With 10 Gemini Award nominations, ratings up 14% over the first four weeks of the season, and a much- heralded return to the 10 o’clock time slot, whether the envelope yields CBC Prime Time News or the competition at this year’s Geminis, there seems to be evidence the cbc’s flagship newscast has done an about-face this year.

Gone are the days of serious internal grumblings about the positioning of the newscast at 9 p.m., which forced viewers in droves over to the CTV Television Network and Lloyd Robertson at 10. Also gone are descriptives like unfocused and unorganized, bandied about during Prime Time News’ first season.

But Tony Burman, Prime Time executive producer, nominated for best information series with coproducer Joan Andersen, says the newsroom is somewhat stymied by the response to the show at 10 p.m., which looks an awful lot like the show at 9 p.m.

‘There’s a feeling that the praise being heaped on the 10 o’clock news is more illusion than reality. Nine o’clock was simply inconvenient and 10 o’clock isn’t. A lot of improvements being attributed to the program were part of it before the schedule change.’

Nevertheless, respect from within the industry is evident in the pile of Gemini nominations the series garnered. Its 10 nominations put Prime Time News fourth overall in number of nominations behind entertainment programs Due South, Road to Avonlea, and Dieppe.

But more important reinforcement on a daily basis that the show is on track is a slow but significant increase in the Nielsen ratings. Average audience for Prime Time News in December, the most recent figure available at press time, was 1.13 million, up 14% from the first four weeks of the season, and 95% of what the audience was for The National for the same period in 1991.

May marked the launch of Prime Time News at 10. A deliberately structured format was implemented simultaneously, which divided the hour clean up the middle, covering news in the first 30 minutes with anchor Peter Mansbridge and current affairs in the second half with anchor Pamela Wallin. Mansbridge is nominated for best overall broadcast journalist along with cbc veteran reporter Joe Schlesinger. Wallin is up for best anchor/interviewer.

With 45 years in the news business, Schlesinger has spent the last 25 years outside a cbc complex as a foreign correspondent. Today, home base is the Toronto Broadcast Centre, working on news and documentaries for Prime Time News.

He is the winner of last year’s best writing for an information/ documentary program for The Mulroney Years and is nominated for the prestigious Gordon Sinclair Award this year.

He says Canadians made it clear they wanted to hear news first and decide whether to stay for more information.

‘The separation between news and current affairs works. An information hour where the twain would always meet, didn’t.’

Burman admits the loose division between news and current affairs that existed last year has been more clearly defined. The format may be contributing to the overall seamless look of the show, but it is also due in part to facilities in the Broadcast Centre into which the Prime Time staff moved about a year ago, he says.

‘From the day we moved into that facility, the program that appeared on air was far more cohesive.’

Before the amalgamated cbc facility was built, teams from The National and The Journal were housed in separate buildings. ‘Apart from the problem of moving equipment down the street in the middle of winter which created colds and generally bad moods, it distracted us from what we were here to do,’ says Burman.

With a fully integrated staff, morale is up, and things as simple as communication patterns are making a difference in production, Burman concludes.

Bob Culbert, cbc executive director for news, current affairs and Newsworld, says more specifically, equipment like robotic cameras, which allow one person to operate three cameras, is allowing technical personnel to be redeployed into other areas. Editing and post-production facilities at the center are being integrated into the production processes for Prime Time News.

Prime Time’s editorial staff currently numbers about 60, 25% to 30% less than The Journal’s. Equipment that economizes on the number of people needed to operate it allows producers to maximize their human resources and put together a better show, Culbert adds.

As for the program’s division into two sections, Burman says that viewers coming in after the start of the hour need to know what to expect, and part of that is giving each section an identifiable personality.

This year, producers will increase the profile of the ‘magazine’ part of the show, to entice the anywhere from 100,000 to 250,000 viewers that drop off after the first half-hour.

Culbert says a number of people have always shut off the tv after the news, as far back as The National. ‘It’s a mystery what keeps them watching the second half some nights and not others. Sometimes it’s our promoting what’s coming up, but it’s impossible to predict.’

Deciding a story lineup based on what producers think the audience should see may mean fewer viewers, but Prime Time’s approach to what’s newsworthy won’t change, says Vince Carlin, cbc senior director of information programming.

Producers don’t sit down and ask what’s going to bring in the largest audience that night, Carlin says. They evaluate what stories should be covered and then look at covering them in the most interesting way.

Last year, those stories included a ongoing coverage of the Bosnian war, the uprising in Russia, and the murders in Hebron. The Prime Time journalists covering those events – Anna Maria Tremonti, Don Murray and Paul Workman, respectively – are competing against each other for the best reportage Gemini this year. Other Prime Time reporters joining the list of nominees include Terrence McKenna, Michael Sweeney, Robin Benger and Patricia Chew.

Carlin adds cbc must be doing something right editorially since cbc news and information programs are pebbled throughout the Gemini nomination list. Venture and the 5th estate have eight and two nominations respectively, and CBC Newsworld is being recognized by the Gemini committee for the first time with two nominations.