Brian Williams on Rock Center: "Our Charge Was to Put Together the Best Broadcast of Its Type We Could, Get on the Air and Stay There"

Brian Williams said it plainly: "Our charge was to put together the best broadcast of its type we could, get on the air and stay there. There's no benchm…" — and Premier Guide Miami was in the room when it happened.

On October 24, 2011, NBC News held a press call one week ahead of the premiere of Rock Center with Brian Williams , airing Monday, October 31st at 10 p.m. on NBC. On the call: Brian Williams (Managing Editor and Anchor), Steve Capus (President, NBC News), David Corvo (Senior Executive Producer), and Rome Hartman (Executive Producer). Premier Guide Miami was among the outlets on the call.

Our charge was to put together the best broadcast of its type we could, get on the air and stay there. There's no benchmark, there's no numbers, there's no ratings — it's just we're living in our hour.

Why now — the first primetime news magazine launch in nearly two decades

Steve Capus opened with the case for the show: "This is the first time in nearly two decades that a news division has attempted to launch a new primetime news magazine. We think that the time is right to do so. We think given everything that's happening all around the world and in the United States that there is a need for another outlet for quality journalism and NBC News is uniquely situated to take on such an ambitious project." He was direct about expectations: "We know that this broadcast is going to be moving to a different timeslot come February of next year. And I don't have high expectations for the ratings performance of this. This is not a ratings play. We're going after getting established and that's what the first couple of months are all about." David Corvo framed the timing around the news cycle: "When you look at all the news over the last year and a half — Japan, the Gabby Giffords story, the hurricanes, all the places Brian has been — these are stories that some of which we were able to do hours on but some of them were timely stories that we really didn't have a great primetime vehicle for. And now we do." Williams added the moment that crystallized the need: "Ten o'clock Eastern Time the night the situation in Cairo went to hell, Richard Engel and I are on a hotel balcony trying to stay back from the railing as to not get hit by ricochets while this gun battle went on below us. We were on MSNBC all night. Boy, it would have been great to additionally have a broadcast network platform at 10 o'clock Eastern Time."

The correspondent roster — and why it wouldn't work without Brian

Rome Hartman described the lineup: "I really think that you could take our Mt. Rushmore, our roster of correspondents and stars and hold them up against any other lineup that any news organization could put forward. Starting with Brian of course, Harry Smith and Kate Snow who are our workhorse correspondents, great storytellers. And then a roster of special correspondents starting with Meredith Vieira and with Ted Koppel — and you think about that lineup and I don't think there's anybody in America or on the planet that could match that." On how Koppel came aboard: "Like a lot of people, Ted Koppel was interested in this when he heard that NBC News was creating it. He was interested in playing a part in it. He's not going to be an every-week contributor; he's a special correspondent. And we're thrilled to have him." Capus on the Koppel conversation: "He wanted to know what our commitment was to quality journalism and were we on board with him contributing to that effort. It didn't take much more discussion than that. When he heard what we had in mind he said sign me up." Williams on the broader hiring: "We're hiring people to put journalism on television. And you don't get to start something like this more than once or twice in your lifetime." On whether the show was a showcase for him personally: "This is going to be about the stories we air and the people telling them. In some cases that'll be me but in most cases it's going to be this correspondent corps."

The format — firmly flexible, Brian's playlist

Hartman described the format philosophy: "You can expect to see two or three stories in each hour that are what you might consider magazine-length pieces — really ambitious film stories. One of those stories is likely to be more topical, possibly slightly shorter, probably will have been launched since the last time we were on the air. Rather than a format that's sort of three 12-minute pieces and a cloud of dust, what we want to do is have stories be the length that they deserve to be rather than because there's some preordained timeslot they have to fit into. We want a flexible format." On the editorial sensibility: "I've said this ought to feel like Brian's playlist. He has the frequent flyer miles to show one thing about his news judgment — he was on his way to London to cover the Royal wedding, got there, turned around and went to Tuscaloosa, Alabama and covered that devastating tornado. That was a very specific editorial choice and that's what's going to be reflected by a lot of our choices." Corvo on what the show would not be: "You probably won't see a lot of celebs promoting their next movie sitting in front of the movie poster. That's left better to Access Hollywood and so forth." On the digital component: "We also mean to have a really vibrant online life. On the website and on our program app we're going to have both the stories that we put on the television program and sometimes put those stories up before they actually go on the television program."

Launching on Halloween — and the post-candy euphoria strategy

Asked about the Halloween premiere date, Williams was characteristically dry: "We are actually counting on that kind of post-candy euphoria because those of us who are parents know that you send the kids to bed and then go through the bag. So we're kind of counting on people who need a good hour-long sit down to join us that night." On the elevator promo with Ted Koppel, in which Williams addressed him by last name only: "I don't know why we kind of came up with that on the fly. It seemed perfectly appropriate. The last time I had seen Ted in the flesh I had found a way to get into what was then still Saddam Hussein International Airport in Baghdad, probably invasion plus three days. I slept on the floor of the Baghdad version of the learn-to-fly executive aviation terminal under a poster of Saddam Hussein on a cement floor. There were firefights going on all over the airport, planes were on fire. And I woke up hearing the distinctive voice, 'Williams,' standing over me in his battle gear. That was the last time I saw Ted before the elevator promo. Boy, I'd rather have him with us than against us. What a warrior, what a competitor, what a journalist." Rock Center with Brian Williams premiered Monday, October 31, 2011, on NBC.

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