwise. “In later years, local and cable, even national newscasts were using the same

style and look that ‘ET’ had developed,” said Ridgeway.23 “As I said before, ‘ET’ was a

news program, just about entertainment,” added Hirsen. “A lot of the techniques we

developed were quickly picked up by others in the news business because we proved they

worked.”24 “ET” also provided a video legacy that many of the original staff say is unparalleled today. “Our program gave the world one of the most immense libraries of entertainment news and events that have affected our history and will affect our future,” said producer Vin Di Bona.25 Associate producer Bruce Cook and post-production

supervisor Cheri Brownlee agreed, saying “ET” had indeed become the entertainment

news of record and had the library to prove it.26

As for local news producers, “ET’s” legacy is a bit less legendary. “I wouldn’t

call ‘ET’ groundbreaking, certainly not in the sense of Edward R. Murrow,” said KLAS

TV’s Robert Stodal. “It will probably fit into the category of being beginning of

the ‘reality show’ and simply being on air so long, that will be a legacy in and of itself.”27

WBAY News Director Tom McCarey thought that the “ET” legacy appears more in how local newscasts began to imitate some of the techniques and ideas that appeared in “ET” or “PM Magazine.”28 Ohio University’s Associate Professor Mary Rogus said “ET’s”

262 legacy was that it was first, the pioneer program that everyone copied. “It’s also still

drawing a young audience and hasn’t gotten stale,” she said. “I mean who thought of

entertainment news as breaking news. I mean, you didn’t run out and get the entertainment story but now everything is breaking news.”29

“In the end, we’re going to be considered a tabloid and that’s too bad,” said

original producer Andy Friendly. “It’s a tremendous business success and will be on the

air forever just as a celebrity tabloid magazine instead of what it hoped to be, which was

a more journalistic exercise about the entertainment business.”30 Tabloid or not, “ET”

succeeded in creating the genre of entertainment news on television and, according to

segment producer Helaine Swerdloff-Ross, made entertainment news viable and legitimate for television for the first time in history.31 “It changed the way we consume

entertainment news,” added Gibbons. “Whether that was a blessing or a curse, I think we

don’t know that yet, but the show did set an expectation for a relationship between news

and entertainment that is still evolving. ‘ET’ is the first bite of the entertainment apple to

which we have all become addicted.”32

The other legacy that not many realize about “ET” came from the fact that it

began the careers of many who would go on to reign over some of the largest and most

influential studios and corporations in Hollywood. The Paramount executives that gave

the green light to “ET” and steered it through its formative years moved on to become

highly powerful people in the entertainment industry. Barry Diller left Paramount in 1984

to found the FOX television network with , becoming its chairman and

CEO for many years. In that same year, Michael Eisner followed his colleague when he

took over as CEO of the Company, where he would bring the conglomerate

263 to new heights in the 1980s and 1990s. Rich Frank joined Eisner as president of Disney during that time and would go on to found the and help create some of the decade’s most popular programs such as “,” “Home Improvement,” and “Blossom.” Frank also served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for three terms. Goldhammer remained with Paramount through 1986 before leaving to pursue a production career that would include numerous television awards ceremonies and pageants before co-founding the award-winning production company Lipstick Inc.

On the production side, first producer Andy Friendly went on to help create

CNBC before becoming president of programming and production for King World, which distributes syndicated giants “Wheel of Fortune,” “Oprah,” and “Jeopardy.”

Several years after leaving his producing position at “ET,” Di Bona founded the entire

“America’s Funniest ” franchise as a part of his own company, Vin Di Bona

Productions. Merlis went on to produce many of the hit programs for Home and Garden

TV, the , the History Channel, and the Travel Channel before settling into life as a highly respected media trainer. Jack Reilly left “ET” to executive produce

“Good Morning America” before moving on to become vice president of CNBC. David

Nuell left “ET” to work for Time and eventually started “Extra,” and Jim

Van Messel spent his post “ET” years creating and developing “Access Hollywood.”

Most of the rest of the staff went on to produce or develop various television programs or their own companies. Producers Swerdloff-Ross, Haymer, and coordinating producer Cook were hired by Robin Leach and Masini to work on their new venture,

“Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” for several years before heading off into successful

264 production careers of their own. Fellow segment producer Vicky Goldhammer went to work for “20/20” and eventually moved onto “60 Minutes,” where she currently serves as executive editor. Graphic designer John Ridgeway created most of the major news set and graphic designs for ABC, NBC, and CBS news throughout the 1980s and 1990s, for which he won numerous awards. Post-production supervisor Cheri Brownlee became the executive producer of “Hard Copy” before founding her own production company.

Original director Steve Hirsen, writer Steve Paskay, and segment producer Ken Furman moved over to work on the “America’s Funniest” franchise and other projects with Vin

Di Bona Productions.

As for the “ET” co-hosts, Dixie Whately went back into for a while before indulging in her artistic tendencies and becoming a well-respected artist.

Co-host Ron Hendren went on to produce and host several video franchise operations that produced medical segments and reports before retiring to Hawaii. Robb Weller started his own production company and continues to anchor a local morning show in Los Angeles.

John Tesh found fame and fortune as a musician and today hosts a weekly radio music show that can be heard around the world. Gibbons spent years on “ET” before moving on to host her own talk show and then various other productions. And Mary Hart remains the face, voice, and legs of “ET,” where she can still be seen nightly bringing the world its daily dose of entertainment news.

It All Comes Down To This

With all the firsts that “ET” managed to create in television entertainment news, the program tends to be seen by critics and fans as simply a well established tabloid

265 newsmagazine that delights in bringing the scandal, gossip, industry, and fashion news about the entertainment world into millions of homes nightly. While that is true, no one can argue that in doing this, “ET” has created a genre of news that does what everyone in the news business hopes and prays for: it attracts audiences. By looking at how the program established itself and what it did for the television news industry, it becomes clear that while entertainment news was always around, establishing it on television had wide ranging implications and effects that can still be seen today. Whether people and the industry see those effects as good or bad, the fact remains that “ET” is still around and still doing well in the ratings, although it has been forced to adapt to encroaching technology and competing programs. It is not going anywhere; its in television and the entertainment news market are too firmly established to be pulled up. What remains to be seen is just how much of an impact this program has and will continue to have on local, cable, and network news.

To that end, by understanding how “ET” evolved into its present form, by having a recorded history of the program from those who lived it, more research can focus on studying even more specifically how the line between news and entertainment became so blurred. Specific studies of local, cable, and national newscasts can be done with an eye towards finding out exactly how much entertainment content makes up a daily part of the news pie. In-depth studies of cable news networks and how they report, portray, and exploit celebrity news and gossip also take on added significance with the knowledge of how entertainment news came to be such an established part of the television industry. A world of research opportunities now presents itself, grounded in a background of what

266 had to be done to get entertainment news, thanks in large part to “ET,” to the status it has today and what that status means to the future of television news.

This dissertation presents a historical look at the beginnings of a powerhouse

among today’s television entertainment newsmagazines. The struggles, triumphs, and

tribulations that “ET” endured on its path to becoming, according to its nightly

introduction, the most watched entertainment news program on television today, provide

a basis for understanding why news and entertainment have become so enmeshed today.

And while many will argue that entertainment news serves little value and does little for a

newscast’s reputation, the historical evidence provided here suggests perhaps there are

values and benefits to entertainment news from which the broadcast industry could

benefit. If nothing else, this dissertation chronicles the stories and memories of a

remarkable group of people who worked long and hard to create a seminal news program

that deserves a special place in entertainment news history. “ET” established many firsts

in the media industry from both a technological and a content standpoint, but in the end,

what it should be remembered for is the fact that it took a topic that had never been taken

seriously and turned it into a viable form of news. Debate over the impact and importance

of entertainment news in today’s media society will never cease but one thing remains

certain: for good or bad, entertainment news, and “Entertainment Tonight,” are here to

stay, and both will no doubt continue to exert a major influence over television news for

years to come.

267 Notes Conclusion

1. Interview, Al Masini, December 7, 2007.

2. Telephone Interview, John Goldhammer, January 9, 2008.

3. Telephone Interview, Bill Olsen, April 26, 2008.

4. See Telephone Interview, Susan Haymer, April 7, 2008; Telephone Interview Vicky Gordon, April 23, 2008; and Telephone Interview, Olsen.

5. Telephone Interview, Ken Furman, April 2, 2008.

6. Telephone Interview, Gordon.

7. Telephone Interview, Jackie Burke, May 6, 2008.

8. Telephone Interview, George Merlis, April 11, 2008.

9. Telephone Interview, Bruce Cook, April 3, 2008.

10. Telephone Interview, Scott Osborne, May 12, 2008.

11. Telephone Interview, Leeza Gibbons, January 28, 2008.

12. Telephone Interview, Rich Frank, January 28, 2008.

13. Ibid.

14. Telephone Interview, Bob Flick, April 10, 2008.

15. Telephone Interview, Dixie Whatley, May 5, 2008.

16. Telephone Interview, Ed Meyer, March 19, 2008.

17. Telephone Interview, Merlis.

18. Telephone Interview, Leonard Maltin, May 1, 2008.

19. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

20. Telephone Interview, Frank.

21. Telephone Interview, Greg Meidel, April 9, 2008.

268

22. Telephone Interview, Goldhammer.

23. Telephone Interview, John Ridgeway, April 23, 2008.

24. Telephone Interview, Steve Hirsen, April 9, 2008.

25. Telephone Interview, Vin Di Bona, February 13, 2008.

26. See Telephone Interview, Cheri Brownlee, April 10, 2008; and Telephone Interview, Cook.

27. Telephone Interview, Bob Stodal, April 15, 2008.

28. Telephone Interview, Tom McCarey, April 2, 2008.

29. Interview, Mary Rogus, May 29, 2008.

30. Telephone Interview, Andy Friendly, April 1, 2008.

31. Telephone Interview, Helaine Swerdloff-Ross, April 2, 2008.

32. Telephone Interview, Gibbons.

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Suplee, Curt. “Authors Angst: Publicize or Perish; Publishers Seek ‘Mediability’ From Their Writers.” The Washington Post, April 28, 1982.

Television, “Monday,” New York Times, September 13, 1981.

United Press International. “Warner Bros. Charged in Deaths of Two Children.” The New York Times, July 31, 1982.

Magazines

Allen, Jeff. “A Slippery Slope from News to Entertainment.” Television Week, February 2, 2004, 8-10.

Ault, Susanne.“‘ET’: The Business Behind the Buzz,” Broadcasting & Cable, July 2, 2001, 16-20.

Bertram, Amy. “‘ET’ Still Seeking New Frontiers as it Turns 10.” Electronic Media, September 16, 1991, 26-27.

Bok, Gordon. “Entertainment Tonight.” Variety, September 23, 1981, 54.

Consoli, John. “All the News that Fits.” MediaWeek, June 1, 1998, 12-13.

Cumming, Joseph. “Ted Turner: Captain Outrageous.” Saturday Evening Post, October 1980, 67-69.

Downey, Kevin. “‘ET’: It Changed Showbiz and the Syndie Biz as Well.” Broadcasting & Cable, November 11, 2003, 22-23.

vi Edelstein, Robert., and Jim Benson. “A Bona Fide Original, A Billion Dollar Success Story, and One of Today’s Most Influential TV Franchises.” Broadcasting & Cable, October 23, 2006, Supplement 30-31.

Finkle, Jim. “Behind the Scenes with the Execs Who Make the Hits.” Broadcasting & Cable, December 20, 2004, 14.

“First Run Syndicators Tune in on TV’s Big Bucks.” Business Week, May 7, 1984, 78.

Foltz, Kim, Penelope Wang, and Janet Huck. “The Stars of the Bottom Line.” Newsweek, August 26, 1985, 42-43.

Hendrickson, Paula. “To the Hart of the Matter.” Broadcasting & Cable, September 12, 2005, A4.

Hill, Lee Alan. “Selling the Steak, Not Just the Sizzle.” Television Week, November 7, 2005, 30-31.

“How Paramount Keeps Churning Out Winners.” Business Week, June 11, 1984, 149.

Huff, Richard. “Exec Producer Reilly to Leave ‘GMA.’” Variety, March 5, 1993, 10.

Kaplan, David. “Demo Delivery Stays on Par.” Broadcasting & Cable, September 12, 2005, A1.

Kaplan, Peter. “‘ET:’ The Latest Assault.” Esquire, September 1983, 145.

Knopf, Terry Ann. “Mourning Becomes ‘Evening.’” Boston Magazine, April 1989, 76- 77.

Martin, Pete. “I Call on Edward R. Murrow.” Saturday Evening Post, January 18, 1958, 78.

McClellan, Steve, John Higgins, and Allison Roman. “News for Sale?” Broadcasting & Cable, January 26, 2004, 40-41.

“Mergers and LBOS,” Advertising Age, March 28, 2005, 58.

Postman, Neil. “Philo Farnsworth.” Time, March 29, 1999, 92.

“Progress Report on Entertainment Tonight.” Broadcasting & Cable, November 2, 1981, 48-49.

Purcell, Chris. “Newsmags Brace for Change.” Television Week, July 19, 2004, 1-3.

vii ______. “For Syndie Newsmags, a Mettle Test.” Television Week, February 26, 2007, 1-2.

“Satellite TV Starts Dishing it Out.” Business Week, October 19, 1981, 106.

“Show Biz Fascinates Public,” Working Woman, January 1985, 116.

Stanley, T.L.“‘ET’: 25-year Track Record Keeps Marketers in Tow.” Advertising Age, March 27, 2006, S12.

Stengal, Richard. “Turning Showbiz into News.” Time, July 4, 1983, 42.

“Syndication Standings,” Electronic Media, November 21, 1988, 20.

______. Electronic Media, December 12, 1988, 18.

“The 1980s.” Advertising Age, February 28, 1995, 50.

Waters, Harry, and Sandra Cavazos. “The ‘ET’ of the Small Screen.” Newsweek, October 18, 1982, 106-107.

Yoffe, Emily. “E! is For Entertainment—Twenty Four Hours a Day.” Newsweek, August 12, 1991, 58.

Zoglin, Richard. “That’s Entertainment? ‘ET’ Gets a New Challenger and Show Biz Fluff Triumphs Again.” Time, October 3, 1994, 58-59.

Papers & Dissertations

Guthey, Eric. “The Legend of Ted Turner & The Reality of the Marketplace.” PhD diss. Emory University, 1995.

Wicks, Robert. “Product Matching in Television News Using Benefit Segmentation.” July 3, 1983. (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, Portland, Oregon, July 2-5, 1988).

Wittebols, James. “More Show Than News: The Evolution of Network Television News.” (paper presented at the International Communications Association Conference, May 23-27, 2003, San Diego).

Electronic Resources

A Brief History of Newspapers. The Newspaper Industry, from: http://www.newspaper- industry.org/history.html, (accessed on April 29, 2007).

viii Academy of Television Arts and Sciences from http://www.emmys.org/ awards/awardsearch.php (accessed on May 12, 2008).

Arar, Yardena. “Videotape Shows Rather Chasing the Wrong Man.” Associated Press, May 12, 1983, from: http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/ results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3782272661&format= GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN &startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3782272664&cisb= 22_T3782272663&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=304478&docNo=14 (accessed on May 18, 2008).

Buck, Jerry. “‘Entertainment Tonight.’” Associated Press, January 2, 1983 from: http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/ docview.do?doc LinkInd=true&risb=21_T3748553859&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&start DocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3748553862&cisb=22_T3748553861&treeMax =true&treeWidth=0&csi=304478&docNo=7 (accessed on May 8, 2008).

______.“Shakeup for Industry Newscast,” Associated Press, October 31, 1981 from http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do? docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3968731185&format=GNBFI&sort=null&startDocNo= 1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3968741658&cisb=22_T3968741657&treeMax=true&tree Width=0&csi=304478&docNo=1 (accessed on May 23, 2008).

______.”TV Talk: Jim Bellows and ‘Entertainment Tonight.’” The Associated Press, December 30, 1981. http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/results/ docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3694308839&format= GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3694308846&cisb= 22_T3694308845&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=304478&docNo=1 (accessed on April 29, 2008).

“Cable Television History.” About.com, from http://inventors.about.com/ library/inventors/blcabletelevision.htm (accessed on June 12, 2008).

“Case Study: ‘Entertainment Tonight.’” Via Worldwide (2006), from http://www.viaworldwide.net/etCS.html (accessed on March 23, 2008).

“CW Now,” from http://www.cwtv.com/thecw/cw-now (accessed on May 18, 2007).

Jenkins, Simon. “Sex in the 1700s,” from http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ 2007-03/uol-sit32307.php, (accessed on April 29, 2007).

Katz Television Group. “Programming Newsletter 2006,” from http://www.katz- media.com/tv/TVProg/v23n1/newsletter.htm (accessed on April 27, 2007).

Launius, Rodger. “Sputnik and the Dawn of the Space Age,” from http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blsatellite.htm (accessed on June 12, 2008). ix Library of Congress.Bob Hope and American Variety, from: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/ bobhope/radio.html (accessed on April 29, 2007).

“Like the Red Queen,” Time, August 2, 1963 from http://www.time.com/time/ magazine/article/0,9171,870350,00.html (accessed on June 12, 2008).

McNerney, Aran. “Speaker Discusses Military Journalism in WW II.” The Daily Free Press Online, from: http://media.www.dailyfreepress.com/media/storage/ paper87/ news/2002/03/01/News/Speaker.Discusses.Military.Journalism.In.World.War.II- 194769.shtml (accessed on April 29, 2007).

“Merlis Out as Executive Producer of ‘Entertainment Tonight,’” Associated Press, January 23, 1984 from: http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/results/ docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3805442026&format= GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3805442031 &cisb=22_T3805442030&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=304478&docNo=6 (accessed on May 22, 2008).

Museum of Broadcast Communications. “United States Cable Television,” from http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/U/htmlU/unitedstatesc/unitedstatesc.htm (accessed on June 12, 2008).

Papper, Bob. “RTNDF, Future of News Study, 2006,” from http://www.rtnda.org/ media/pdfs/bestpractices/futureofnews/survey/section2.pdf (accessed on October 25, 2007).

“Person to Person.” The Museum of Broadcast Communications, from http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/persontoper/persontoper.htm, (accessed on April 29, 2007).

“Prime Time Access Rule.” The Museum of Broadcast Communications, from http://ww.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/primetimeac/primetimeac.htm (accessed on February 3, 2008).

Project for Excellence in Journalism, “State of the News Media 2006,” from http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2007/execsummary.pdf (accessed on October 25, 2007).

Project for Excellence in Journalism, “State of the Media 2007,” from http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2007/sitemap.asp (accessed on February 28, 2008).

Quinn, Anthony (Ed.). “Teen Magazines,” from http://magforum.com/glossies/ teen.htm (accessed on February 7, 2008).

x Rothenberg, Fred. “Entertainment Tonight Does More Than Stargaze.” Associated Press, January 30, 1984 from: http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/results/ docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3805442026&format= GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3805442031 &cisb=22_T3805442030&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=304478&docNo=1 (accessed on May 22, 2008).

Schwed, Mark. “Networks and the News.” United Pres International, November 29, 1986 from: http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do ?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3836155005&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN& startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3836155008&cisb=22_T3836155007&treeMax= true&treeWidth=0&csi=8076&docNo=1 (accessed on May 23, 2008).

Scott, Vernon. “‘Entertainment Tonight’ and Tomorrow.” United Press International, April 23, 1982 from: http://www.library.ohiou.edu:2256/us/lnacademic/results/ docviewDocview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T3739893217&format= GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3739893223&cisb= 22_T3739853222&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=8076&docNo=2 (accessed on May 2, 2008).

______. “Show Bizmania,” United Press International, July 15, 1985 from: http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd= true&risb=21_T3825623993&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo= 1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3825623996&cisb=22_T3825623995&treeMax=true&tree Width=0&csi=8076&docNo=6 (accessed on May 23, 2008).

______. “Infotainment Soars.” United Press International, March 8, 1986 from: http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd =true&risb=21_T3825959919&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo= 1&resultsUrlKey=29_T3825959925&cisb=22_T3825959924&treeMax=true&tree Width=0&csi=8076&docNo=4 (accessed on May 23, 2008).

White Fence Publications. “A Look Back at Satellite TV,” fromhttp://www.whitefence. com/articles/ cabletv/history-satellite-television.html (accessed on March 1, 2008).

Interviews & Personal Correspondence

Bellows, Jim. Telephone Interview. April 1, 2008.

Brownlee, Cheri. Telephone Interview. April 10, 2008.

Burke, Jackie. Telephone Interview. May 6, 2008.

Cook, Bruce. Telephone Interview. April 3, 2008.

xi Cooper, Dan. Telephone Interview. April 25, 2008.

Di Bona, Vin. Telephone Interview. February 13, 2008.

Goldhammer, John. Telephone Interview. January 9, 2008.

Flick, Bob. Telephone Interview. April 10, 2008.

Frank, Rick. Email message to author. May 21, 2008.

______. Telephone Interview. January 28, 2008.

Friendly, Andy. Telephone Interview. April 1, 2008.

Furman, Ken. Telephone Interview. April 2, 2008.

Gibbons, Leeza. Telephone Interview. January 28, 2008.

Gordon, Vicky. Telephone Interview. April 23, 2008.

Haymer, Susan. Telephone Interview. April 7, 2008.

Hirsen, Steve. Telephone Interview. April 9, 2008.

Leach, Robin. Telephone Interview. December 27, 2007.

Maltin, Leonard. Telephone Interview. May 1, 2008.

Mann, Catherine. Telephone Interview. April 9, 2008.

Masini, Al. Interview. December 3-4, 2007.

McCarey, Tom. Telephone Interview. April 2, 2008.

Meidel, Greg. Telephone Interview, April 9, 2008.

Merlis, George. Telephone Interview. April 11, 2008.

Meyer, Ed. Telephone Interview. March 19, 2008.

Olsen, Bill. Telephone Interview. April 26, 2008.

Osborne, Scott. Telephone Interview. May 12, 2008.

Paskay, Steve. Telephone Interview. April 8, 2008.

xii Ridgeway, John. Telephone Interview. April 23, 2008.

Rogus, Mary. Interview. May 29, 2008.

Stodal, Robert. Interview. April 15, 2008.

Swerdloff-Ross, Helaine. Telephone Interview. April 2, 2008.

Whatley, Dixie. Telephone Interview. May 5, 2008.

Zurbrugg, Shauna. Telephone Interview. April 9, 2008.

Miscellaneous

“Larry King Live,” CNN, April 11, 2000.

Memorandum. “Al Masini to “ET” Partners.” August 12, 1981, from Al Masini Personal Collection, Honolulu, Hawaii (see Appendix A).

xiii Appendix A: Memorandum from Al Masini, 1981

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xv

xvi

xvii

xviii

xix

xx Appendix B: “ET” Original Staff Positions and Photos

Bellows, Jim “ET” Position: Managing Editor (1981-1983) Currently: Retired; Former Executive Producer “USA Today” television newsmagazine

Brownlee, Cheri “ET” Position: Post (1981-1988) Currently: Owner/Founder Independent Production Company; Former Executive Producer for “Hard Copy”

Burke, Jackie “ET” Position: Personal Assistant, Script Supervisor (1982-1985) Currently: “E! News” ; Former award-winning Freelance Producer

Cook, Bruce “ET” Position: Associate Producer, Coordinating Producer (1981-1984) Currently: TV Talk Show Host; Radio Host; Producer; Writer

Di Bona, Vin “ET” Position: Producer (1982-1983) Currently: Media entrepreneur; Founder/CEO of Di Bona Productions (“America’s Funniest” Franchises; Independent productions)

Diller, Barry “ET” Position: Chairman, CEO Paramount (1974-1984) Currently: Media entrepreneur; Former Chairman/CEO of FOX Network

Edwards, Steve “ET” Position: Weekend Co-Host, Reporter (1981-1983) Currently: LA Morning News Anchor

Eisner, Michael “ET” Position: President, CEO Paramount Pictures (1976-1984) Currently: Media entrepreneur; CNBC Commentator; Former head of Walt Disney Company

Goldhammer, John “ET” Position: “ET” Producer (1981-1982) Currently: Co-Founder/Head of Lipstick Inc. Productions; Former VP Paramount Domestic Television

xxi Flick, Bob “ET” Position: Writer (1981-1996) Currently: Retired; Former Writer/Professor

Frank, Rich “ET” Position: Vice President/President, Paramount Television (1977-1985) Currently: Winery owner; Former President of Walt Disney Company

Friendly, Andy “ET” Position: Producer (1981) Currently: /Director; Former President of ; Programming Director CNBC

Furman, Ken “ET” Position: Segment Producer (1981-1984) Currently: Music Producer/Director

Gibbons, Leeza “ET” Position: Weekend Co-Host, Reporter (1984-2000) Currently: Reporter/Host/Producer

Gordon, Vicky “ET” Position: Segment Producer (1981-1982) Currently: Executive Editor “60 Minutes”

Hallick, Tom “ET” Position: Co-Host, Reporter (1981-1982) Currently: Actor

Hart, Mary “ET” Position: Co-Host (1982-Present) Currently: “ET” co-host; businesswoman

Haymer, Susan “ET” Position: Segment Producer (1981-1988) Currently: Producer/Writer/Director

Hendren, Ron “ET” Position: Co-Host (1981-1984) Currently: Unknown

Hirsen, Steve “ET” Position: Director (1981-1983) Currently: Independent Producer/Director

xxii Leach, Robin “ET” Position: Reporter (1981-1983) Currently: Independent Producer/Talent

Maltin, Leonard “ET” Position: Film Critic, Reporter (1982-Present) Currently: “ET” critic; Author; Producer

Mann, Catherine “ET” Position: Reporter (1981-1984) Currently: Author, Media Trainer

Masini, Al “ET” Position: Creator (worked directly with “ET” from 1981-1983, then oversaw it as he moved on to produce other programs) Currently: Retired, Former head of TeleRep; Independent Producer

Merlis, George “ET” Position: Executive Producer (1983-1984) Currently: Media Trainer; Producer

Meyer, Ed “ET” Position: Assoc. Segment Producer, Asst. Operations Manager (1981-1985) Currently: /Producer

Olsen, Bill “ET” Position: Runner, Assistant Director, Writer (1981-1996) Currently: Writer/Producer for “World Poker Tournament”

Osborne, Scott “ET” Position: Reporter (1982-1987) Currently: Independent Multimedia & Broadcast Production; Writer; Talent

Paskay, Steve “ET” Position: Writer (1981-1982) Currently: Television producer/writer

Ridgeway, John “ET” Position: Graphic Designer, Paramount Creative Consultant (1981-2000) Currently: Head of Via Worldwide: Video Design and Music Branding

Swerdloff-Ross, Helaine “ET” Position: Head Booker, Segment Producer (1981-1983) Currently: Owner/Founder Helaine Ross Publications

xxiii Tesh, John “ET” Position: Co-Host (1986-1996) Currently: Radio Host; Author; Grammy Winning Musician

Wallace, Marjorie “ET” Position: Co-Host (1981) Currently: Unknown

Weller, Robb “ET” Position: Co-Host, Reporter (1984-1986) Currently: Co-Owner of Weller/Grossman Productions; LA Morning Show Anchor

Whatley, Dixie “ET” Position: Co-Host, Reporter (1981-1986) Currently: Award winning Artist; Freelance Reporter

Zurbrugg, Shauna “ET” Position: Research, Segment Producer (1981-1983) Currently: Grammy winning Audio Book Producer

xxiv

The “ET” Staff circa 1982 (Photo Courtesy: Ed Meyer)

xxv

Co-Hosts 1983 (left to right): Steve Edwards, Mary Hart, Dixie Whatley, Ron Hendren (Photo Courtesy: Al Masini)

xxvi