Al Primo, a television station executive who transformed local newscasts into fast-paced “Eyewitness News” programs by putting rarely-seen reporters on the air — as witnesses to the events they covered — and having anchors banter about the day’s events, died on Sept. 29 at his home in Greenwich, Conn. He was 87, reports The NY Times.
His daughter Valerie Primo Lack said the cause was lung cancer.
In a format that he developed in Philadelphia, brought to New York City and then helped spread nationwide, Primo strove to make his news teams seem like on-air families that viewers could relate to at 6 and 11 o’clock. He did away with the staid, usually white anchorman delivering the news and switched to two anchors, often a man and a woman.
He sent reporters into the field (after learning that he did not have to pay them extra if they left their newsroom desks) and assigned them to beats, as newspapers do.
After completing their on-site reports, the reporters went into the studio and engaged in on-air discussions about their stories with the anchors. Those conversations and the chitchat between the anchors, intended to highlight their personalities, drew criticism as “happy talk.”
“He is the creator of local news as it exists today,” Geraldo Rivera, who was hired by Mr. Primo at WABC-TV in New York in 1970, said in a phone interview. “He wanted to see someone other than a mannequin deliver the news. He humanized and democratized local news.”
Mr. Primo wanted the people delivering the news to more closely resemble their audience.
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