That's Infotainment!

Several people who were working on Deco Drive at the time say it could have prevailed in Boston, if Cheatwood and Ansin had devoted more resources to it. Instead management threw its weight behind Real Life, a lifestyle show for women produced in Boston and syndicated nationally. Sunbeam hired more than 100 people to produce Real Life and opened bureaus in several cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami. The program, which aired in 66 markets, flopped and was canceled in November. "There were some people who were happy Real Life failed," comments a former Deco Drive team member. "We felt like the stepchild."

One colleague no longer at the station has another theory: Deco Drive failed in Boston because it dipped below the city's lowest common intellectual denominator. "In an academic city like Boston," the former staffer chides, "I don't think you can put utter crap on the air and think it's going to fly."

Back in Miami Deco Drive's producers resorted to time-honored WSVN strategy: They changed things! The program began airing live, infusing some much-needed zest. In addition, although the latter half of Deco Drive remained the domain of entertainment and lifestyle stories, its first ten minutes were turned over to news -- up to a dozen or stories the anchors would tear through at alarming speed. Few, if any, of the reports were original to the show; most were swiped from other WSVN news crews or satellite feeds.

Meanwhile, the staff was undergoing violent upheaval. Well before Deco Drive's retreat from Boston, the studio had become a revolving door for anchors: Aguirre kept her post, but Mitchell bailed out in April and was replaced by Tim Sherno, WSVN's entertainment reporter, who scooted aside after several months to make room for Lynn Martinez, who was also anchoring the 5:30 and 6:30 newscasts.

"It was changing shape so many times," recalls former fashion correspondent Rod Hagwood. "It seemed like for one month it was stuff off satellite feeds and then it would be live stuff. When a program changes directions so frequently, it doesn't take a genius to see there's a problem."

Unless your unwavering world view dictates that change is good. According to Robert Leider, WSVN's executive vice president and general manager, losing Boston was really a boon: By comparison to Miami, the New England city was, well, full of prisses. "Boston is a more provincial market and South Florida is a cutting-edge, multicultural market," Leider reasons. "We were limited here because we had to watch the show's attitude in Boston."

Jacobs too puts a positive spin on the New England failure. "I saw it as a wonderful opportunity for us in South Florida," she proclaims. "We get a show that can really cater to our market! Instead of competing with two very high-profile entertainment shows -- Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood -- why not do the alternative, which is a South Florida show?" And substituting regurgitated news for unique entertainment and lifestyle reporting was by no means an admission of failure, Jacobs insists: "You know, we are the news station. That's what Channel 7's known for. That's what people turn us on for. So we really wanted to interject some news into Deco."

The changes also meant scaling back personnel -- drastically. Between the end of 1996 and early last month, Jacobs cut sixteen people from the Deco Drive team, reducing the staff from 28 to 12. (No one was fired, Jacobs says, though two contracts weren't renewed. Everyone else was either transferred to another job at the station or they quit.)

The most significant departure came in January, when executive producer Neil Freundlich, who was well-liked and highly regarded by his colleagues, left the station. Several insiders say Freundlich resolved to depart after being told he would be replaced as executive producer. (Freundlich, now a producer at America's Most Wanted in Washington, D.C., will say only that he left the station because he got a better job offer.) His exit was a blow to staff morale and prompted suspicions that Deco Drive was on its way out too. Says one WSVN employee who worked closely with Freundlich: "Neil was forced out and everybody thought it was over."

But the show went on, and so did the turmoil. Sunbeam brought in a new executive producer, David Hatcher, formerly the senior producer for Real Life. Michael Goldfine, Deco Drive's sole reporter, vanished from the air, as did Hagwood and another correspondent, former Sun-Sentinel music critic Deborah Wilker, who had been covering the music industry. According to Jacobs, Goldfine's contract was not renewed. Wilker, who is now a news correspondent with the Fox network, says she became "frustrated" with the direction of the show and quit contributing to it. Hagwood says he stopped returning producers' phone calls because he was tired of doing "silly little reports."

Then came the wall-rattler: In late February veteran Channel 7 anchor and Deco Drive pioneer Jessica Aguirre dropped off the screen, never to return.