''Real Life with Jane Pauley'' was a

news magazine 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 newspapers or new ...

television program aired in the United States by

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

from 1990 to 1991. ''Real Life with Jane Pauley'' seemed to be presented as an answer to both critics and members of the general public to the frequently-repeated viewpoint that "

television news News broadcasting is the medium of broadcasting various news events and other information via television, radio, or the internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or tel ...

never seems to show anything positive". The opening credits featured Jane Pauley on-location at Lawrence Hall of Science, then Boeddeker Park. ''Real Life'' focused on positive, human interest-type stories and occasional celebrity profiles.

Jane Pauley Margaret Jane Pauley (born October 31, 1950) is an American television host and author, active in news reporting since 1972. She first became widely known as Barbara Walters's successor on the NBC morning show ''Today'', beginning at the age of ...

also presented less uplifting but still-lightweight features as well, such as a feature focusing on how less than 20% of the people who owned VCRs at the time actually knew how to program them. Boyd Matson was also featured as a correspondent; his reports featured stories on out of the way places. ''Real Life with Jane Pauley'' began as an hour-long program aired on Tuesday nights in the summer of 1990. It was put on hiatus in September of that year, returning in January 1991 as a mid-season replacement. At this time it was reduced to a half hour, the length it was to remain throughout the balance of its run, but was then ill-paired with NBC's ''Exposè'', a newsmagazine which was fully opposite of ''Real Life'', with a ''

Hard Copy In information handling, the U.S. Federal Standard 1037C (Glossary of Telecommunication Terms) defines a hard copy as a permanent reproduction, or copy, in the form of a physical object, of any media suitable for direct use by a person (in par ...

''-esque tabloid focus. The last broadcast was on November 1, 1991. Although the series was one of over a dozen attempts by NBC to launch a newsmagazine, Pauley and the network prevailed in 1992 with ''

Dateline NBC ''Dateline NBC'' (also known simply as ''Dateline'') is a weekly American television news magazine reality legal show that is broadcast on NBC. It was previously the network's flagship general interest news magazine, but now focuses mainly on ...

.''

References

*Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earle, '' The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows'' 1990s American television news shows 1990 American television series debuts 1991 American television series endings NBC News {{US-news-tv-prog-stub