TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/121090/1210250.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.7 KB | 119 lines

                                                                                VIDEO, Page 76

The Wisdom of Ms. Solomon


PBS's first programming czar is shaking up public TV

By RICHARD ZOGLIN -- Reported by Janice C. Simpson/Washington


    Ever since its creation in 1969, the Public Broadcasting
Service has been an unwieldy, multiheaded beast. Most PBS
series are initiated and produced under the auspices of
individual stations, funded by a patchwork of public and
corporate sources and scheduled (in many cases) according to
the whims of local program directors. That worked well enough
in the days when PBS was essentially the only alternative to
the three commercial networks. But cable has made life more
complicated. Such channels as the Arts & Entertainment Network
and Superstation TBS have appropriated the kind of programming
that was once unique to PBS, from BBC mini-series to Cousteau
nature specials. As a result, the PBS audience has been eroded
by nearly 12% in the past four years.

    Last week public-TV officials took a decisive step toward
reversing that trend, as the PBS board of directors gave final
approval to a major revamping of the network's organizational
structure. In the new setup, the crucial decisions about which
programs will receive PBS funding -- previously made by a
majority vote of the local stations -- will be in the hands of
one executive. The plan, first unveiled last summer, has drawn
objections from officials at several large PBS stations. Says
William Baker, president of New York's WNET: "The whole world,
even the Soviet Union, is going from a command economy to a
democratic one, and we're going the opposite way."

    But even the most vocal critics of the new plan have been
assuaged by the person who will put it into practice. This new
"programming czar" has more power than any predecessor but also
a daunting task: maneuvering through the byzantine PBS
bureaucracy. "What we wanted was a Solomon," says PBS president
Bruce Christensen. "Someone with extraordinary political skills
as well as program judgment. And someone who was willing to
take the heat."

    How about a Ms. Solomon? Jennifer Lawson, the former film
professor and civil rights worker who was named to the job last
November, has thus far been getting more huzzahs than heat. She
basked in the glory of PBS's huge success of September, The
Civil War. (The program was set in motion long before she
arrived, but Lawson approved its unusual weeklong scheduling.)
She has won praise for boosting PBS's profile with such ploys
as running ads on the commercial networks. Most of all, she has
tamed the ornery PBS bureaucracy with a mix of calm
decisiveness and careful diplomacy. "In some ways Jennifer is
the only person who could have done this," says Henry Hampton,
producer of the documentary series Eyes on the Prize. "She
really does listen."

    Not that Lawson, 44, doesn't have some fairly radical
programming ideas of her own. Among the shows she is developing
for PBS are a children's game show and a sitcom about a Soviet
family adapting to perestroika. She wants to showcase more pop
music and is looking for a dramatic series that would "explore
the mood in the country, relationships between people in our
cities and rural areas."

    Also high on her agenda is bringing more ethnic and cultural
diversity to a network whose audience is often stereotyped as
"the Chardonnay and Brie crowd." Lawson objects to that
characterization. "It's as if opera were only for the elite,"
she says. "But Leontyne Price came from Mississippi, and we
don't know about all the other Leontyne Prices who are out
there, who can't afford to get to the Metropolitan Opera but
can see it on Great Performances."

    Lawson herself grew up next door to Mississippi, in a suburb
of Birmingham. She dropped out of Tuskeegee Institute to work
for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Later she
moved to Washington, then spent two years in Tanzania helping
bring together Africans and African Americans interested in the
arts. After getting a master's degree in film from Columbia
University and making "a few mediocre documentaries that
definitely will not be shown on public television," Lawson got
a job teaching film at Brooklyn College. She also served as
executive director of the Film Fund, which financed independent
documentaries, and later as head of the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting's Television Program Fund.

    Given the long gestation time for PBS programs, Lawson's
impact on the schedule will not fully emerge for at least a
year or two. But an early indication came last month, when
Lawson made public her list of current PBS series that will be
funded for next season. Most of the PBS fixtures, from the
MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour to Nova, will be back, as will
independently financed series like Mobil's Masterpiece Theatre.
But Lawson decided to end funding for the children's show
Newton's Apple and the documentary series American Masters after
one more season. (Both series are seeking alternative funding,
in which case they could remain on the schedule.)

    Lawson's choices have calmed fears that she is about to make
drastic changes in PBS's direction. Yet some PBS veterans are
wary of her plans for sitcoms and other popular programming
formats, contending that the quest for bigger audiences will
turn PBS into a clone of the commercial networks. "A perfect
program to me," she responds, "is one where the viewer never
questions the value or importance. But it's also engaging and
compelling, so that you feel you have to watch it.
Entertainment and intelligence can live well together." Just
how well, and how often, Lawson can get the two to mesh will
show how Solomonic she really is.