Wednesday, August 18, 1999
'Hard-news person' on the job at Channel 5
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A. Rabun Matthews
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Big news at Channel 5: The hiring of a veteran hard news journalist as WLWT general manager could change the shrill, sensational tone of Channel 5's news and close the ratings gap with Channels 9 and 12.
“My priority is news and always will be,” said A. Rabun Matthews, 59, named Channel 5 president and general manager last week.
Mr. Matthews comes from Hearst-Argyle's Louisville sister station, CBS affiliate WLKY-TV (Channel 32). The station won a national Scripps Howard Award for investigative reporting during his nine-year tenure.
Serious investigative reporting, he said, “has always been the mark of any station that I've been associated with.”
What does he think about sensational, crime-oriented newscasts like “Eyewitness News 5?”
He paused.
“All I can tell you is: Nobody ever accused me of doing that,” he said.
Hiring a hard-news guy could be the missing ingredient for Channel 5, which wins prime-time 8-11 p.m. with NBC programming, then falls to third place in the household ratings for the 11 p.m. news.
“That's certainly something I'm going to be looking at,” he said about the ratings plunge. Thousands of Tristate viewers flip to Channel 9 (which won February and May sweeps) and Channel 12 (which won July ratings).
Channel 5 has done well with viewers ages 25-54, the demographic most sought by advertisers, while mired in third for the overall household news ratings at noon, early evening and late-night.
Channel 5 has been third at 11 p.m. — the local TV news ratings standard — since November 1992, when Jerry Springer was commuting daily between his Chicago talk show and Channel 5. The Mr. Springer-Norma Rashid team was No. 1 from 1987 (at the peak of The Cosby Show, Cheers and L.A. Law) until 1992.
Unlike the general managers of the other Tristate stations, including predecessor Rick Rogala, Mr. Matthews didn't come up through the TV advertising sales side. He began as a newspaper reporter in 1961 and spent two years writing for Walter Cronkite's CBS Evening News (1971-73).
Cincinnati TV news hasn't been the same since the last CBS newsman ran a station. In 1988, Frank Gardner took over Channel 9 and established the award-winning I-Team.
Mr. Matthews knows news. He covered the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the court-martial of Lt. William Calley for United Press International from 1967 to 1971, before going to CBS. He was news vice president for the Pulitzer Broadcasting chain (1985-1990). His WLKY-TV had Louisville's first Doppler radar and biggest TV news helicopter.
At Channel 5, his first priority is hiring a main news anchor to replace Charlie Luken, who resigned in June.
Mr. Matthews said he had been “in the loop” and reviewed tapes of potential Channel 5 anchors before Hearst-Argyle announced his transfer Thursday. .
“There's no front runner,” he said, though one is likely to be hired before the fall TV season starts on Sept. 20. “No decisions have been made.
“I come in with no preconceived notions, with a completely blank slate,” he said. “But I can tell you: I'm very much a hard news person.”
This should be fun to watch. Stay tuned.
John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV/radio critic.
Write him at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, 45202.
