Dateline NBC grew slowly as the news division tested new editions in different time slots during the spring and summer before making a seasonal commitment. Even after establishing a time slot, new editions were temporarily shifted on the schedule or were preempted for short periods, causing producers to fear losing viewers. But NBC strategically capitalized on the demographic flow of preceding programs, locating and building a specific audience base on different nights before an edition took a permanent or constant position on the schedule.

A significant staff change occurred in 1993 at NBC News that influenced the series’ leadership and direction. General Motors discovered that Dateline NBC placed and ignited incendiary devices under General Motors’ light trucks during test crashes to vividly illustrate design dangers of side-saddle gas tanks. Michael Gartner, president of the news division, was forced to resign in March. He was replaced by Andrew Lack, once executive producer of the flashy CBS News series West 57th and Neil Shapiro became the series’ executive producer, a position Steve Friedman, executive producer of Nightly News, held with the title “executive in charge of Dateline NBC.”

Referred to as a factory, franchise, or, according to NBC publicity releases, a “multinight franchise,” Dateline NBC was the first newsmagazine “clone,” propagating and radically changing the programming strategies of the network newsmagazine. Dateline NBC established brand power by “stripping” editions, an entertainment division strategy that placed a program in the same time slot every week night. When adding new editions, NBC News conceptualized, formatted, and promoted Dateline NBC as one series with several editions, not distinct or separate hourly programs. After reaching three editions a week, more programming options helped build audience anticipation from one edition to the next. Stories could air over multiple editions in several parts, an edition could contain five or six stories, or one hour could be dedicated to a special topic. Dateline NBC could offer celebrities or figures in an investigation an interview over two editions. Reinforcing the series as interconnected hourly editions, most editions promoted future stories and regularly updated past stories.

When Executive Producer Shapiro literally “put the news back into newsmagazines,” the series shattered conventions. At three nights a week, Dateline NBC started covering breaking news, securing viewers rarely visiting network evening news programs. Breaking news segments had an urgent, sensational tone, building suspense from edition to edition as stories unfolded over weeks or months. From 1995 through 1999, Dateline NBC’s rapid growth period, these stories included the killings at Columbine High School, the aftermath of Swissair Flight 111, the destruction and rebuilding process after hurricanes and tornadoes, new evidence or rumors concerning the death of Jon Benet Ramsey, the Unabomber, Princess Diana’s death, the explosion of TWA Flight 800, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the flight an death of Andrew Cunanan. Dateline NBC became a phenomenal success by the end of 1999, with at least one edition consistently ranking in the top ten. Breaking news stories are still part of the series’ formula, but critics attribute their early success to recontextualizing these news stories into a more compelling form for magazine programs, the astounding and thrilling nature of the stories, and uniqueness of breaking news in a magazine format.

Dateline NBC reconceptualized the news division’s image, projecting a unified community of journalists on broadcast and cable television. Anchors and correspondents appeared regularly on MSNBC and CNBC with condensed stories from the series, especially when Jane Pauley hosted Time and Again on MSNBC from 1996 to 2001. Katie Couric reports stories and briefly announces others on Today. Tom Brokaw hosts several Dateline NBC specials each year, increasing visibility for Nightly News. Producers added correspondents to Dateline NBC from NBC-affiliated stations, generating audience appeal in different markets.

Shapiro aggressively differentiated Dateline NBC from competitors by introducing “signature” segments, produced by the unit or with media organizations such as People magazine, Court TV, and Good Housekeeping. “Signature” segments, such as “Dateline Feedback,” “Dateline Poll,” and “Dateline Timeline,” facilitated viewer participation, while other segments, such as “Picture of the Week,” “State of the Art,” “Dateline Survivor,” “Dateline/Court TV,” “Dateline People,” and “Dateline/Consumer Reports,” focused on specific subject matter. The longest-lasting and most popular signature segment, “Dateline Timeline,” still quizzes viewers on the year that a group of historical events occurred. By combining signature segments, coverage of breaking news, regular updates of past stories, two- or three-part investigative and consumer report segments, and interviews, Dateline NBC retained viewers with the suspense that bridged three or four editions and audience anticipation of the unpredictable content of the next edition. NBC News attributed this formula to the series’ success.

David Corvo, vice president of NBC News since 1995, became executive producer in 2001, developing documentaries with Disney Channel, History Channel, Court TV, and Discovery Health. Segments from documentaries sometimes appeared on Dateline NBC, but these alliances placed the series’ “brand” and image throughout the media terrain.

Populism remains central to most Dateline NBC stories. A six-part series on firehouses in the United States in 2002 shunned investigating the institution but chronicled the emotional journeys of individual firefighters. Producers dedicated over a year preparing stories on important issues, such as cancer drug trials and adoption of severely abused children, but the program’s news qualities receded as correspondents intimately probed the emotions and psychology of participants. This was not always the primary perspective, with the series producing award-winning reports after yearlong investigations on important social conditions in the United States, such as migrant workers. But on a regular basis, segments shifted story perspective to facilitate the audience’s emotional attachment to the stories’ character.

Dateline NBC became infamous for its steady stream of stories on private suffering, pain, and grief of family members. The news division defended these as investigations of “personal hardships,” and reviewers denounced them as exploitive and tortuous to watch. Although different circumstances tore families apart every week, these families triumphed in small ways against impossible odds.

Dateline NBC coveted consumer advocate stories, alerting the public to the horrific dangers of products and the unimaginable behavior of professionals in everyday life. That your child might be wearing recycled braces sent fear through American families. “Tired” or “old” consumer alert stories, such as credit card fraud and bacteria-infected or outdated meat reaching supermarket shelves, were invigorated with extensive use of hidden cameras, sometimes over several editions. By 1999, segment titles began with more words “Dateline Hidden Camera Investigation.” Many investigations were compelling and newsworthy and provided the impetus for change, including examinations of collusion between the real estate industry and housing inspectors to the detriment of buyers and sellers and factory-enslaved children overseas producing silk for the United States. But when reverting to hidden cameras to depict aggressively impolite airline employees or to gaze at babysitters abusing children, Dateline NBC signaled a willingness to secure ratings from shocking and voyeuristic stories.

In 1999, the series began interactive stories where viewers voted on a website, maintained by MSNBC for Dateline NBC, on such circumstances as whether to convict or acquit a woman in the death of her boyfriend or whether to charge a doctor with manslaughter for falling asleep in the operating room, causing a child’s death. Viewer tallies of “guilty” or “not guilty” crawled across the bottom of the television screen every 15 seconds. Interactive stories became more complex and potentially troubling with “Interactive Dateline Mystery: Shadow on the Stairs” (January 2002) after the 1989 murder of Janice Johnson was reopened with her husband, Clayton, as the primary suspect. With different evidence after witness testimonies available, at every commercial break viewers requested over the Internet evidence they needed after the break to continue to evaluate the case, in essence controlling the content and direction of a serious news investigation. The series still offers these highly interactive and involving story structures.

Dateline NBC’s visual style targets younger viewers while reaching out to the voyeuristically inclined. Events are reconstructed with shaky handheld cameras, sometimes slightly out of focus, from the point of view of a murderer or an imminent victim. Other stylistic techniques include rapid editing, dramatic music, exaggerated sound effects, shifting from black-and-white to color footage, and arresting and disconcerting camera angles. Shapiro defended Dateline NBC’s less-than-orthodox practices and subject selection, claiming that the series represented audience desires and fascination with headline news. Because newsmagazines competed with prime-time entertainment programs, Shapiro believed that formulating valuable public information into entertaining dramatic packages did not demean the importance or integrity of news.

Skepticism that Dateline NBC could preserve news as a valuable public commodity was raised in February 2003, when Corvo, on a directive from NBC’s entertainment division, expanded a profile of Michael Jackson to two hours, hoping to ride the success of a competitor’s exposé. Corvo characterized this division as “all part of the game.” A year earlier, Corvo accepted a commission from NBC’s entertainment division for several fascinating and involving two-hour Dateline NBC specials.

When Jane Pauley retired as co-anchor in May 2003, the series’ underlying goals became more transparent when the press noted the long-standing resentment by NBC News at Pauley’s decision not to partake in the unpleasant and uncivilized battles with other networks for the big money-making star interview.

Dateline NBC radically shook up and reconfigured network newsmagazines. They were responsible for the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) introducing 60 Minutes II and for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) adding new editions of 20/20. Dateline NBC’s influence was so strong that 60 Minutes II started even after Don Hewitt, executive producer of 60 Minutes, said that a clone would never start while he was at CBS and led to Hewitt’s announcement that to “shore up ratings,” 60 Minutes would introduce breaking news stories, ultimately unsuccessfully, in the spring of 1996. During certain times from 1997 through 2000, up to 11 hours of newsmagazine programs aired weekly. As Dateline NBC became an economic success and an invaluable asset to the brand image of NBC News, it created an intense competitive marketplace that critics feared would inevitably spawn moments of unethical and unprofessional broadcast journalism. Needing more prime-time newsmagazine segments, the networks loosened journalistic standards, placing false dramatic story configurations on news and information to compete with entertainment programs. Ironically, Corvo attributed the reduction of Dateline NBC to two weekly editions and weaker but still economically strong ratings to viewers demanding reality programs.