As Barbara Walters Retires, the Big TV Interview Signs Off, Too
Ms. Walters’s peers can’t help but see her departure as more than the end of one woman’s career. “With Barbara’s retirement, so goes TV news,” said Connie Chung, a longtime television news anchor. “There’s no big payoff for an exclusive television interview with someone for an hour. No one is going to watch it, anyway.”
.. But the power of the Big Three networks has faded. The demise of appointment viewing and the proliferation of alternatives to network news have obviated the need for a correspondent with great hair to come into a celebrity’s living room to take a confession. And how much value is there in an “exclusive” when people can follow the interview in real time on their phones via Twitter, or watch the highlights later on YouTube?
.. “It almost doesn’t matter where you go now,” said Howard Bragman, a Hollywood publicist who represents the gay football player, Michael Sam. “If you’ve got a big enough story, you can give it to The Poughkeepsie Journal, and it will get picked up everywhere.”
.. The very notion of a celebrity choosing to break news in an interview could soon become outdated. A lot of younger stars simply keep their fans updated on their ups and downs via social media.