n 1996, Ted Koppel stalked out of the Republican National Convention in San Diego, declaring that ''nothing surprising has happened. Nothing surprising is anticipated.'' Since then, nothing has happened to alter the perception that the carefully scripted modern political convention has lost its value as a television draw.
Prime time TV coverage of Republican National Convention, all times Eastern:
ABC: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: 10-11 p.m.; Thursday: 9-11 p.m.
CBS: Monday, Tuesday: Segments on news magazines, 10-11 p.m.; Wednesday: 10-11 p.m.; Thursday: 9-11 p.m.
NBC: Wednesday: 10-11 p.m.; Thursday: 9:30-11 p.m.
PBS: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 8-11 p.m.
C-SPAN: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 5 p.m.-midnight. Gavel-to-gavel coverage during daytime.
CNN: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 5 p.m.-2 a.m.
MSNBC: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 5 p.m.-1 a.m. Plus continous daytime coverage.
Fox News Channel: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 6-11 p.m.
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A new Pew Research Center survey reveals that only 13 percent of the nation plans to watch a large chunk of the convention coverage. And broadcast news is passing the story on to its cable cousins, turning what was once ''a public service [into] just another programming choice for the demographic that's interested in it,'' said a TV historian, Robert Thompson.
Recalling the tumultuous 1968 Democratic convention that glued him to the TV as a college student, MSNBC ''Hardball'' host Chris Matthews says such events provided ''a real sense of the zeitgeist.''
''I think those days are probably gone,'' he adds somberly.
Yet even with the diminished expectations for any ready-for-prime-time news bombshells, many analysts think conventions get a bad rap. From the dominant themes to the subliminal squabbles, they say, conventions provide viewers with a crash course in political science and often play a big role in determining the outcome of the race.
MSNBC anchor Brian Williams says that despite their best efforts at stage-managing conventions, ''both parties have a chance to screw this up mightily.'' And even if there is no 2000 version of Pat Buchanan's ideological hijacking of the 1992 GOP convention, he notes that up to a quarter of the voters make up their minds on a president during this period.
''I say to viewers, `Ignore this at your informational peril,''' Williams said. If that doesn't have the resonant ring of ''Must See TV,'' it does have the ring of truth.
ABC News political director Mark Halperin, who said, ''We are not scaling back our coverage one moment from the two previous cycles,'' says the conventions are especially telling in this year's unusual campaign season.
''Between the declining interest in politics, the Olympics, and the World Series, and a pair of major party nominees who aren't all that compelling, of course the big events are going to matter more,'' he said. ''For the vast majority of the country, this is the only time other than the debates,'' to really focus on George Bush and Al Gore.
CBS News executive producer and special events director Al Ortiz says conventions try to set a tone and a mood that will carry through Election Day. ''The most important thing you'll be able to discern very quickly is the message and strategy for the campaign,' he said. The Republicans are ''going to come out of the box as a middle of the road, broad spectrum, big tent operation.''
Such convention images are paramount, adds CNN senior political analyst William Schneider. After eight years of White House exile, Republicans want to model themselves after the 1992 Democratic confab when ''Clinton successfully created the impression that this was a new Democratic Party. They had shed the baggage of the past - Mondale and Dukakis.''
''The metaphor they want to use is conservatism with a happy face,'' Schneider continues. ''We're not monsters ... There ain't gonna be any angry white men. No Newts. No Pats.''
A number of observers believe that conventions are newsworthy simply because the key speeches can make or break a candidate. Analyst Andrew Tyndall said, ''Oratory is always the thing that at the end of the day has saved the event.''
Bush's 1988 ''Read my lips. No new taxes,'' speech ''won him that election, but lost him the next,'' said Tyndall, adding Buchanan's divisive prime-time 1992 culture war speech to the list of pivotal moments.
Despite the months-long media coverage on the younger Bush - an effort that has failed to galvanize widespread public interest in the campaign - the convention speech Thursday will mark his formal introduction to much of the electorate.
''We've all seen him in blue jeans being a good old boy,'' Ortiz said. ''I think there'll be a great deal of interest in George Bush's acceptance speech.''
''Bush is a very unfamiliar quantity to Americans,'' echoes Schneider. ''This is his only chance to make a first impression.''
Schneider also illustrates how the television screen may convey a much different portrait of a candidate to viewers than the one painted by the media pundits. The 1988 Republican convention, with the press preoccupied with the shortcomings of vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle, ''was the most misreported event in [political] history,'' he said. Bush's willingness to defend Quayle, and a tough speech in which he buried the ''wimp'' factor, ''turned his whole campaign around,'' and connected with voters even as the media missed the story.
Anticipating conventions in which the parties will strive to stifle conflict and project unity, TV journalists are preparing to focus on the subtler undercurrents. Or as Ortiz puts it, to spend time ''talking about why you're seeing what you're seeing and what you're not seeing.''
''We're being shown, if you will, a very dramatic press release,'' said an MSNBC executive producer, Steve Capus. ''It's all scripted and it's all controlled. But you've got to read the tea leaves.''
In Philadelphia, those tea leaves will likely reveal a careful balancing act between Bush's brand of compassionate conservatism and an appeal to the party's more ideological activists. And that may make for good television.
''You have the threshold obvious question as to how well each party will showcase itself,'' said Fox News anchor Brit Hume. ''As long as they're attractive and reasonable in their presentation of themselves, conservative policies work. They have a story to tell and they don't have to hide from their agenda. [But] there are some things about the conduct of other Republicans and Republicans in Congress that people don't like. And they have to mute that.''
''They are pitching their message to a general public and putting a veneer on it,'' said Craig Crawford, editor-in-chief of the Hotline political newsletter. ''But these conventions are also about preaching to the choir and energizing the base. I believe you get a more honest view of what they'll really do in office than you will in a TV ad.''
An unabashed convention fan, Crawford is aware of declining viewer interest. But he said that ''if people sat down and watched these things as much as they watched `Frazier,' the networks would be all over them.''
Robert Thompson said a wider audience is possible, given that traditional convention coverage has ''totally missed ... its potential entertainment value.''
In a period of political scandal and intrigue, Thompson favors what he calls ''the `West Wing'-ing of convention coverage,'' trying scrutiny that dramatizes the main convention players by delving into their lives and backgrounds.
That view might seem a bit extreme. But MSNBC's Williams vividly remembers the moment during the 1996 Democratic convention when someone first brandished a copy of the Star tabloid detailing the relationship with a prostitute that forced the resignation of Clinton aide Dick Morris.
''Any story can break at any time,'' Williams said. ''There are journalists holding their stories'' for just the right moment, he adds. ''Don't kid yourself.''
