Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 23, 1993 TAG: 9310150331
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE LOGAN KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Pledge break?
Make no mistake, at the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which helped inaugurate a weeklong national fund drive with a midnight ``Center Stage'' performance by lang, things have changed.
Gone are the days when PBS offered nothing but nature documentaries, highbrow British dramas, wry British comedies and Mister Rogers in his funky blue sneakers.
Indeed, as it plunges headlong into the '90s, there is a new PBS - or at least a new attitude at the old one. The service wants new viewers, younger viewers, more affluent viewers.
``We want to expand the tent,'' PBS programming chief Jennifer Lawson, says without a trace of self-consciousness. ``We want to attract a younger demographic to public broadcasting, and one of the ways we believe we can put out the welcome sign is through this music.''
Popular culture is far from Lawson's only ploy to attract younger viewers - in their 20s, 30s and 40s - to a programming service traditionally skewed toward older viewers.
In addition, the programming czar for PBS has bought the rights to rerun all 39 episodes of the acclaimed but defunct NBC drama ``I'll Fly Away.'' And because NBC's cancellation left the characters' lives sort of dangling, Lawson coughed up $1.8 million in PBS money to finance a 90-minute movie conclusion for the series. That will air Oct. 11, followed by weekly reruns.
There is more. Lawson is toying with the idea of adding talk shows and highbrow game shows to the programming mix. Only a couple of weeks ago she announced that PBS had signed former NBC Entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff to develop a sitcom for fall 1994.
Tartikoff's show, to be set in a bar/restaurant in New Orleans, will have patrons discussing current events, movies, sports and politics. TV critics are already saying it sounds like a cross between ``Cheers'' and ``The McLaughlin Group.''
For traditional viewers, Lawson's more-inclusive strategy may be disturbing. What is PBS doing, airing the kind of popular entertainment that viewers can get on any number of commercial broadcast and cable channels?
But for others, the pop-music onslaught is proof that the nation's only public-television programming service, once rather smug and stodgy, finally recognizes that it must either adapt or perish in the jungle of modern telecommunications.
For much of the '80s, PBS, like the Big Three, looked on nervously as its audience trickled away to cable and video rentals. At PBS, the audience loss was running about 3 percent a year.
That loss has leveled off in the last year - on any given night, about 3 million households are tuned to PBS - and Lawson says the outlook is bright.
``I think public TV is still a vital and energetic force,'' she says.
That doesn't mean PBS is headed for smooth sailing. The system still has critics. Last year, Congress voted to allocate $1.1 billion for public broadcasting through 1996, but not without a contentious fight.
Conservatives argue that PBS is too liberal and is tantamount to a government-funded political insurgency from the left. Washington opinion maker George Will, among others, wants to end federal funding to PBS, arguing that no matter how wonderful its programming, it neither feeds nor clothes a single American. That's an argument that doesn't die easily.
In addition, PBS and public television face a communications environment that grows more complicated by the day. High-definition television is on the horizon, as is interactive TV. So is fiber optics, which could increase viewer choices to literally hundreds of channels.
Once that day arrives, what role will PBS and public television play?
No one knows, of course. WGBH, the powerful public broadcaster in Boston, appears to be out front in preparing for the 21st century. There, station officials intend to continue cranking out documentaries and public-affairs programs, and they foresee a day when public television returns to the essence of its roots: education.
``A lot of our success has to do with the conclusion we reached several years ago, which is that we are not in the broadcast business,'' says station manager David Liroff.
``We happen to use broadcast transmitters as a primary means of distribution. But when you look at what this organization is engaged in, we're in the business of educational telecommunications,'' he says. ``We collect editorial material and fashion it into forms of media that are most appropriate for the end user.''
by CNB