The public radio system got a first listen to The World this month, and with it a kaleidoscope of international stories and images: the horrors of Bosnia, sexual harassment in India, French laws requiring song lyrics to be in the mother tongue, and Singapore's Elvis impersonators.
The program has accents galore, along with a regular flow of international melodies and rhythms. Although some believe the BBC-coproduction is too British-sounding for American tastes, a sampling of the programmers and station managers who've heard it gave an overall "thumbs up.'' "It's fast, it's lively, it doesn't get boring. It's great--it gives NPR a run for its money, and I think that's good,'' says Ruth Seymour, g.m. of KCRW, Santa Monica. Her station, which canceled many of its daytime half-hour shows in a schedule shift done partly to accommodate World, hasn't drawn much listener comment, which is good, Seymour says. "I think the audience is intrigued.''
Independent producer Steve Rathe, who went through the trials of launching a new daily program in the 1980s, NPR's Heat, commends The World for "being on the ground,'' relying less on official sources than do NPR or Monitor Radio. The program sounds fresh because of its many young voices, though it currently lacks the "reportorial depth'' of more established shows, he comments.
Not everyone in the system can hear the long-awaited World locally because--until its national launch on April 1--it's having a limited launch at WGBH, Boston; WNYC, New York; KCRW and KUSC in the Los Angeles area; and WCPN, Cleveland.
KUOW, Seattle; WNED, Buffalo; and WICN, Worcester, Mass., are also carrying World, but are not acting as advisors or helping to promote the show as are the others. The World is a joint venture of PRI, BBC and WGBH.
The World offers the usual format of newscast followed by the day's top stories followed by longer pieces and other magazine fare--live interviews, roundtable discussions and essays. With its constant inflow of news from a global correspondent pool, it makes sense that BBC's Bush House in London is the source of The World's newscasts. But all BBC connections are sure to be noticed by programmers here who don't want World to sound like BBC World Service news, which they can easily pick up if they want to. Plus, "there's the perception of a certain class that ran the BBC and ran colonial England and you still hear a lot of that on the air,'' says Seymour. "For an American audience, that's harder to take.'' The World newscaster sounds more American than British (though at least one listener claims to have heard her say "process'' with a long 'o' and "shedule'' instead of "schedule.'')
Executive Producer Neil Curry says he hasn't heard much criticism about the show coming off too "BBC.'' Staffers have been working to differentiate the sound of World's opening newscasts, but beyond that, he says, there's no problem; "The number of BBC people coming up is small.'' World is using about 70 stringers in more than 60 countries, including a select subgroup of "superstringers'' who will produce regular material. The show also has access to a second tier of stringers in countries, such as West Africa's Benin, that aren't frequently in the news.
Curry does say the stringer network, which only began training in October--isn't "cranked up'' the way it needs to be, and so the show right now lacks the desired "geographical spread.'' World's Boston-based host, Tony Kahn, says the show especially needs locally based reporters in Latin America and Central Europe, outside of Paris. World's London hosts are Eddie Maier and Mary Ambrose, who take turns as coanchor.
"Flipping around the world''Besides newscasts, some of World's other daily elements include a ticker tape of noteworthy or offbeat news culled from global radio and TV broadcasts, a "guess-the-locale'' quiz, PRI's name identification in different languages, and a global tune of the day. The show also uses international music to bridge stories.
Once a week, World will offer the perspective of a Ghanian reporter, Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, who will travel the U.S. and comment on what she sees.
The show also promises diaries from hot spots such as Bosnia, live conversations between people around the world, and child's-eye views of major stories.
The Jan. 4 broadcast led with an update on the Clinton-Congress budget battle, quoting not lawmakers but the head of the federal workers' union. "It's day 20 of the hostage crisis,'' host Tony Kahn began the segment. Highlights from global newscasts followed, with stories such as Ivory Coast's jailing of a journalist for saying the country's president should avoid national sporting events because he was bad luck. A feature story looked at increasing corruption and criminal activity among Buddhist monks in Thailand, and was followed by a report on highway speed deregulation here that also looked at Germany's anarchic autobahns. The program's second half-hour updated Bosnia news, and then featured a long piece on "eve teasing,'' or sexual harassment, in India. Echoing the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill divide, the correspondent noted that while Indian women are humiliated, angered and even sickened by the grabbing and touching on streets and crowded buses, men were much more "philosophical.'' The rest of the show included a discussion about upcoming foreign films, a breaking-news piece about the reported seizure of a drug lord's stronghold in Burma, and a story about how the U.S. government shutdown was affecting embassies and the country's image overseas. The show closed to the beat of a Grammy-winning Baaba Maal song about a children's game.
A few programmers have criticized these early World broadcasts for being too feature-y and missing the news of the day. "I wonder where the news is,'' says one news director. "The programs I heard ... didn't relate to that particular day.'' Seymour wasn't thrilled with a World feature on how the world handles weather disasters, aired during last week's blizzard. "That wasn't the story,'' she insists; the blizzard was. During a crisis, she suggests, "to hell with the big picture.''
But perhaps the most consistent and significant criticism to emerge at this early stage is that the show has not yet made itself obviously distinctive. "You have Talk of the Nation, Fresh Air, All Things Considered, Marketplace, As It Happens, not to mention anything local,'' says Dave Kanzeg of WCPN. "These are a whole variety of proven vehicles. For The World to work its way into a mix of those programs and anything else, it's really got to be compelling. It's got to lay its case before p.d.'s and the audience. I think that's a formidable task.''
A general manager agrees that The World has to be something new. "Flipping around the world doesn't tell me enough. It just tells me I can flip around the world.'' However, the manager adds: "I have an instinct that they might be on an interesting alternative course. Neil Curry has an angle, a view of the world, and you need that, like a hypothesis.''
So what is The World aiming for in the way of singularity? First and foremost is international perspective, says Curry. "It's almost as if the production team has on spectacles that make them see the whole world,'' he says. They remove America from center stage. In the first show, for example, when newspapers devoted major headlines to U.S. troop deployment in Bosnia, The World paired David Howell, chair of the British parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee, with Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) to discuss the NATO intervention. It also featured correspondent Nenad Sebek's journalistic essay about watching "the country I used to call mine disintegrate into an orgy of blood, rape and ethnic cleansing.'' The reporter declined to name or identify by nationality an interviewee who describes being tortured. That information is "irrelevant,'' he says: "I've heard similar stories from all sides, and there are no good or bad guys in this war.''
Says Kahn: "We're not assuming that any one point of view can make sense of something as complicated as what's happening around the world.''
In terms of tone and style, Curry and Kahn say the new program aims to be accessible. The way Marketplace made business news less daunting to outsiders, The World seeks to make international news comprehensible to an American audience. As host, "I try to approach people as respectfully as I can and ask them to explain to me what it is they're involved with so I get it,'' Kahn says.
The program also manages to have fun. It has, for example, a running feature about the ways in which people spend Friday nights. One of these segments had a World correspondent riding a scooter around Rome to get a sense of what commuters were up to.
A genuine contributionIn its quest for carriage, The World has at least one advantage: more and more stations are streamlining their schedules by adding news programs and dropping music, at least during the daytime. KERA-FM in Dallas just did so, for example. But it is a difficult time to enter the system with what PRI President Steve Salyer said early on would be an expensive program. As one g.m. put it, station managers were nervous about the prospect of paying for a new program before the federal funding cuts. Now stations are dealing with declining federal support and escalating CPB pressures to improve their audience and fundraising.
PRI is requiring stations to carry World live, during any of its four feeds, 3-6 p.m., Eastern. It is free the first year, after which the cost burden will be gradually shifted to stations, says PRI programming chief Melinda Ward. Stations initially will pay about 15 percent of the $7.25 million expense for the program; at five years, they will bear 40 percent of the cost. This should put fees in the vicinity of those for Marketplace, she says.
Curry says he is optimistic The World can find a stable niche in the program schedule. "I believe we are producing something that is a real complement [to other programs], and that we're making a genuine contribution.'' Calls from listeners, more than a dozen a day, are full of praise, he says. "And that spurs us on.''
Web page
posted Jan. 21, 1996
Copyright 1996 by Current Publishing Committee
