Star Time by Joseph Amiel Read Free Book Online Page A

television are the ratings. That's the way this business works." He smiled with an alarming intimacy. "And that's why it's made for hustlers like you and me."
    Greg understood that he had passed muster. Stew was ordered to keep a close watch. Greg's failure would be considered Stew's, and both would pay the penalty.
    "One more thing," Carver added, his expression like a farmer's eyeing gypsies near his chicken coop. "I hired a consulting firm to analyze our news broadcasts, to tell us how to raise ratings. Their report should be coming in soon. I'm eager to see what they propose."
    With that the newsmen were dismissed. Stew looked as if a close relative had died.
    "The plague is about to strike one and all," he moaned when he and Greg were back in his office, "regardless of race, creed, or personal hygiene. These consultants all recommend the same superficial, plastic presentation. Matching jackets. A funny weatherman. Very brief news reports with lots of visuals. Keep it simple, very local. Fires. Violent crime. Accidents. Sex. Cuddly human interest and consumer stuff. Lots of smiling banter on the set. You know the routine."
    "We all try to attract viewers with some of that. You were doing it in Pittsburgh."
    "Some, sure, but the consultants don't want you to do anything more than that. Nothing deep, nothing that runs more than a minute fifteen—actually, forty-five seconds would be ideal. Structure every story as a confrontation, a drama. Go for the emotions. It's all a kind of entertainment. No ideas. No explanation. No exploring how the system might be failing people. As if anything the least bit complicated or abstract will send the idiot viewer scurrying to another channel."
    "Maybe they’ll have some useful ideas."
    Stew scoffed. "You don't understand how they work.  A consultant surveys viewers to learn what news they want and then advocates it. Not the news they need to know. How can you ask people what news they want if they don't know what the news is until it happens?"
    Stew slumped down into his chair. "We're a nuisance to Carver. He's a salesman. The station's sales and profits are what he's judged on—the bottom line. The News Division can sometimes cut into that. You know, he once warned me not to run stories that might throw a bad light on an advertiser." Stew reflected a moment. "There's another reason he hired a consultant: He wants us to run scared."
     
    Greg was informed when Chris's option was exercised, but Stew had early made up his mind as to her value. She rented a furnished studio apartment near Greg's. Most nights, they stayed at his place because he was phoned at odd hours by the assignment desk and, at six-thirty in the morning, to consult with him on the preliminary rundown of the day's stories and which reporters to assign to them.
    The couple's lives together began to assume a pattern. Chris would return to her own apartment each morning to change for work and would drive to the station in her own car.
    He spent the day supervising producers and reporters who were covering the day's stories, revising the broadcast's lineup, and preparing the way it would be presented on air. She went out to cover stories and then returned to edit them and write and record narration for them. After the nightly broadcast, if she was not scheduled for the occasional late shift, they would rendezvous back at Greg's. Whoever arrived first would begin to prepare supper.
    Greg had grown up doing a lot of the cooking for his father and himself. The ordered succession of acts cooking required and the small talk exchanged began the process of filtering out the day's concerns.
    Over dinner the talk would continue about their work or the news in general or the ordinary matters couples discuss. Then they read or watched television and usually made love before falling asleep. For the first time each had a best friend to whom dreams and fears could be disclosed. Chris was far quicker to reveal secrets than Greg.