There's one big reason that ABC's "Nightline" is broadcasting from Utah tonight - and it doesn't have anything to do with the story the program will be covering."It's a way for us to thank the local affiliate there for moving us up to (10:35 p.m.)," said "Nightline" anchor Ted Koppel in a phone interview this week.
(Of course, it also doesn't hurt that KTVX-Ch. 4 vice president and general manager Peter Mathes is on the ABC affiliates board.)
Koppel, of serious journalist with a sterling reputation, makes no bones about just how seriously he takes time slots.
"It's enormously important to us," he said. "We've been trying for a long time to get our affiliate out there to move us up."
What makes the "live" clearances for "Nightline" (the half hour right after an affiliate's late local news) so important is quite simple - the audience available. The later it gets, the fewer people there are watching TV and the lower a show's rating.
"From prime-time into the night until you hit midnight, you lose half the audience every half hour," Koppel said, citing national figures. Locally, the decline is even sharper, with the audience largely evaporating after 11 p.m.
"The difference between being on live and being delayed a half hour or even an hour can make a difference of half or three-quarters of our audience," Koppel said. "And `Nightline' in that live slot has done very well."
This is not a new campaign. Koppel made headlines a few years back when he more or less threatened to quit "Nightline" if the clearance situation didn't improve.
"I must tell you, going six or seven years, I remember being at an affiliates meeting and telling the general managers and the owners at the time, `We're working as hard as we can possibly work. If you guys don't care enough to put the program on live, it doesn't make much sense to me to keep going with this,' " he said. "You have to get that kind of support from your affiliated stations."
And since then, the live clearances have improved from about 60 percent of the country to the neighborhood of 85 percent.
"And it makes a lot of difference," Koppel said.
It has made a big difference in Utah. "Nightline" ratings have improved dramatically since it was moved to 10:35 p.m. last September. And Koppel is grateful.
"I promised them that I'd come out there and do whatever I could to help them if they moved the show," he said. "It's really a thank-you from us to the affiliate out there."
Which is not to say that the story "Nightline" is planning to cover lacks legitimacy. The plan is to debate the recently declared Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The decision by President Clinton will be debated, with Gov. Mike Leavitt arguing against it and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit arguing for it.
(Breaking news could, however, force a postponement of the report.)
"We contacted our colleagues out there and said, `Look, is there a story that we can do that is really either a Western story or a Utah story that the rest of the country could or would be interested in.' And they said, `Oh boy, is there,' " Koppel said. "And once they told us about the story it made all kinds of sense."
It's a story that has made a lot of headlines in Utah but has attracted little attention from the national media.
"I mean, it got a fair amount of play the day the president held his news conference at the Grand Canyon," Koppel said. "And thereafter, it has not gotten much play."
Koppel is already well-versed and easily converses about Clinton's "multiple usage" statement about the monument.
"That meant an awful lot to people in Utah who thought that term to mean that even though it was being set aside as a national monument that they might still be able to develop coal and oil," he said. "And I get the sense that a lot of people out there really feel badly misused by the White House on this. And I can see why.
"The fact that we've got the secretary of the Interior and the governor who are willing to come on the program and debate it I think makes it not only a perfectly legitimate story, it's better than that. It's a really good story."
And today is a long day for Koppel. He flew out of Washington early this morning, will tape the show tonight at 7 p.m., and fly back home shortly thereafter.
Which helps explain why "Nightline" goes on the road a lot less often than it used to.
But, still, he wanted to thank KTVX for finally coming around.
"It means a lot to us. It really does," Koppel said.