CBS Woes Go Beyond the Ratings to a Swoosh

Bad weather, bad luck and bad planning continue to mean bad Winter Olympic ratings for CBS.

With the postponement of the men’s super-G and the women’s downhill, Friday night’s prime-time show got only a 14.7 rating and a 26 share.

That’s 46.9% lower than the 27.7 rating and 43 share on the same night from Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994 and 12.5% lower than the 16.8 rating and 30 share from Albertville, France, in 1992.

CBS’ prime-time average through Friday was a 16.6 rating and 27 share, 33.9% behind Lillehammer (25.1/38) and 11.7% below Albertville (18.8/29).

Sponsors, who purchased about $610 million worth of advertising, were guaranteed a 19.7 rating. If CBS cannot deliver that rating, and it now appears that it can’t, the network has to give sponsors additional spots, called “make-goods.”

That means viewers next week will more than likely have to endure even more commercials.

Things haven’t been going well for CBS, to say the least, and another problem popped up Saturday.

A group of nationally prominent journalists have complained in an open letter to the network about having its Olympic announcers wearing clothing bearing the Nike swoosh.

The Nike symbol is visible on the jackets and turtlenecks of CBS reporters in the field. The news division, which allowed its correspondents to wear the swoosh in features taped before the games, has subsequently banned the practice.

But that has not quieted the criticism. In the open letter released Saturday, the journalists said CBS has crossed the line between professional journalism and commercial endorsements by requiring its reporters to wear the swoosh.

“While some say sports is different from news, I strongly disagree,” said Steve Geimann, chair of the Society for Professional Journalists ethics committee and one of the authors of the letter.

“If CBS allows its sports commentators to wear a corporate logo at the Olympics, what’s next? White House and Capitol Hill reporters with Archer Daniels Midland lapel pins? Business reporters with Texaco ties? Science reporters with Merck insignias on their jackets?”

CBS has also been criticized by one of its own reporters, “48 Hours” correspondent Roberta Baskin, who raised allegations about the relationship between Nike’s sponsorship of the Winter Olympics coverage and treatment of her stories on Nike’s labor practices in Vietnam.

Baskin made her complaints in a memo distributed widely to top executives in CBS’ news division and, subsequently, to reporters outside of CBS.

Baskin complained that executives refused to rebroadcast her 1997 “48 Hours” report on Nike’s labor conditions, would not let her reply to a Wall Street Journal article criticizing the report and would not let her do follow-up stories on the issue.

“When I saw CBS News correspondents adorned with the Nike swoosh, it became clear to me why [CBS News President Andrew] Heyward had spiked all my follow-up reports on the Nike investigation and blocked my reply to the criticisms printed in the Wall Street Journal,” Baskin wrote in her memo.

Heyward, clearly angered by Baskin’s memo, said there was no connection between Nike’s sponsorship of the Olympics and any coverage of their labor practices. He said he wasn’t involved in decisions not to follow up Baskin’s story and that he rejected Baskin’s letter to the Journal because it crossed the line into advocacy.

In a memo to Baskin, Heyward said he was “amazed” by her intemperate message.

“Your circulation of allegations of this kind to virtually the entire senior staff of CBS News without first having discussed them with me is not only a shocking breach of professional etiquette, but entirely unacceptable,” he wrote.

The letter from the journalists claims that the network’s spiking of the Nike story coupled with the fact that CBS announcers are now wearing the Nike logo “gives the appearance that CBS has sullied its journalistic practices in pursuit of the bottom line.”

Said Baskin: “In my 20 years in television journalism, it is the first time a network news organization has allowed its correspondents to double as billboards.”

The journalists, as a group, call on CBS to adopt an explicit policy that prevents the use of announcers as advertising billboards.

CBS spokesman Dana McClintock said from Nagano that Nike simply supplied the apparel, that it was not a monetary deal.

“It’s a common practice in sports television,” he said. “It’s really not that big of a deal.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.