To Catch a Time Slot Dateline producer David Corvo on the return of the newsmagazine

When the 2006-07 TV season started, there were only three hours of newsmagazines in prime time, the fewest since 1987. Well, the high casualty rate of scripted entertainment shows has changed that. Dateline NBC will be back up to three hours a week in January. ABC's Primetime is plugging the ratings crater left by The Nine on Wednesdays, until Lost returns. Look for a few episodes of 48 Hours to show up on Tuesdays at 10, now that 3 LBS has flatlined on CBS. Add 'em up, and in some weeks in January you'll have eight hours of newsmags to choose from. But producers say the shows can't give viewers the same old, same old anymore. A catchy hook is a must. Primetime has just kicked off a series of hidden-camera reports showing how people react in uncomfortable situations or when faced with ethical dilemmas. It's a durable newsmag standard, but the segment is being promoted with the racy title "Basic Instincts." Of course, NBC has plenty of experience on the packaging front with Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" series. We checked in with Dateline executive producer David Corvo to talk about the state of the genre.

TVGuide.com: So how does it feel to be loved again?
David Corvo: It's pleasant.

TVGuide.com: At the start of the season, what were you thinking about the status of the newsmagazine genre?
Corvo: I think there was a general belief in the TV business that the genre was tired. I don't think it was just at NBC. I think everyone was thinking that the shows were having a tough time in an environment when a lot of the best time periods for nonfiction were being taken up by reality shows. I think it was a challenge to everybody to try to reinvent themselves as newsmagazines have done over the years. That's why they're such sturdy long-term performers. If you look at every one of them, they've changed content and style over the years, including 60 Minutes, which abandoned Mike Wallace's ambush things at one point. People forget it started out with a lot of studio interviews. These shows always evolve. When it looks like we've done too many of the same kinds of stories, then people start finding other ways to tell them and other stories to cover.

TVGuide.com: It seems that being the Dateline brand or the 20/20 brand isn't enough anymore. You've had to develop these flashier minibrands that you can heavily promote.
Corvo: We had a lot of franchises within the Dateline logo, but [they were] single-story franchises like Consumer Alert and the Court TV stories. What we've done [recently] is brand the whole hour, [devoting] it to a particular topic and giving it its own identity and graphic look. That's helped us in a diminishing world of network viewers. What ABC does is a variety of stories on one topic with a variety of correspondents. What we try to do is one correspondent and one story.

TVGuide.com: What are the rating expectations for a newsmagazine right now?
Corvo: It depends on when we are on. The important thing is to do better than the show that was in [that slot] before you were.

TVGuide.com: You've been asked to expand at the same time that you've been asked to cut staff.
Corvo: It seems contradictory, but the total number of programs we will do over the year is roughly going to remain the same [as previously planned]. We're kind of shifting when and where we're doing them. We'll be able to manage what we're doing with the people we have. I kind of had a general sense of what was going to be expected of Dateline as we went through the downsizing we went through.

TVGuide.com: Meanwhile, "To Catch a Predator" has become a pop-culture icon.
Corvo: It was in Studio 60. They did a sketch based on it. They busted in on Santa and asked him what he was doing in a young girl's house. And 30 Rock is doing one, too.

TVGuide.com: I've heard you're trying to turn the whole Internet-crime theme into a bigger franchise.
Corvo: We're going to take the same format of sophisticated hidden-camera operations and apply it to other topics that have nothing to do with sexual predators — like fraud, identity theft, human trafficking — things that are very different but have the same impact in that you're seeing the story develop in front of your own eyes. That's why "To Catch a Predator" has succeeded.

TVGuide.com: I get a lot of questions about how many of the Predator suspects get convicted.
Corvo: We have a show coming up that brings you up-to-date on everybody so far. One of the things that inspired it was that the rabbi who was in one of our first shows got sentenced to six and a half years in jail last week. They are all working their way through the system. The prosecutors who agree to work with Perverted-Justice.com are dedicated; otherwise, they wouldn't do it. They're dedicated to seeing these things through. [As of Nov. 30, 36 of the 238 suspected online predators exposed by Dateline have been convicted or pled guilty. Many are still in the judicial system.]

TVGuide.com: One of your competitors told me that you're having trouble sponsoring the show.
Corvo: Look, if we were going broke doing it, we'd have to reconsider it. With really tough investigative material, some sponsors don't think it's a good atmosphere. We think it is, and our salespeople have been out there saying, "Look, this is a public service." The overall thing for Dateline is making our budget over the course of our shows, and we're certainly doing that. And the network loves it.

TVGuide.com: Do you think we'll ever see a new newsmagazine created for prime time?
Corvo: That's an interesting question. There hasn't been one launched in a few years. Something like Predator is so radically different from 60 Minutes, it almost is a new newsmagazine on its own. But I think you might see a new newsmagazine on cable before you see one created for the broadcast networks.