Tv Gets Down To Business

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Crimmins, formerly an executive with Reeves Communications, Newsweek and Harper's, bases his faith on both gut instinct and market research. Surveys for ESPN by Reymer & Gersin have shown that the best time to reach executives is between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. Then there is what Crimmins calls "my horseback survey" of executives. He says he asked himself, What does a businessman on a business trip do in the morning except turn on the television? And network morning TV was getting too soft. "As it moved further in the direction of People magazine, it just wasn't serving my interest." Instead, he decided, the busy CEO or would-be CEO would prefer a kind of early-morning briefing.

In July 1982, Crimmins and his associate, Bill Ryan, approached ESPN with their briefing concept. Their original plan had been to line up affiliates and start a new cable network, but the cost and time involved proved prohibitive, and ESPN, the largest of the cable networks with a predominately male audience, seemed like a logical fit. "Business Times" was signed to a 15-year contract, renewable at 3-year intervals. Each hour would offer 24, 30-second commercial spots: 4 would go to the local stations, 2 to the network, and 18 to "Business Times."

The months that followed were frantic. Offices, a studio, and a set were designed and built in the Matrix Building The Financial Times of London was signed up as a news source. An estimated $10 million was raised during September and October. (Ryan declines to identify the sources although he points out that the board includes Peter Danforth of Fidelity Venture Associates, Theodore F. Walkowicz of Advanced Technology Ventures, and a managing director of Morgan Stanley & Co.) A staff of 46 was hired, the cream of the business press, including editors from Newsweek, Business Week, The Economist, and Fortune magazines, and National Public Radio -- 20 of whom were given a share in the equity.

"We spent our money on staff because in a start-up you can't cover up mediocrity," Ryan says. "They're journalists first. We didn't want pretty faces reading TelePrompters." On March 1, "Business Times" went on the air.

Still unanswered, however, is the crucial question: Can "Business Times" make money? That depends on whether the show can attract a large enough, and a select enough, audience to be able to sell to advertisers at a profit. Ryan is vague about costs, beyond suggesting that "Business Times" costs about $20,000 to $25,000 per show. A trade journal reported that initiaI ad rates were $1,500 for a 30-second spot; actually, Ryan says, the charge was closer to $1,000 per spot "and has gone up 30 or 40%." Both Ryan and Crimmins agree that the show needs to get a 1 rating to make money (that is, 1% of ESPN households). While the show has hit a peak of 1.2, ratings are currently hovering between .7 and .8.

Mike Ephron, executive vice-president of the New York advertising firm of Scali, McCabe, Sloves, feels confident that "Business Times" can get the ratings it needs to be a viable element in the ad marketplace. "There is a market out there, and 'Business Times' has a good head start," he says. "The hours are right, and it's on one of the major cable networks. They're the best shot that's coming down the pike. "

But "Business Times" faces two big obstacles. The first is the usability factor. As Tom King, president of American Business Press Inc., points out, "You can't take it home at night." Nor can you stick it in your briefcase to read at your leisure. Or skim over the information you don't need and save what is valuable. Or circle an article to show to a colIeague. What is more, you might miss the only story that interests you if it happens to come on while you are showering. In short, newspapers still have some advantages.

The second obstacle is the glamourand-glitz factor. The professional print journalists associated with "Business Times" may be knowledgeable, but the majority of them lack the slick polish of trained TV performers. Moreover, many viewers have come to expect flashy graphics and compelling tape on a morning show. Instead, "Business Times gives them interviews and statements -- "talking heads," as they say in the trade -- along with a torrent of charts and graphs. Columbia's Chris Welles, for one, is skeptical about this approach, arguing that, "when people watch cable, they expect network production values."

Crimmins disagrees. "Face it," he says, "business isn't visual. If you show assembly lines, you're producing bad industrial films. Talking heads and graphs are how businessmen are used to getting their information. It's what they get all day."

In any case, it seems certain that some form of TV business journalism will survive. And whoever discovers how to capture and hold the executive audience for advertisers -- how to make a television broadcast as much a part of the executive day as The Wall Street Journal folded over morning coffee -- should thrive.

Not that The Journal is concerned. "We don't expect it to cut into our circulation at all," says Lawrence Armour, director of corporate relations for Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Journal. "We're still the paper of record. All this new awareness of the importance of business whets people's appetite for more. And when you want more -- more facts and more detail -- you go to The Journal."

Then again, Dow Jones is not taking any chances. In October 1982, it launched its own television show, "The Wall Street Journal Report," produced jointly with Independent Network News and broadcast by more than 80 stations across the country.

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