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The rise of 'Nightline' It's quietly emerged as the No. 1 show in late-night Dec 15, 2009 With the late-night landscape in turmoil, as "The Tonight Show" slips to record-low audiences and David Letterman heading off a sex scandal, ABC's "Nightline" is perhaps the steadiest of the Big Three shows at 11:35 p.m. It's also, for the first time ever during the November sweeps, the most watched. The newsmagazine just barely edged CBS's "The Late Show with David Letterman" for first place among total viewers during the one-month period, averaging 4.15 million to the latter's 4.12 million. "Tonight" managed just 2.39 million. "Nightline" also prevailed among adults 18-49 in an equally tight race, with 1.38 million to "Late Show's" 1.31 million. "Tonight" was third at 1.3 million. The irony of "Nightline" emerging as late-night's No. 1 show is that 19 months ago the program's future seemed uncertain, with ABC's pursuit of Jay Leno sparking speculation that the network would cancel "Nightline" if they got him. But with the presidential election boosting the show last year, along with scoops like John Edwards' infidelity confession and revelations in the Michael Jackson saga, "Nightline" has seen gains each of the last two seasons. James Goldston, executive producer of "Nightline," talks to Media Life about the show's future, its past and the truth behind the rumors. What have been the greatest changes to "Nightline" since Ted Koppel left four years ago? The biggest change was simple and fundamental in some ways. The show had always been a single-topic show, and we changed it to a multi-topic show. The thinking was it’d give us flexibility to do news and features. Other than that, a lot of things didn’t change at all. How would you describe the show's editorial focus? I think we have a pretty laser-like focus on the news agenda. We’re focused not only on day-to-day news but the things that underlie that news, and telling the big stories that lie behind the headlines. “Nightline” has always played that role of giving more breadth and understanding to the day’s headlines that can be just regurgitated throughout day’s news. What stories have been the most compelling that you've followed over the past year? I think we did a very good job with the breaking news stories, including Fort Hood. Also Obama, swine flu--we’ve done a lot of good stories. Michael Jackson I think we covered very well. I think we’ve had a strong year, maybe one of our best. How much have scoops like the John Edwards story helped raise the show's profile? Clearly every time we land one—John Edwards was one of the bigger ones—but we do a lot of interviews and investigations. We broke ground with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on a regular basis. Anytime you get one of these scoops it helps. They have impact, these stories. And clearly you’re seeing that not in just the show’s profile, but in its audience. We just won the November sweep for the first time in the show’s 30-year history, so it must be working. How much has the changing landscape of late-night helped boost "Nightline?" That is, how much sampling do you think viewers are doing with Leno moving out of late-night? Yes, I think undoubtedly that’s true. I feel we’ve been working away at it day by day, month by month and year by year. But Jay Leno was a formidable performer in late night, and his absence there has undoubtedly given us an opportunity, and we’ve taken it. And I don't think we’ve done anything different, our values and approach to the show remain the same. It seems every six months or so a story floats around that "Nightline" is in danger of surviving. Have there been truth to those rumors? How do you keep the show focused with that sort of distraction? I don’t believe there was any truth to those. The show is still here and doing very nicely. We focus on the job at hand, which is to deliver the news in the best way possible and break it whenever we can. If we keep doing that we’ll do just fine. What are your near-term and long-term goals for the program? We’ve certainly attained some of the goals that we set out when I started. I think the show is very true to its roots, and I think it performs a valuable public service for its audience. I think the aim is just to continue doing that. I don’t think we have plans to change what we’re doing very dramatically. I’m very proud of the team, it’s a small team and they do a herculean job every night, they do a fantastic job.
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