PASADENA, Calif. -- The most anticipated, most discussed, most fought-over newsmagazine in television history finally makes it on the air tonight -- with all the pressure that goes with something titled "60 Minutes II."
This second edition of television's most prestigious prime-time news show (8 p.m., Ch. 2) comes on the CBS schedule with one promise -- that it will do nothing to besmirch the reputation of its predecessor.And that concern about quality is why "60 Minutes" creator and executive producer Don Hewitt and his correspondents were publicly critical of CBS's plans to clone their show.
"There were scenes at '60 Minutes' that were reminiscent of some Verdi opera in the early stages of this thing," said CBS newsman Dan Rather. "You know, people roaming the halls saying, 'Listen, how could they? How dare they?' "
Fager said he wasn't really surprised by all the uproar.
"The reason they were against it was they were worried that it wouldn't be done with the same kind of quality and care," he said. "They didn't have any reason to suspect anything in particular that would cause that to happen, but they were nervous. They had something that they felt very strongly about.
"And I think they realized as things went on that if it's done right it would be really worthwhile."
Hewitt expressed his fears that "60 Minutes II" would dilute the quality of the original quite clearly to CBS President Leslie Moonves.
"He said, 'You're going to call me and say, "There's a shooting on the 405 -- let's cover it for '60 Minutes.' " I said, 'I swear you will not get that phone call.' "
And the man chosen to executive produce the new newsmagazine, Jeff Fager, vows he will do everything in his power to uphold the "60 Minutes" standard of quality.
"When you see that stopwatch, we've got to make sure that our stories live up to the expectations that the viewer has," Fager said. "That actually is something that, considering that so many of us are veterans of '60 Minutes,' I feel confident we'll be able to do."
"The quality goes in before the name goes on," quipped Dan Rather, who is one of the new newsmagazine's correspondents.
(He's joined by Bob Simon, Vicki Mabrey, Charlie Rose and Carol Marin.)
When a new "60 Minutes" was originally discussed, there was talk that it would be a younger version of the original. Which wouldn't be difficult, given the ages of the correspondents on the Sunday show.
"For the last several years, my two favorite places in the world have been '60 Minutes' and the nursing home where my father-in-law stays in eastern France -- because they're the only places where I'm occasionally called 'young man,' " Simon said.
But the new "60 Minutes" has also gone for experience, not youth, in its correspondents.
"That's what we needed to make sure that we had as we put this team together," Fager said. "You have to have the kind of experience from being out there and reporting stories over the years to be able to do this kind of job properly."
The structure of "60 Minutes II" will mimic that of the original.
"We plan to have three stories each week," Fager said. "We'll have a commentary as often as we feel we need it, and we'll have (viewer) letters as well when we need those."
One of the three segments will be updated "classics" done by correspondents from the original "60 Minutes" -- Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Ed Bradley, Leslie Stahl or Steve Kroft.
And Moonves, for one, is ready to guarantee the quality of "60 Minutes II."
"I've seen, now, five stories, and '60 Minutes II' is as good as '60 Minutes I' and has the same journalistic integrity," he said.
CLASSIC MINUTES: The inclusion of updated "classic" reports from the original "60 Minutes" in "II" has created a new venue for competition among the correspondents on the Sunday edition -- up to and including Mike Wallace himself.
"In between Christmas and New Year's he was working for '60 Minutes II,' " Fager said. "He'd come back from a shoot for us in Florida just a couple of days before New Year's and he said to me, 'Jeff, how many classics have the other . . . correspondents done so far?'
"I said, 'Not as many as you, Mike.'
"He said, 'Ha!' with a big grin. 'I thought so.' "
MARATHON MAN: It's not that Dan Rather doesn't seem a rather natural choice to be a "60 Minutes II" correspondent -- it's just that it's difficult to understand where he's going to find the time. He is, after all, not only the anchor and managing editor of "The CBS Evening News" but the anchor of the newsmagazine "48 Hours" already -- jobs he doesn't plan to give up.
Even Fager, who moved over from his job as executive producer of Rather's "CBS Evening News" to executive producer of "60 Minutes II," said he doesn't understand it.
"Why am I doing this? I love news," Rather said. "I always have. I'll go to my grave loving it. That's the major reason I do it.
"Beyond that, I like to work. Voltaire said, 'Hard work is the key to happiness.' I'm not sure he's right, but I've spent a lifetime trying to find out, and I'm not going to quit now."
FRIENDLY COMPETITION: The addition of a second edition of "60 Minutes" raises the potentially thorny question of which correspondent on which show will get what story. According to Fager, the situation has already occurred -- more than once -- and has been amicably resolved.
"We'll win some and we'll lose some, just like Mike (Wallace) wins some and loses some against Morley (Safer) and Ed Bradley," he said.
At which point Dan rather intervened with a bit more detail.
"He just gave you the answer he has to give you," Rather said. "Here's how it works. . . . Mike Wallace gets what he wants and the rest of us get the right to fight over the rest. And that's the way it should be, because Mike's earned it."