E-Mail This Article to a Friend Curing the news blues Can CBS4 get Boston to watch again? BY MARK JURKOWITZ
	Related links Project for Excellence in Journalism Local News Studies For several years, this media think tank evaluated the substance and quality of local newscasts in a number of America’s top TV markets. See how Boston stacked up. The NewsLab This nonprofit organization that helps train and advise broadcast journalists also keeps track of fast-breaking news in the TV-news business.

With lead anchor Josh Binswanger out on vacation, a very familiar face showed up on CBS4’s (Channel 4) 11 pm newscast last week. Jack Williams — a 30-year station veteran who conjures up the bygone era when Boston anchor teams were known by their first names ("Jack and Liz" and "Chet and Nat") — was back anchoring late night in his smooth, easy style. "A real bummer for Boston’s boys of summer," he crooned, describing the Red Sox’ loss to the Yankees.

A few days earlier, Williams (who normally anchors the noon and four-o’clock newscasts), played a prominent role in the station’s Fourth of July Esplanade extravaganza when he read the Gettysburg Address on the air.

Could Williams’s renewed profile signal a back-to-the-future strategy of emphasizing the station’s tried-and-true personalities? Officials at CBS4, which has been lagging badly in the city’s competitive broadcast-news ratings wars, aren’t divulging any specific plans.

"He brings strength to any newscast," says station manager Angie Kucharski. "He’s Jack Williams."

"We want to try anything," adds CBS4 general manager Julio Marenghi in a bit of admirable candor.

Why not? Despite the benefit of CBS’s top-rated national prime-time line-up, the Viacom-owned station is looking to reverse its disappointing news performance in the country’s fifth-largest television market. CBS4 hasn’t won in the crucial 11 pm time slot for more than a decade, and in the May 2005 "sweeps" ratings, it finished a morale-sapping third everywhere except at noon.

In a market where WHDH-TV’s (Channel 7) newscasts have been defined by flashy graphics and quick pacing, and WCVB-TV (Channel 5) is still seen as steeped in community and tradition, CBS4 — which used to be the famous WBZ — has had trouble creating an identifiable news brand.

"To some degree we’re not as defined as the other two guys," admits Marenghi.

Channel flipping

Over the past two years, CBS4 has undergone a series of major changes.

In 2003, the station announced that it was taking the big step of swapping the WBZ logo for CBS4. The idea was to stress ties to the network that owns it, but the change has created a good amount of brand confusion (Marenghi recalls with some frustration that the mayor’s wife, Angela Menino, once asked him, "Why is it CBS4?").

Then, in September 2004, the station tried to juice up its lead anchor team at 6 and 11 pm, by replacing Joe Shortsleeve and partnering Binswanger — who had worked everywhere from CBS to the History Channel — with Lisa Hughes.

A month later, Marenghi, who began his career in the Channel 4 mailroom, was brought in to replace veteran GM Ed Goldman. In March of this year, Kucharski, who has a strong TV newsroom background, came aboard as Marenghi’s second in command. Two months ago, in an attempt to bolster its coverage of the State House and City Hall, the station hired high-profile political analyst Jon Keller, who had been working at WLVI-TV (Channel 56).

The most recent shock wave occurred Monday, when the station abruptly fired news director Matt Ellis, who had replaced long-time news director Peter Brown in 2004. A brief e-mail from Marenghi to the staff stated, "We greatly appreciate Matt’s hard work." But a station source said that in personal remarks to the staff explaining the move, Marenghi talked of the need for a leadership change and a new direction in the newsroom.

There are a lot of theories about how the once-proud Channel 4 newscast got itself into such a predicament. Jim Thistle, director of broadcast journalism at Boston University and a former news director at Channels 4, 5, and 7, says "the house of WBZ began to fall in upon itself" in the late ’70s, when rival Channel 5 hired anchor Tom Ellis (who had been in New York) and began a long run of success with such top personalities as Chet Curtis and Natalie Jacobson.

A more current explanation involves the 1995 switch when Channel 4 changed from an NBC affiliate to a CBS affiliate, and Channel 7 replaced CBS with NBC. Not only did Channel 4 lose Seinfeld and the rest of NBC’s "Must See TV" prime-time line-up, but the network swap proved confusing and disorienting to viewers. In an attempt to send a reassuring message about continuity, the station adopted the upbeat slogan "The Tradition Continues." But in fact, it didn’t.

The affiliate switch "was the 9/11 of Channel 4," says one industry insider.

But the station kept trying. After the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an organization that monitors media standards and practices, released a 1999 survey indicating that WBZ had the best late newscast in Boston, the station tried a marketing campaign to emphasize the quality of its news.

Another opportunity to build a station brand — this time around weather — might have been missed in 2002 when popular meteorologist Harvey Leonard’s contract with Channel 7 expired, and he came on the market. But it was Channel 5, not 4, that ended up signing him.

In recent years, some analysts say, CBS4 has been saddled with a problem that is endemic to the local news industry — a lack of strong, dominant male anchors. When Shortsleeve was replaced by Binswanger, the perception was that Shortsleeve was perhaps better suited to reporting than to anchoring. Whether Binswanger, who had also auditioned for an anchor job at Channel 5, is the answer remains an open question.

"I think he and Lisa as a team have started to emerge," says Marenghi. "We think it’s still early in the process. I think we’re on the right track."

New York in the house

One person certainly interested in whether CBS4 is on the right track is Dennis Swanson, chief operating officer of Viacom’s Television Stations Group. Swanson was in Boston last week for an annual meeting with management to discuss programming and budgets. (Viacom also owns UPN38 and WLWC-TV/UPN 28 in Providence.)

As former president of sales at Viacom’s TV Group, Marenghi is widely viewed as a Swanson favorite. When he came to Channel 4, one local television-industry source described it as "the New York club bringing in one of their own." Deborah Potter, the executive director of Newslab, a nonprofit that provides training and resources to television newsrooms, says, "My impression is that Swanson has really taken on these [Viacom stations] and is really working through them."

But both Marenghi and Kucharski, who was station manager for the Viacom-owned KCNC in Denver when Boston beckoned, say they have been given free rein by the corporate offices.

"In this case, New York is my friend. I want New York in my building," asserts Marenghi. "I have to run this place fiscally. I have to do it smart, or else I don’t have a job."

"Sometimes you can hear New York and it connotes a corporate mandate," says Kucharski. "The corporate mandate is ‘We’re not going to run your station. We want you to win, but you make the calls.’"

One call apparently on the verge of being made is a new contract for Bob Lobel, the long-time sports anchor whose personal peccadilloes have become topics for gossip columns and a profile in Boston magazine.

Despite the unpleasant publicity, Marenghi says the station is "very close" to a new deal with Lobel. "Bob has been going through his own life crisis, which is personal," he adds. "He didn’t violate his contract, and he didn’t do anything illegal."

But re-upping one piece of top talent won’t solve CBS4’s ratings problems.

Marenghi has a number of options at his disposal — ranging from on- and off-the-air personnel changes to a new promotional campaign. But given Channel 4’s recent history and the nature of the TV audience, the job of shaking up the marketplace is a daunting one.

"Viewing habits become engrained and people are hard to move," says Potter. "People have viewing habits that they learned at their parents’ knee."

And those offering advice to Marenghi agree on one point. A small, incremental tweaking probably won’t get the job done.

"You’ve got to stake your claim in one thing," says a local industry expert. "And it can’t be subtle at all."

Adds Thistle, "There needs to be something dramatic."

Mark Jurkowitz can be reached at mjurkowitz[a]phx.com