Memo To ABC: Don’t Lose Focus

“It all sounds very 2006,” David Bianculli says, referring to ABC’s plans to enhance WNT’s online offerings with webcasts, extended reports and blogs.

“The emphasis on blogs and complementary Internet materials, while sounding very modern and advanced, misses the real focus – a dangerous mistake for a news organization to make.

The networks, communally, messed up decades ago by not strong-arming affiliates into accepting a 60-minute newscast. If they make a similar mistake early in the 21st century, it’ll be to pay more attention to technological bells and whistles instead of providing what they alone have the resources to do best: in-depth coverage that explains as well as reports, that pioneers as well as recycles.

BBC World News is the best model out there for serious coverage in a tight TV format. The focus, for ABC and its network competitors, should be squarely on the over-the-air evening newscast. That’s the flagship, the fountain from which all reputations and fortunes spring. Blogs are fun diversions, but the news – and the newscast – is what matters. Now more than ever.”