Connecticut network board joins Grossman in call for review of pubTV
“You get very little sense of the future here,” says Larry Grossman, thinking about PBS program offerings.
Though the onetime PBS president still enjoys watching some of the network’s icon series, he notes that many were already airing when he managed PBS three decades ago. “I don’t get a sense that there is significant new programming that is exciting, that is different.”
Last month, Grossman found a roomful of people who share his worries — his fellow board members of Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network.
The board’s unanimous resolution asks PBS, CPB and the Association of Public Television Stations to assign a task force of 12 to 15 system insiders to see “what works for public television and what does not,” and to make recommendations a year later.
Over the 26 years since he left PBS, Grossman has tried repeatedly to jumpstart changes in the public TV system and get positive attention from federal policymakers.
This time the system is in the midst of a recession that’s knocking it for a loop. Of public TV stations, 55 percent lost money on operations (not counting capital fundraising) in fiscal 2009, CPB reported during the Public Broadcasting Management Association conference in May. Station employment was down 784 people, or 7 percent, from 2008 to 2009. Local program production fell 6,277 hours, or 12 percent, in fiscal 2009.
Figures for fiscal 2010 aren’t out yet but probably will be worse.
“Last year was a horrible year,” says Jerry Franklin, president of Connecticut's nonprofit public TV/radio network based in Hartford. For just the second time in almost 50 years, CPBN had a deficit — of more than $1 million, he said.
Franklin recited a painful recent sequence of events: “You borrow money, you burn through cash reserves, and you terminate 15 percent of your staff.”
The resolution doesn’t object to PBS President Paula Kerger’s plans and strategies, Franklin says. He thinks Kerger’s on the right course but PBS doesn’t have the money to do what’s needed.
“We are concerned about how we see the future unfolding,” Franklin says.
Grossman’s two-page resolution suggests that the task force look at pubTV again to examine:
- “whether public television’s financing, technology, operations and structure are suited to meet the challenges of the future,”
- what the system can do for investigative journalism and services for children, for localities and for minorities, and
- whether the federal government could fund an adequate trust fund for pubcasters by paying them to “return” underused spectrum to the FCC .
As examples of what PBS could and should put on the screen, Grossman suggests a high-profile series of specials addressing the nation’s big problems from various viewpoints, structured so that stations can add local context. Or new productions of great American dramatists such as August Wilson and Eugene O’Neill.
These are “very traditional” ideas, Grossman says, and he expects much better ones can be concocted.
Franklin says he’s ready to do TV differently, moving toward the small tools and work units that New Jersey Network Acting Director Howard Blumenthal is advocating in Trenton (Current, July 6)..
“I think we have to recast how we produce our programs,” Franklin says.
He recalls being embarrassed by a lesson in cost-control from the local CBS affiliate, CPT’s partner in a local high school and college sports channel, the Connecticut Sports Network. WFSB, the CBS station, was paying its producer half as much as CPT paid for similar sports coverage.
Instead of sending five cameras and cameramen to a game, as CPT does when it shoots UConn women’s basketball, the commercial station covers a game by sending out one or two people, who control the cameras with joysticks. Shooting a game costs $2,000 or less, he says, instead of $25,000.
Text of Connecticut network's proposal for pubTV task force
Jerry Franklin, president of Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network, distributed to other stations this document drafted by board member Lawrence K. Grossman and endorsed in a resolution by CPBN's board June 22, 2010.
Building a Strong Foundation
for Public Broadcasting
By all estimates, public television continues to have enormous potential and remains a much-needed public service. However, concerns have arisen about its prospects for the future. These concerns are grounded in several factors, including severe financial constraints – particularly given the challenging economic climate – and fragmented television viewing, caused by increases in satellite and cable channels, as well as new video and Internet platforms. Unfortunately, given PBS’ significantly lower audience share than the commercial networks’, it is more vulnerable to such declines. In addition, decreases in underwriter and state and municipal funding have put major new program development, as well as many public stations at risk. Today, the nation’s legacy media are all trying to figure out how to re-invent themselves in order to thrive in the new digital world. Public television must do the same.
Proposing a System-wide Internal Task Force
To confront these mounting issues, most notably the need for new, important, distinctive and exciting content, the CPBN Board of Directors proposes that public television’s national leadership – including the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and PBS – appoint a system-wide internal public television task force. The task force would be asked to hold hearings and discussions over the next 12 months to examine and evaluate public television’s priorities, problems and opportunities, such as extending and expanding the kinds of partnerships and joint efforts with public radio that have already been tried. The task force – having analyzed what essentially “works” for public television and what does not – would be able to make knowledgeable recommendations about how to shape the future of public television on local, regional and national levels.
It is recommended that the task force consist of 12 to 15 outstanding and knowledgeable people directly involved with public television, to be selected by the national public television organizations. The task force would examine whether public television’s financing, technology, operations and structure are suited to meet the challenges of the future. It would also focus on ways to reduce duplication and waste throughout the system, and offer specific recommendations that are financially feasible.
Most importantly, the task force would examine public television’s content, and address its role in filling growing national and local needs for fair and responsible investigative journalism, as well as arts and culture coverage; services to children; educational initiatives; local information; minority services, community engagement and global partnerships.
Content Is Key
The central goal of the task force should be the creation of original and compelling, important content and exploring ways to multi-cast it. Content is the framework needed to increase the relevancy of public broadcasting – on all media platforms – to a growing, diverse audience. Addressing the need for powerful, successful and innovative programming that builds on the strengths and idealism of public broadcasting, both locally and nationally, is paramount. For example, the task force might recommend the creation of a new series of prime time public affairs specials, each episode of which would examine a different significant national problem and lay out the full range of proposed solutions, from left to right, conservative to liberal. Issues covered might include immigration, health care, jobs creation, global warming, arms control, etc. Of key importance, however, is that the programs would be designed to encourage PTV stations to localize each significant issue by presenting its own supplementary programs featuring local audience discussion, communitywide public opinion, and other local and regional elements.
Other content that might be suggested or considered would be a series of new productions of the great canon of modern American dramas, including works by Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, August Wilson, Eugene O’Neill, and others. As no programming of this kind currently exists anywhere on television, this kind of undertaking would be unique to public television.
Other innovations for contemporary public television might include a weekly series featuring dramatic recitals by talented actors of much-loved traditional and modern poetry, or a pioneering interactive series featuring adaptations of well-designed educational video games; when creative thinking comes in to play, the possibilities are virtually endless.
Exploring New Financial Sources for Public Television
Fortifying the financial health of public broadcasting will also be essential to ensuring and reinforcing public broadcasting in the future. The task force should explore ways to assure that federal funding continues, as well as identify new sources of funding. In the task force’s search for possible new sources of funding, it should certainly examine the ground rules for underwriting and analyze the recent proposal floated in Washington, D.C., to recapture broadcasting’s unused spectrum, worth billions of dollars, to be auctioned off for much needed U.S. broadband expansion. In return for agreeing to give back its unused spectrum, can Public Television gain a substantial trust fund from a portion of the PTV spectrum auction’s proceeds? These are just a few of the questions the task force should explore in its efforts to engage new audiences and attract contributors.
These specific, mainstream suggestions are included to stimulate a range of ideas and approaches that the task force might wish to pursue. Obviously, the task force members should undertake their important mission with a clean slate and open minds.
Larry Grossman
This article was revised slightly afterappearing in the print edition.
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