Primetime Live (1989– ) TV Series

A nighttime news magazine similar to 60 Minutes and 20/20.

AVAILABLE EPISODES

Behind Kremlin Walls

1990

Saddam Hussein

August 1990

Katarina Witt

January 1992

MIA

1990

Wayne Newton

1989

Zsa Zsa Gabor

1990

Rosie O'Donnell

2002

Primetime Live (1989– ) TV Series

Hosts: Diane Sawyer, Sam Donaldson

60 Minutes, 25 Years (1993) (TV)

Celebrating 25 Years of '60 Minutes' : Television: The show's stars and New York notables attend a party honoring the newsmagazine's longevity.
November 12, 1993|JANE HALL | TIMES STAFF WRITER


NEW YORK — "This is so much better than the 'wrap' party for 'South of Sunset,' " quipped Howard Stringer, president of the CBS Broadcast Group.

No fooling. The CBS detective series was canceled after one episode last month. The party Stringer was attending here Wednesday night was to celebrate the 25th anniversary of "60 Minutes."

Some 600 New York notables, from Beverly Sills to Mayor-elect Rudolph Guiliani, ate dinner in the halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and heard David Letterman offer a special Top 10 list ("No. 2: Like Lassie, there have been three different Mike Wallaces") at the event thrown by CBS Chairman Laurence Tisch to celebrate the longevity (and the ratings and profits) of "60 Minutes," the Daddy Warbucks of TV newsmagazines.

The stars of the evening were the stars of "60 Minutes": Mike Wallace, who was shown in a recent film clip hiking up a hill after a story at age 75; the show's 70-year-old creator and executive producer, Don Hewitt; Andy Rooney; Morley Safer; Ed Bradley; Lesley Stahl and Steve Kroft, at 48 the youngest of the "60 Minutes" correspondents.

"My voice hadn't changed when I started watching '60 Minutes,' " Kroft joked before dinner. "I'm celebrating 25 years of '60 Minutes' after having worked only five years here--and Mike and Don aren't letting me forget that."

The correspondents were "sound-bited" by TV crews and photographed together by a clamor of still photographers before they went into the party. In a medium that has few national institutions among its current programs, "60 Minutes"--still going strong as TV's third most popular program this season--is practically the news equivalent of Johnny Carson.

Hewitt, who based "60 Minutes" on Life magazine, said the program was less dependent on ratings-grabbing subjects than many of the prime-time newsmagazines that have sought to imitate its success.

"I really think that we could have Michael Jackson on one week and it might not make that much difference in the weekly ratings," Hewitt said in an interview.

"A '60 Minutes' story can be an essay, a profile or an investigation. It's the stories and the mix that people tune in for."

Wallace, who said he intends to keep working on "60 Minutes" "till my toes turn up," paid tribute to the producers who work in the shadows of the correspondents. "This is a producer's broadcast," he said.

"It's the producers in the field who are out there working before we get there."

Diane Sawyer, who left "60 Minutes" to join ABC's "PrimeTime Live," recalled that competition there for high-profile stories was intense.

"It was like waking up and finding yourself in the middle of an Olympic relay," Sawyer said. "All of these other people were running past, with their Olympic medals flying, while you'd barely had time to (suit up.)"

Viewers will be invited to join in the anniversary celebration Sunday night when "60 Minutes" serves up a two-hour collection of highlights from its 25-year run at 7 p.m.

60 Minutes, 25 Years (1993) (TV)
Host: Charles Kuralt

Images of the 80s (1990) (TV)

The ABC perspective of how went the 80s. Told through smug narrative combined with the vast archives of the ABC news machine.






Images of the 80s (1990) (TV)
Host: Peter Jennings

Turning Point - Sinatra: The Man Behind the Legend (1993–1999) TV Series

On the evening of his 81st birthday the good people from ABC News honored the great Frank Sinatra with "Sinatra: The Man Behind the Legend". A wonderful retrospective just a short two years before his passing.

Turning Point (1993–1999) TV Series

Cast: Peter Jennings, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters

Blame Game, The: Are We a Country of Victims? (1994) (TV)

Excellent production. Investigative reporting in the most transparent, confrontational manner. John Stossel asks insightful, direct questions of people involved in all forms of daily activity. Questions relevant to the economy, politics, and society in general and to these questions he gets nothing in return. Blank stares, indecipherable babble and apparent anger is his reward. Victims will be victims, as unrepentant as sex offenders. Consider this is from 1994, 17 years ago as of this writing. As when I watch Bill Cosby's show, "Kids Say the Darndest Things" and wonder about the current whereabouts of the youngsters involved; when I watch this show I wonder about the same thing regarding the losers involved. This should be mandatory viewing in high schools.

The Blame Game: Are We a Country of Victims? (1994) (TV)

Host: John Stossel

We Were There: CBS News at 50 (1998) (TV)

With the easy delivery of Charles Osgood we are lead through the high points of the last half of the last century through the eyes of the CBS news machine. Particularly good Cold War document.

We Were There: CBS News at 50 (1998) (TV)

Host: Charles Osgood