We helped put down a Dan Rather uprising at CBS and got fired the same day.
Insurgent affiliates at their annual conference wanted Dan Rather's head on a spike. Our TV spot nailed the "Rather defense" for the CBS bosses, but we got the spike anyway.
Backer & Spielvogel’s firing wasn’t about “the work.”
We were fired in spite of brilliant work across the Entertainment, Sports and News Divisions, including our rabbit-out-of-the hat trick that helped save Dan Rather’s hide. It’s some of the finest work I’ve ever been a part of.
Truth was, the marriage never had a chance.
We shouldn’t have pitched it, they shouldn’t have hired us, and we were a cultural, financial and creative miss-match from day one. It was also exhausting and thankless, and I was thrilled when we got dumped.
As I outlined last week, our hiring was about money, not marketing—never a good reason to take on an account.
When Larry Tisch saw how fully we failed the absurd financial test I helped write, we were out in less than a year. But at least Larry had the class to fire me and my boss to our faces (more on that next week.)
The early Rather years were rocky
Walter Cronkite passed the anchor chair over to Dan Rather in 1981.
We’re now in the summer of 1987. Rather’s been the anchor for a shaky six years, succeeding Walter Cronkite’s 20 year run as “the most trusted man in America” on “The Tiffany Network.”
Big shoes to fill, and Rather’s been stumbling in them, most famously 9 months earlier when he’s mugged by two men a New York street, one famously yelling, “Kenny, what’s the frequency?” while they punched and kicked him.
“Ratings are down. Hey, I got it—let’s blame Rather!”
Rather suffered ongoing indignities and disrespect across CBS throughout what turned out to be a successful 24-year run. (Today, at 93, still a sharp and active reporter and commentator, he fully deserves his extended last laugh.)
He was an ace field reporter, but a quirky anchor those first years. His folksiness could be forced and wince-inducing. He signed off an early run of broadcasts awkwardly with a single word, “Courage,” which he soon asked to abandon. His arcane Texas metaphors could be annoying.
The feckless CBS Entertainment leaders loved to blame him for “weak lead-in ratings” into what was their weak rotation of second-rate prime-time shows.
The clock’s ticking on Rather as we approach the annual Affiliate Meeting
The affiliates are calling for Rather’s ouster, but CBS brass—hardly big Rather fans—are in no mood to cave in to them.
We get the last-minute “Make The Rather Case” video assignment
Gene Jankowski (below left), one of the few corporate “good guys” at CBS, and Larry Tisch (center) had promoted the CBS News veteran Howard Stringer (right) the previous fall to head up the New Division. The charming and talented Welshman (who later ran SONY) and was tasked with “solving the Dan Rather problem.”
The ask is clear:
Send the affiliates a definitive message: Dan Rather’s not going anywhere
Make it a part of our new campaign, not an obvious or defensive “one off”
Bob and Roger nail it
We have two weeks to pull it off, no budget, and no Dan Rather on-camera availability.
I’m no help to the creative team—no brilliant strategic advice on this one—I just wait and worry.
Then Bob Tabor and Roger Feuerman (art/copy) crush it.
Turn up your sound:
Why this was genius:
The campaign format Bob had already established—a signature look, feel, sound design and percussive music treatment—was a powerful vehicle from which Rather could step out and make his own case. Our team was smart enough to get out of the way and let Rather do the talking.
The edit was masterful: Bob dug through an Everest of footage, literally ‘round the clock in the dusty CBS archives, and compressed Rather’s history down into a :30-second diamond.
Roger’s closing (and only) line: “Dan Rather. He’s been there, he’ll be there.” A master stroke of copywriting:
“He’s been there” summarized the footage: like Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow before him, Rather’s wartime and high-stakes field reporting was second to none in his own day.
“He’ll be there” was a deft pun—always a risky business in copywriting. (More often than not they’re groan-inducing rib-pokers—e.g., Every kiss begins with Kay 🫣🤢)
This pun tackled two jobs in three words:He’ll still report from the field (not just anchor)
He’ll stay in the anchor chair (he’s our man, so yeah, STFU)
Here’s another News spot to give you a feel for the campaign, featuring Bob Schieffer (sound on):
I caught up with Bob the other day about the final (and only) Rather video rough-cut presentation, right before everyone left for the conference.
Bob had collapsed in exhaustion after the 24/7 push in the archives and the edit room, and couldn’t get out of bed.
So Roger is presenting, Bob’s home in bed, and his phone rings.
It’s Roger, from the CBS boardroom.
Bob: “Hello?”
Roger: “Hey, it’s me, and you’re on the speaker with everyone [never a good start to a high-stakes call.]
Bob sits up: “How we doing?”
Gene cuts in: “Hey Bob! How you feeling?!”
Bob, after a pause: “Um, OK…?”
Roger: “So they want to know if you exaggerated the machine gun sound effects in the Vietnam sequence.”
A longer pause…
Gene: “Legal needs to know, Bob.”
Bob: “No, that’s the real gunfire. You can call the archivist—he’ll confirm that.”
Gene: “Good!”
Gene trusted Bob.
The spot ran as presented.
Notes & Sources
https://time.com/archive/6929642/rather-discovers-what-the-frequency-is/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
If you’d like to geek out on iconic news anchors, check out the below…a big assist to ChatGPT:
