PBS's decision not to cofinance a sequel to the mini-series Tales of the City last week put the network in the position of defending its reputation for editorial independence.
While
the pivotal reasons for backing away from the sequel may
never be fully known, public TV insiders said a key
factor was concerns over the first series' noncensorious
portrayal of drug use in bohemian 1970s San Francisco.
Last week, rumors that PBS was also planning to yank a summer repeat of the first Tales series were promptly squelched when PBS announced plans to "hard-feed" the repeat in July, simultaneously with another series, leaving the scheduling choice clearly to the stations. A DACS message from "PBS Management" invoked Jefferson and Madison to assert public TV's right "to make available, from time to time, bold, thought-provoking, even daring television."
San Francisco's KQED, meanwhile, has not taken PBS's "no" as a defeat for the sequel. Responding to a local outcry over PBS's unwillingness to back More Tales of the City, KQED is looking for financing partners among major market PTV stations and underwriters.
"We're exploring what interest there is and what alternatives we have for putting together the kind of funding we need," said Michael Schwarz, the KQED producer who optioned the rights for the original mini-series several years ago and took them to public TV's ongoing drama series, American Playhouse.
Britain's Channel 4 financed the first $9 million Tales mini-series--later receiving just $1 million for U.S. rights--but for the $8 million sequel, it had sought $4 million from U.S. public TV.
Peter Ansorge, head of drama for Channel 4, is skeptical now that he'll find American funding to complete his budget.
"It is our view that the PBS withdrawal has killed the show," he said.
PBS's decision not to pursue More Tales erupted into headlines of the nation's major dailies three weeks ago, and landed on the op-ed page of the New York Times last week.
In the press, Armistead Maupin, author of the Tales of the City books, accused PBS of caving into pressure from the Rev. Donald Wildmon's conservative American Family Association (AFA).
After Tales premiered on PBS's American Playhouse series in January, AFA urged its supporters to help "shut down" PBS. [Earlier story.] AFA asked supporters to protest the use of tax dollars on programs "promoting the homosexual lifestyle, profanity, drug use, etc." by contacting CPB and members of Congress.
"I don't want to come off sounding like yet another disappointed author," Maupin told Current. "I truly believe that PBS has moved into self-censoring mode with More Tales, and I find that very distressing."
He cited the entrance of Ervin Duggan, PBS's president of less than three months, as the reason that network programmers' "words of encouragement" on More Tales shifted to "silence, then word that the sequel would not be done."
"I can only assume that people are running in fear from their new boss."
His interpretation hit the Times op-ed page April 17. In a scathing column, critic at-large Frank Rich, asked whether Duggan is "acting as a censor to appease the fundamentalism and homophobia of family values kooks."
Duggan said he was "hot under the collar" over the column and implied that the Times writer was confusing an editorial decision with censorship. Mere weeks ago, the Times had rejected an op-ed piece he had submitted for consideration. "Was that censorship? Should I ask the Times to publish the collective decision making of its editorial board?"
A Democrat who started his career in the Johnson Administration, Duggan strenuously objected to Rich's "caricature" of him as a Bush Administration appointee to the FCC with ties to evangelical Christians. During his time at the commission, Duggan said, he "voted consistently against the Bush Administration."
"There is no truth to the canard that I am in any way connected to the religious right," he added. His tenure at PBS will paint a "far more interesting and complicated picture" of himself and his leadership than "any broad-brush caricature."
"We need to see this thing for what it is--angry persons on both sides trying to coerce PBS."
"No subject matter is going to be alien to public television under my leadership," Duggan pledged. "We are going to be independent of pressure from all such coercive persons."
Duggan made similar statements about public TV's right to deal with controversial issues during a closed session with station managers at the Pacific Mountain Network annual conference in Denver, according to sources who sat in on the discussion.
The topic of the Tales rebroadcast came up at Denver, and was explored with some candor. Managers expressed concerns that Tales' original airing was a "hassle" because it had been scheduled during the first week of legislative sessions in many states, according to Chuck McConnell, program director for the Southern Educational Communications Association. "That was not good timing," he observed. That the repeat was scheduled to feed while Congress will be considering CPB funding this summer was an issue that should be approached with " 'prudential considerations,' " Duggan reportedly told the group. (Duggan later declined to elaborate to Current on the political considerations that were raised in the closed session.)
In questioning the appropriateness of Tales' content, Duggan reportedly also offered an anecdote about how Bill Moyers had expressed strong personal objections to the portrayal of casual drug use in Tales.
"No one should misunderstand the effect on Duggan" of that conversation, McConnell said.
Moyers was unavailable to discuss his views last week.
When PBS's cooling toward More Tales came out in the press, network spokespersons offered several reasons why PBS was walking away from a sequel to the series that had attracted and kept double the audience of other primetime fare. News accounts said PBS cited such factors as competing program priorities, lack of funds, and a practice of avoiding sequels.
Maupin didn't buy PBS's reasoning, and neither did Frank Rich, who declared the explanations "bogus." People for the American Way criticized PBS's withdrawal from negotiations as a "bad omen for free speech."
But inside public TV there were many who resented being drawn into the middle of the culture war. Tales "created controversy, and controversy takes time and money," said audience analyst David LeRoy, who speaks frequently with PTV programmers around the country. "Rather than figure out how to pay for a new tower," managers have to deal with angry members and funders. "The big stations have a tradition and a drill and didn't have as much trouble with Tales as somebody in a smaller market."
"We need to think carefully about how we define success," said McConnell. "It may have been a big audience that we've been busting our guts trying to get, but the kind of difficulties those programs [created] for Georgia and OETA in Oklahoma--the system can't sustain a lot of that right now."
"How big of a blaze of glory do you want to go out on?"
PBS's announcement last week on the Tales rebroadcast struck a new compromise between PBS's insistence on editorial independence and recognition of stations' concerns.
In the past, a "hard feed" was by definition a single transmission: the program on the satellite intended for immediate broadcast. But, beginning July 7, PBS will offer two hard feeds for stations to choose from--rebroadcasts of Tales or of Legacy, Michael Woods' 1992 series. Both will feed simultaneously on four consecutive Thursdays at 10 p.m., leaving the editorial decisions to local stations.
The DACS message describing the schedule pattern, sent to stations April 19, also acknowledged the mixed reactions that Tales generated throughout the system.
While the series drew critical acclaim and high ratings in many cities, PBS said in the memo that some viewers, station managers and PTV professionals had "protested to PBS that the treatment of illegal drug use in the series, for example--with no apparent concern for the consequences--was a poor editorial choice for public television."
These critics "contend that public TV should not merely reflect reality, but shape it in constructive directions. They also contend that Tales was damaging in their market to fundraising efforts and to the esteem of public television as an educational institution.
PBS's experience with Tales confirmed two "familiar" stories, the memo added: that community standards vary, and that "there are, in some places, vengeful persons and groups whose response to programming they don't like is to mount campaigns of retaliation and censorship."
"It is important to demonstrate to these persons and groups and to the public that public television, while it is interested in the views of its critics, will never cede to would-be censors of PBS's freedom to speak and publish."
All the hypotheses about why PBS dropped More Tales ignore the fact that the first series entered the PBS line-up through the back door. Channel 4 had made many fruitless efforts to find a U.S. backer for the first series, and was already shooting in California when American Playhouse acquired U.S. broadcast rights, according to Ansorge at Channel 4.
"It's quite clear that American television operates in a less free environment when it comes to drama that would be challenging or a little bit different," said Ansorge. "We couldn't find any kind of investment for the first series."
The acquisition by American Playhouse was a steal: $1 million for six hours of drama with a well-loved source and Olympia Dukakis in a central role.
When the sequel came around, PBS initially was willing to kick in $2.5 million, according to Ward Chamberlin, executive director of Playhouse. "I never understood where the other $1.5 million would come from. We were not likely to get it from corporate underwriters. PBS's interest waned, they decided they had other program priorities."
Playhouse, now transforming itself into an self-supporting feature film company after PBS funding cuts, is in no position to ante up a major contribution. According to press accounts, when Playhouse Executive Producer Lindsay Law asked top PBS programmer Jennifer Lawson, if PBS would air an independently financed More Tales, she refused to answer.
Public TV stations that want More Tales now have to divvy up the dosh themselves. "In order for this to happen, we're going to have to find a creative way to put it together," said KQED's Schwarz. Channel 4 needs to decide whether to make the sequel by "the early part of the summer."
Web page posted April 19, 1997
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