When the Midwest is one big heat sink, the coolest hour is just before dawn. That's why I don't mind coming out to Liberty Memorial at 5:45 a.m. to witness the spectacle of CBS's "Early Show" bringing its summer concert series to Kansas City, the last in its six-city tour, and hear Big & Rich serenade a thousand surprisingly alert fans.
If you're watching on TV, Big & Rich seem to be performing constantly. In reality, they only play while the camera is running, though clearly Big Kenny isn't happy being told that he can stop playing now, they're in a break. "I ain't done!" he yells out at one point. During another break, the boys improvise to the tune of "Kansas City," dialing down the thunder and creating an intimate moment with the folks gathered around the stage.
At 5:55 I see Steve Kraske standing there in a suit. At least he's comfortable — and with his segment on Missouri politics scheduled for 6:07 local time, he'll be out of that thing before he can break a sweat. His CBS handler tells me that when they arrived at the memorial around 4 a.m., the place was muggy and miserable.
Just before showtime, a crew member almost takes out a 10-foot-high kleig light while doing practice swings with his big jib. There's a camera on the jib that will offer a sweeping view of the skyline, as well as show viewers the distance between the stage near the base of the memorial and the Winnebago parked about halfway down the hill, where Dave Price will do segments with a local rockabilly band and model-train enthusiasts.
The first hour of "The Early Show" is chopped up into little segments designed to accommodate the CBS affiliates — big-city stations, mostly, representing about a quarter of the country — who cut away from the program to do local inserts. (KCTV accidentally drops in a taped forecast from Gary Amble in a suit, which is impossible since I saw him in a polo shirt a few minutes ago. "Have a great Thursday!" says Taped Gary.) Hannah Storm is in New York, Julie Chen is in L.A. and Russ Mitchell, who according to an early rundown wasn't supposed to be doing the news, is doing the news. So they all have to get some face time, at least in the first hour.
I wander down behind the stage, where the police have allowed a line of Iraq war protestors to set up. They've got some streetpost-quality banner signs. They're not on TV, but everyone here can see them plainly. "We're here for all our sons and daughters in Iraq," says Corva Murphy, who's here with husband Everett. Their son has served a tour of duty.
The 6 o'clock hour zips by quickly, and now we're into the 7. After the news, Dave Price introduces a taped piece on Hallmark Cards by saying, "What we've found in small towns like Kansas City...." and over where I am, by the big wall, the crowd groans. "Small town!" they say to each other.
Finally, at 7:37 a.m., Big & Rich can let loose. The spectators around the Winnebago have moved up the hill, and now it's shoulder-to-shoulder from the stage to the wall. The band sounds great. They've had two hours up there, and to their credit they've used every opportunity to bond with the audience, so that by the time they let loose the crowd is theirs.
The show ends strong at 8 o'clock, and as soon as the stage clears two buckets of champagne and a cake are being carted up to the stage. The whole crew gathers round the table. It's time to celebrate the end of "Summer in the City." Harry will pour the bubbly.
I grab the guy in the suit. He's Steve Friedman, executive producer of "The Early Show" and, before that, "The Today Show." And he's had a heckuva week — on Wednesday CBS studios in New York were flooded following monsoon-like rains. Everyone had to scramble to the "Evening News" set 40 minutes before air. "We became 'Evan Almighty' over there — a fleet of cabs taking everyone across the street," he says.
So what was behind the decision to take his show on the road? "I'm a big believer in retail television," Friedman says as we walk back to someplace air-conditioned. Every time the show comes to a city, it gets a higher audience and that means more people sampling the third-rated morning show. Some of them will stick around. "City after city, you build your audience," Friedman said.
A big obstacle to growing the "Early Show" rating, however, are those affiliates who cut away. Friedman's dealing with them, too — on Jan. 7, 2008, the local cutaways will be eliminated and "Early Show" will be formatted exactly like its competitors. The problem now, he says, is that "in about 27 percent of the country,we can't refer back to something we did before because they can't see it." That goes back to a decision made 10 years ago — "a mistake, obviously" — to try to zig where NBC and ABC zagged. But the weird cutaway times mean, as Friedman puts it, "that in our first hour we have to have our good segments end sooner." Next year, if a segment is clicking, it can be extended on the fly and even become a running bit.
As Friedman sees it, the "Today Show" and "GMA" are more vulnerable than they ever have been. Katie Couric is gone from NBC, while over at ABC "it's no longer a matter of if Diane Sawyer will leave, but when," he says. So in the best-case scenario, what kind of growth does Friedman predict for "Early Show"? "Minimal," he says matter-of-factly. "I hope we're a better third. And if we get lucky and we need help from the other two, we can make a run at second."
I go looking for Harry. He's still out at the stage, still signing autographs and posing for pictures. This isn't the Harry Smith I'm used to — the one in that hermetically sealed "Biography" studio, the one who began doing the CBS morning show in 1986 with Paula Zahn inside an airless newsroom. But Harry assures me it's the real deal. "Half the time I'm out on the road doing stories," he says. OK, reporting is one thing — but he's more at ease in a crowd than Bob Barker. At one point he was dancing with audience members while Big 'n' Rich played. He laughs and doesn't have much to say to that. It's the same response he gives me after I ask him if he thinks Paula got a raw deal at CNN.
By staying late to chat with Steve and Harry, I've missed the traffic jam. The parking lot is empty, and I take a shortcut out of the memorial, going out the gate that's 100 feet to my left instead of the half-mile loop one traditionally takes around the entrance. As I reach the exit gate, two Kansas City Police Department officers stop me and tell me I have to turn around. The drive is empty. "Can I go out this way?" I ask. "Look, sir," says the older cop, "I can issue you a ticket or you can go out the other way. It's your choice." I see his Parking Control car nearby and know his threat is toothless, but I'm a Midwesterner, and I have a blog, so I drive the half-mile-route out. In a couple of minutes a black limo will go by Officer Friendly, who won't get between Harry Smith and the airport.
You should have said, "So long, suckers!" and floored it...
Posted by: Travis Fox | August 10, 2007 at 01:02 PM