Evolution of ‘48 Hours’ mirrors news business

The show’s history has had its ups and downs in its 20 years.

By DAVID BAUDER

AP TELEVISION WRITER

NEW YORK — If you watched “48 Hours” when it premiered in the winter of 1988, you’d barely recognize the CBS newsmagazine as it appears today.

It’s not just the title, now “48 Hours Mystery,” that’s different. The focus and ambition of the series, along with the jobs of the people who put it together, have changed in a way that reflects what has happened at broadcast news divisions over the past two decades.

“48 Hours” is a survivor’s tale.

The series’ parent was a two-hour documentary, “48 Hours on Crack Street,” a gritty look at two days at the epicenter of the drug epidemic. The idea of telling a story from several perspectives over a short period of time was intriguing, and CBS News followed up by sending nine reporting crews into the disintegrating Soviet Union for another film.

Howard Stringer, now CEO of Sony and then CBS News president, launched “48 Hours” as a regular series partly to bolster morale at a division struggling through budget cuts.

CBS wanted to bring immediacy to storytelling, letting viewers experience what was happening rather than retelling the story later, said Susan Zirinsky, executive producer of “48 Hours Mystery.” The jumpy, stylistic way of filming seemed new then, but is commonplace now.

It was, in some ways, a precursor to reality television.

Subjects included homeless teenagers, drugs, the mentally ill, abortion clinics under seige. The effort to bring big-picture stories to a personal level seems startling in ambition in the context of today’s network news business.

It was a thrilling place to work, said Andrew Heyward, the first executive producer and later CBS News president. Also scary.

“The scary part was when you start something in prime-time, you suffer from the existential angst of knowing you can be canceled,” he said. “When you work at the evening news or The Associated Press, you don’t have to worry about your place of work being eviscerated.”

One year, Heyward learned that then-CBS entertainment chief Jeff Sagansky planned to move “48 Hours” to Thursdays at 9 p.m., opposite the NBC powerhouse “Cheers.” It was a death sentence.

He flew to Los Angeles to plead for a Wednesday time slot. If “48 Hours” failed there, he’d leave without complaint. Sagansky agreed, and when the first “48 Hours” on Wednesday drew huge ratings, the show soldiered on.

That first program was about spring break, with plenty of shots of bikini-clad coeds. Things were changing.

The format of stories on a two-day clock had loosened. The time limit was extended, then eliminated altogether. “48 Hours” even abandoned for a time another signature, of being a single-topic show, although that tradition returned.

“48 Hours” tightened its focus, briefly becoming “48 Hours Investigates” to highlight its reporting, and eventually “48 Hours Mystery.” Now at home on Saturday nights, the series generally presents true crime stories, a nonfiction companion to the crime and justice entertainment series that dominate CBS’ prime-time lineup.

“48 Hours Mystery” has done three episodes on the case of Martin Tankleff, a Long Island man recently released from prison after 17 years after suspicion that he might be innocent of murdering his parents. Elizabeth Smart’s father had her watch the “48 Hours” broadcast about the search for her so she understood what happened.

A recent episode, “Who Killed the Beauty Queen?,” tried to solve the murder of a former Miss Arkansas contestant bludgeoned to death in her apartment in 2005.