In answer to the age-old question, "Where has all the feel-good news gone?", WNBC/Channel 4 (New York) launched "4 Stories" Saturday night. The program, anchored by Maurice DuBois, is about local heroes whose good works have benefited the community and/or the world. "We're striving to tell stories that haven't been widely reported," said executive producer Dan Cooper. The first installment of "4 Stories" featured Debbie Vega, a liver transplant survivor who founded the Latino Organization for Liver Awareness; Nancy Lublin, who established a program that provides job-interview clothing for low-income women and David Schweldenback, who started "Pedals for Prograss," which has collected, repaired and delivered 16,000 bicycles to emerging nations.

Overnight
Reruns at NBC

BC will go ahead this fall with a plan to fill some overnight hours with no-cost reruns of some of its own NBC-produced programs, a spokeswoman confirmed yesterday.

The programming strategy, which will start in mid-September, has got affiliates scrambling to make room for the network-provided shows.

Locally, a victim of the switch will be "4 Stories," the Saturday night Ch. 4 show hosted by Maurice DuBois, which profiled four New Yorkers.

"We are very satisfied and thought it performed adequately," said a station spokeswoman. "It could return in the future," she added.

The new overnight lineup will include reruns of "Saturday Night Live" in the wee hours of Sunday morning. In the early morning hours of Monday, the network will air reruns of "Dateline" and "Meet The Press." The rest of the week, NBC will fill the late-late shift with reruns of the "Tonight" show and the daytime soap "Sunset Beach."

With the move, NBC will not only generate additional revenues off of its entertainment fare, but also lessen the cost of its overnight network newscast by cutting back on its hours.
Richard Huff