Can Former KABC Boss Severino Work His Magic at KCBS?

John Severino is proof anew that what goes around in television comes around.

Professional wrestling is now reinventing itself on the small screen, where it was hot 50 years ago. Another early TV fixation, the quiz show, appears ready for a comeback, too, following sizzling summer ratings for ABC’s new venture “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

And now comes Severino, again heading a network station and its news operations here, 24 years after blowing in from Chicago en route to swiftly reversing the fortunes of a different network-owned station, KABC-TV, and making “Eyewitness News” its franchise label.

Another era, another miracle? Don’t bet on it.

Severino’s project this time--after interim jobs heading the ABC Television Network and Central European Media Enterprises--defies mending.

When naming him president of its stations division last month, CBS Inc. also made Severino leader--and latest Mr. Fix-It--of its version of the Los Angeles Clippers.

That would be its big-talking but lowly L.A. station, KCBS-TV, where for a quarter-century newscasts have been chaotically in flux, ever rebuilding, ever recasting, ever lagging in the only barometer that counts to management in this business--ratings.

It’s where management years ago once hired a team of shrinks to increase anchors’ and reporters’ viewer appeal. And where gimmick after gimmick, and news director after news director--some real doozies who may have needed therapy themselves--have failed to budge KCBS from its overall last-place ranking among the city’s three network-owned stations.

Severino is no shrink thoughtfully pondering behavioral nuances. For some of the news staff, being at KCBS when he succeeded John Culliton as general manager (filling a job vacant for nearly a year) was like getting caught in Turkey when the earthquake hit. No place to hide.

Anchor Michael Tuck? Gone.

Anchor Linda Alvarez? Gone.

Reporter Lance Orozco? Gone.

And most recently, news director Larry Perret? Gone.

The latter firing was hardly extreme in an industry in which news directors last usually less than two years. Most notably at KCBS, which generally turns them over almost as often as George Steinbrenner did Yankee managers, making Perret, with a whopping five years under his belt, almost a dinosaur.

The irony here is that it was under Perret (and Culliton) that KCBS created its biggest din in years with a series of “Special Assignment” reports, most notably Joel Grover’s theatrical, head-turning, hidden-camera exposes of restaurant kitchens that had competitors scrambling to slap together undercover quickies to give the impression they, too, were getting tough on behalf of consumers.

But even that ear-splitting noise from KCBS--along with a rejuvenated CBS prime-time schedule--didn’t translate to sustained elevated ratings for the station’s major newscasts. In other words, no ratings cure seems possible for this station, where something called “The Big News” once flourished in what now seems like another millennium.

Yet the cycle of change is recurring.

As with Perret’s dismissal, the ousting of Tuck was classic TV news. Tuck did some loopy things from time to time after arriving here from San Diego. But there was no smoother, better reader of a TelePrompTer in Los Angeles, where news reading--along with looking interested--is most requisite for anchoring.

And where one day you’re a handsomely paid star as Tuck was--promoted by your station as a close member of viewers’ extended family whom they should care deeply about--and the next you’re missing from the galaxy without explanation.

“What happened to Michael Tuck?” a reader named Jennifer called to ask. When I told her he’d been fired, she was crushed, adding: “I think that if a reporter’s leaving, the station owes it to the viewing public to allow the reporter to say it’s his or her last day and to say where they’re moving on to.”

Which, among other topics, was something I wanted to take up with Severino.

When I met him in 1978, he was the intimidating general manager at KABC, whose shrewdly choreographed “Eyewitness News” had been kicking butt for a couple of years, the kickees being former ratings leader KNBC-TV and KCBS (whose call letters then were KNXT). It was a time when KABC’s superstars were Jerry Dunphy and Christine Lund, her anchor-in-waiting being Ann Martin, the present KCBS anchor, whose primness reminds you of someone’s auntie.

The self-promoting, high-vamping, goofier-the-better journalism often practiced by “Eyewitness News” was, to put it euphemistically, flamboyant. And after repeatedly noting that in print, my relationship with Severino and his station was, you might say, adversarial.

But he flat-out had a gift for managing a station successfully and knowing what turned on news viewers.

I put in a call to Severino at KCBS. When he phoned back, I could hear him shaking in his boots.

The way the Fuhrer shook in his boots in 1938 when Neville Chamberlain called on him in Munich and ended up giving away Czechoslovakia.

Didn’t Severino see that KCBS was hopeless? I wondered.

“There is no such thing as a quick fix,” he said. “What I hope for is you can improve 10% or 15% a year.”

What accounted for the station being in a rut so long?

“The problem started when it lost Jerry Dunphy [to Severino and KABC in 1975, incidentally], when they were a solid No. 2. Ever since, they’ve gone through a series of one general manager after another, one news director after another. They kept bringing them in from different markets. It was a constant turning and churning and format change that viewers didn’t like.” But which they are seeing again with Severino and Perret’s replacement, former KABC news director Roger Bell.

“You’ve got to have a great deal of consistency, and integrity, and hope your competition makes some mistakes,” Severino said. “And you’ve got to have a degree of luck.”

Isn’t that what all KCBS’ would-be saviors have said?

“I guess,” he replied. “Because maybe it’s the truth.”

Will the “Special Assignment” pieces continue, and Grover still be around?

“Yes,” Severino said. “But I will try to highlight them and market them more. They would do something, and the station wouldn’t follow up on it. Like what Joel did with the restaurants. Let’s say you’ve got a 30% share of the audience, which is good. But that means 70% of the audience didn’t see it.”

Yet a frequent rap against KCBS was that it marketed the restaurant and other “Special Assignment” pieces too much, including tooting its own horn in newscasts.

“Well, something did not work with them,” Severino said. “It had to be the marketing, because the reports themselves were very well done.”

Why was Tuck jettisoned?

“They had so many format changes around him,” he said. “They tried to soften him by having him wear glasses, they started to play with the guy, and it was contrived, and he was unhappy, and it wasn’t working, so the station suggested he get his life together and go back to San Diego.”

Why aren’t departing anchors and reporters allowed to say farewell to viewers?

“I guess,” Severino said, “because everybody is concerned that if they get on the air and make a farewell, they may say something detrimental.”

Which is what you won’t hear from this column. After speaking with Severino, I feel confident in declaring that, at last, there will be peace in our time at KCBS. And who needs Czechoslovakia, anyway?

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He can be contacted via e-mail at [email protected]