''Monitor'' was an American

newsmagazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories, in greater depth than do newspapers or new ...

television program which premiered on NBC on March 12, 1983. It was named after the earlier

NBC Radio The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the NBC Blue Network it was one of the first t ...

series of the same name. NBC News created this program as a platform to possibly challenge the success of CBS's ''

60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique styl ...

''. After being initially broadcast on Saturdays at 10 P.M. Eastern time, the program was moved to Sundays at 7 P.M. Eastern time for its second season, going head-to-head with ''60 Minutes'', and was renamed ''First Camera''.

Overview

Production was based in

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, with offices in the

Tenley Circle Tenley Circle is a traffic circle in the Northwest Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Tenleytown. Tenley Circle lies at the intersection of Nebraska Avenue, Wisconsin Avenue, and Yuma Street. Unlike many of the circles in Washington, Tenley's traf ...

area immediately east of NBC's Nebraska Avenue studios.

Lloyd Dobyns Lloyd Allen Dobyns Jr. (March 12, 1936 – August 22, 2021) was an American news reporter and correspondent. He worked for NBC from 1969 to 1986, hosting '' Weekend'', '' NBC News Overnight'', and ''Monitor''. Early life Dobyns was born in New ...

, the show's anchor, appeared on a stark white, modernistic set. In the absence of a theme composed especially for the show, the producers opted to use the opening minute of "Piano Concerto No. 1 In D-Flat Major, Op. 10: I Allegro brioso" by

Sergei Prokofiev Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''., group=n (27 April .S. 15 April1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, p ...

, feeling that it added gravitas to the show—something they hoped would set them apart from ABC's lightweight ''

20/20 Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...

''. In test audiences (including one in which future NBC anchor Sarah James was a college student), the show did not test well, but producers refused to change the format. The first episode featured an extended story on Bobby Czyz, a light heavyweight boxer from

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. The show placed last in its time period in national

rating A rating is an evaluation or assessment of something, in terms of quality, quantity, or some combination of both. Rating or ratings may also refer to: Business and economics * Credit rating, estimating the credit worthiness of an individual, c ...

s in its debut and was one of the least-watched programs in all of prime time. Additionally, the Prokofiev score brought complaints and was compared to a

funeral A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...

dirge. Reporters that worked on the program included

Mark Nykanen Mark Nykanen (1951 – September 16, 2022) was an American novelist and journalist. Nykanen began his career as a journalist for ''New Times Weekly'' in Phoenix, before becoming a news director at KDKB radio and news anchor for Arizona PBS. He t ...

. In an attempt to boost the program's abysmal ratings for the fall 1983 season, NBC added new theme music and a new set with a den-like appearance that included bookshelves, a high-back desk chair and a handmade, French provincial desk with a word processor on top (the same model Dobyns reportedly used to write on in his office and at home);"NBC's First Camera Premieres with Grisly Meat Industry Expose"
/ref> additionally, NBC changed the series's title to ''First Camera''. However, none of the changes were able to draw in viewers, and its new time slot only damaged ratings further; seeing no hope of successfully competing against the powerhouse ''60 Minutes'', 7 percent of NBC affiliates declined to carry the revamped show, and it was further hurt by frequent pre-emptions due to

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

run-overs. As a result, ''First Camera'' was removed from the NBC schedule several months after the makeover, its last episode airing April 1, 1984.

References

{{Reflist 1980s American television news shows 1983 American television series debuts 1983 American television series endings NBC original programming NBC News