Courtis Fuller is preparing for his next campaign.

The former Channel 5 anchor, who lost the election for Cincinnati mayor a year ago this week, wants to return to TV news - but not as an anchor or reporter.

He hopes to sell a local TV station on a new concept: doing an extended one-on-one interview with a newsmaker during weekday newscasts.

Call it the Fuller Initiative. Think of it as a local slice of Nightline nightly at 5:40 p.m., or during the 10 p.m. Channel 19 news.

"It just seems so logical. There should be a breakout (element) in the 90-minute early evening news," says Mr. Fuller, 45, who has hosted a 10 a.m.-noon talk show on WCIN-AM (1480) since January.

"It's not just translating talk radio into television. It's trying to interject some public, intellectual discussion of the issues onto television," he says.

Mr. Fuller has deferred conversations about his political future because he's so passionate about the idea of doing a 15-minute to 30-minute live TV interview, with viewer e-mails and calls. (Personally, I think an eight- to 10-minute daily segment would be informative without being disruptive for viewers.)

"Several people have asked me to run for office, but I haven't committed to them," says Mr. Fuller, who left Channel 5 in June 2001 and won a four-way primary for mayor that September. As a Charterite, he drew 45 percent of the vote last November, losing to Charlie Luken, the incumbent Democrat and also a former Channel 5 news anchor. The deadline for filing as a Cincinnati City Council candidate is August.

"When I think about a (TV) concept like this, that excites me more (than politics). If you listen to talk radio, you understand that people want more information."

Digging deep

With Mr. Fuller's proposal, viewers would get more than one or two sound bites from the biggest Tristate newsmaker that day. They'd hear the comments unfiltered, as they do on Nightline, Larry King Live or Charlie Rose.

In a few seconds, Mr. Fuller rattles off a half-dozen prospective guests: manager Valerie Lemmie; olice chief Tom Streicher; police chief Ron Twitty; court-appointed police monitor Alan Kalmanoff; Bengals owner Mike Brown; Reds chief operating officer John Allen. Wouldn't you love to see in-depth interviews with them?

For this segment to work, the 16-year Channel 5 news veteran knows he must ask tough questions and hold people accountable. That's his biggest frustration with local TV news.

"We've made it so convenient for newsmakers, because they don't have to respond to us. We're not covering the news," he complains.

"We have the opportunity to take this powerful force of talk radio, and really make it a powerful tool by blending it with TV, and making it thought-provoking."

After November sweeps, when TV news returns to normal, he plans to take his campaign to the people who run the stations. He thinks a Person to Person-style segment could do for a station what Jerry Springer's 11 p.m. news commentaries did for Channel 5's top-rated newscasts in the 1980s.

"Channel 9 tried commentaries with Denny Janson - and a couple were pretty good - but you can't do the same thing again. It's so obvious to me that this is the answer," he says.

The promotional opportunities are obvious, too. Chances are the segment would elicit newsworthy quotes reported on the 6 and 11 p.m. news. The segment could be simulcast on local radio, so commuters could hear the Q&A on their way home from work. Mr. Fuller even would quit radio, reluctantly, if that's the only way he could do the weekday TV interviews.

"That's a tough choice, but I could have more impact on TV. Television reaches more people. But I think you could do both. Larry King did both," he says.

Challenging expectations

Mr. Fuller's concept will be a tough sell to TV executives.

The 5-6:30 p.m. newscasts look the way they do because that's what viewers expect, says John Quarterer, a vice president at the Frank N. Magid Associates Inc. TV news researchers.

"There are research-based reasons for why local television news looks the way it does," Mr. Quarterer says from Magid's Iowa headquarters. "People expect different things from a local program than if they sit down to watch Larry King, which is why it hasn't been tried. Generally what people want in a (local) newscast is news."

Steve Minium, Clear Channel vice president for television news, doesn't know of any TV station doing a long interview segment in the early evening news. The former Channel 12 news director compares Mr. Fuller's idea to a newspaper devoting three sections to one particular interview subject.

Lining up daily guests could be a full-time job, says Dan Hurley, host and producer of 12 Newsmakers (11 a.m. today, Channel 12). The free-lancers spends one day a week booking guests and researching topics for the show.

"The key thing you need is one of the best producers in the business," Mr. Fuller says. "You want to make this the caliber of a show like Larry King Live . . . and do the format that has made Nightline a success for 20 years. The people at Nightline say, `This is the biggest story of the day.' "

As a longtime Channel 5 employee, he's aware of the city's rich TV tradition. His old station was a leader in color television, TV weather radar and baseball telecasts.

"I think Cincinnati should do what it's always done, and that's be a leader," he says. "Cincinnati is unique. We're in a powerful position as a city, so what better thing to do than create a powerful new voice in the media?"

But will any station elect to try it?

E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com