Survey Says: Tuneout, USA

THE media have always been torn by two hallowed dicta. One instructed editors and producers to tell the nation what it wants to hear: if letter-turning is what captures the public's fancy, then the public deserves Vanna White every night.

The more intellectually-minded, with a generous dollop of cynical elitism thrown in, counter that the media is bound by a higher responsibility. Don't cater to the whims of the beer-swilling couch potatoes, they say. Let's ignore those natty Nielsen viewership surveys and give the public some healthy programming.

Now along comes iconoclast Grant Tinker, who has managed to neatly avoid both rules. His new USA Today: The Television Show, which began its nightly broadcasts last week, is an unmitigated mess. Unsubtly billed by Gannett as a "new journalism of hope," the show is neither hopeful nor journalistic. Its splashy graphics--borrowed of course from the show's paper parent--obscure a lineup that is drab and uninviting. Consider the Wednesday "spotlight": a snappy 10-second piece on the states with the highest population of pigs.

This is not to say the show was misconceived. The program was intended as a cheery supplement to the natural disasters and somber economic forecasts of the nightly newscast which it follows. Tinker, a proven NBC veteran, judged rightly that human interest is too often relegated to the last slot on the evening news.

BUT unfortunately for Tinker and his backers at Gannett, jaunty stories that reek of the Time-Life Home Improvement series simply won't cut it. The uncritical tone of the program, reminiscent of banal public service spots, is going to make increasingly savvy viewers rush for their dials.

Some already have. USA Today: The Television Show got a chilly reception when it first aired last week. Local affiliates and nervous advertisers reported that viewership was down significantly from expectations. In the hot Los Angeles market, the show racked up only half as many watchers when it went up against the sugarcoated "Entertainment Tonight."

Part of the problem is hubris. Gannett so raised expectations among television stations, that the show signed on a record 156 affiliates--the highest ever for a start-up. Among the very few naysayers was New York's WCBS which, after early test runs, balked and aired the program after 2 a.m.

On its face, the program looked good. Modeled on a highly-successful national newspaper, the show boasted great graphics and a computer-generated nightly weather map that would make the American Meteorological Association blush with pride. Add this to a sharp team of anchors, including rising star Kenneth Walker, formerly of ABC.

Unfortunately, pyrotechnics are no substitute for substance. The anchors don't get a chance to show their stuff with miniscule spots, and they spend so much time introducing each other that the "news" gets lost in the shuffle. Inane interviews rarely last beyond a few awkward prefatory sentences before the anchors snatch back the mike and move on.

THE real problem is the relentlessly upbeat subject matter itself. One broadcast last week delivered a hard-hitting tally of the Top Three Reasons Why Americans Choose Hotels (the shocking truth: cleanliness, location and price).

Unfortunately, you can't blame the writers strike for that one.

All told, the show's aversion to controversy, or even issues, is more spirit-crushing than a mid-afternoon look at the Jerry Lewis telethon. One redeeming feature: you actually get to hear them use "USA" as an adjective. (As in, "USA" mah jong players are gearing up for another exciting season...")

What happens to TV's Tinkertoy remains to be seen. When it was first launched six years ago, USA Today the newspaper was denounced as a multi-million dollar example of arrogance.

In the interim, the paper has managed to attract a sizeable chunk of American readers and even begun to turn a modest profit.

It's too early to tell whether producers are going to be able to change the TV program enough to prevent additional fallout. If not, USA Today: The Television Show is going to get clobbered by the very criterion its print twin finds so irresistible: national surveys.