TeleVISIONS (August/September 1975)

“T see the main problem with independent producers is the very thing that makes them important: they are not safe,”’ said Howard Klein, arts projects director for the Rockefeller Foundation, a major private supporter of independent video in the country. “Public television stations aren't going to find independent journalists, and people shouldn’t expect it,’’ he adds. In short, he foresees rough going for video and _filmmakers who want to break into public TV programming. The Rockefeller Foundation has hosted several meetings on the issue of the independent televisions journalist’s role in programming for TV—both commercial and non-commercial. Klein provided support for most of the video groups which have aired work on the national PBS air—TVTV, Downtown Community TV, Global Village, and the two most progressive stations helping half-inch video producers—WGBH and WNET Laboratory. He describes the problem as two-fold: first, there’s the ever-present problem of money, which is in short supply in public TV. He estimates that at $30,000 per half-hour program, it would cost more than $1.5 million to support five groups with an annual output of 10 programs—well beyond the current capacity of public TV. These groups need production money before they start working Klein says and they must be assured of non-interference when they work. The second problem he sees is one of attitude, a potentially more serious one. Public TV is supersensitive to criticism, and will opt for blandness over controversy any day, he suggests, citing several incidents with programs that Rockefeller-funded groups have produced for PBS airing. Even if PBS and its affiliates were bolder, still no policy exists which allows and encourages independent production to appear on the air. Virtually every outside production on the air is an exception to the rule and has required great effort on the part of the producer. : Klein isn’t the only one calling for a new policy towards independents. In the forefront are those producers who have managed to capture some funding and airtime on the PBS system. a We talked with several producers and learned about their experiences within the system: Top Value Television Probably the most successful and best known video group to “make it’”’ on public TV is Top Value Television, a group of 7 videoproducers who began taping their own style of video documentaries at the 1972 national political conventions. Since then, they have evolved into an independent production crew with a very special relationship to public TV. “We are sort of unique,” said Michael Shamberg, one of its founders. ‘‘Our special, autonomous relationship to the WNET Lab came about because of peculiar circumstances—a new technology, something of a track record, and an experimental institution like the Lab that was looking for something new. Shamberg describes TVTV’s work as a component of public TV, not public access. “We're a new class of professionals, craftsmen who have access to the system.” At present, TVTV is the only group which enjoys this special relationship, but Shamberg hopes they will provide a foot in the door. “We would like to see a regular national time slot for independent producers—with a policy, funding and a method of access for producers,” he says. None of those conditions exist today. .TVTV, which receives foundation funding through the WNET Lab, will have completed five hours of programming this year for that station. It is also made available at no cost to other PBS stations. But even their “track record’’—including a Dupont award from Columbia University for their documentary about Guru Maharaji— didn’t make much difference to stations which have been offered two TVTV series through the SPC. This year’s entry—called “The Seventies’’—was withdrawn after three of the 12 rounds. TVTV’s future plans continue to rely upon WNET and the funding from private foundations that will enable them to continue producing. They want to do special Bicentennial/election coverage next year. Although Shamberg said he has had no complaints about the treatment the groups received, the controversy certain programs have generated could conceivably affect their chances for funding. The hottest item was their interview with underground fugitive Abbie Hoffman. The interview was ‘‘purchased” from Hoffman for $3,000 by TVTV and New Times reporter Ron Rosenbaum. Ford Foundation executives exploded when they read of this ‘‘checkbook ‘ journalism” incident. Ford’s money helps support the WNET Lab and TVTV. Thus far, TVTV has not been censored by their sponsors or co-producers, although any individual PBS station can in effect exercise censorship by not picking up the show for local viewers. Only WNET and KQED in San Francisco agreed to air the Hoffman program. Say Brother For Topper Carew, the support of a local station meant taking a_ local program national. “If WGBH hadn’t seen it in their interest to support us,” says the Boston This year Carew and WGBH producer Marita Rivero (who worked on Catch-44, the station’s access series), entered a proposal into the Station Program Cooperative for a national edition of Say Brother. The program proposal outlined plans to incorporate some of the local footage already available from past broadcasts, together with new material on both video and film from around the country. The format is magazine-style, with some Laugh-In style humor to cement the whole thing. Stations bought the series in the SPC II. Some 113 stations will air the show in the fall, rejecting the well-known PBS black show, Tony Brown’s Black Journal. Cost-per-minute .for the 13-week Say Brother: $367. For Journal: $967 for the same number of shows. This supports Carew’s observation that WGBH’s financial support, which brought the cost to stations down, aided his success. Say Brother will continue to be produced locally, as well as to seek other independent producers—especially blacks—who have produced broadcast-quality work in other cities. Getting into PBS Independents make inroads on national programming based producer, ‘‘we clearly would never have made it. The show would have been costed out of the market.” Carew is executive producer of the ‘Say Brother” program, a series which has had a stormy seven-year history in Boston. It began as one of the first series about blacks anywhere in the country. Soon the station was embroiled in a sticky controversy with the black community, a white producer had been hired to interpret black culture. Carew came in as producer two years ago in a fairly unique fashion—he was selected by a community committee that had been set up to provide input to WGBH. That support has been the cornerstone of “Say Brother,” which has spent a great deal of time and effort in Boston building a relationship with its target audience. “The black community is tremendously diverse,” Carew told a group of station managers at a June conference in Washington. “Our program has tried to reflect that diversity.” Carew is a producer at WGBH, not an independent per se. But his involvement with Boston’s community, as he tells it, has made for a different kind of role within the station. He has tried innovative programming concepts—live remote broadcasts from the community, community organization input, benefits, and organizing via the show. Each activity has tended to build audience, which the station, I’m sure, appreciates. yf Me, d Wi i. Ty S Oe IN Nahe | Nb \lustration: Andra Spencer Realidades A similar situation occurred for a Latin show called Realidades, supported locally by WNET in New York. This year CPB gave the producers some development money to determine the feasibility of bringing the show—which has served the New York Latin community—to a national Spanish-speaking audience. The experiment was necessary to see whether a show designed locally for a primarily Puerto Rican audience, could expand nationally and serve a constituency that includes Mexicans and other Latinos besides Puerto Ricans. The CPB development funds came because the Corporation had identified minority concerns as one of several priorities this year. Black culture, aging, and dance were among the other priorities. Realidades’ national version will premiere in the fall with full underwriting by CPB and WNET—thus it is offered free to stations. If the first year goes well, the show will be eligible for second year of CPB funding. Following this, the show would have to compete in the SPC like other programs. CPB also recently supported a pilot for “The City,’ produced by Nguzo Saba Productions in San Francisco. It is not being produced through a local station, incidentally. This avenue of pilot and developmental funding at CPB extends almost exclusively to page 13/TeleVISIONS priority issue programs, which are set by the CPB bureaucracy in consultation with the stations. Once the subject is set, program officers undertake elaborate solicitation procedures, including panels of “experts,” requests for proposals, final review, and finally funding. CPB also makes small grants to producers who need to finish projects in exchange for rights to broadcast. Global Village One producer whose work has received foundation support and time on local PBS air still has some complaints about the system. John Reilly, Director of Global Village in New York, described the process of airing “The Irish Tapes’”—a documentary which advocated the Catholic minority perspective in the Northern Ireland struggle—as “‘difficult.” The show was seen in New York on a program called VTR, which has shown independent video on a regular basis. Reilly’s tape is now under consideration by national PBS people. “At the present time there is no forum to present this type of work at all. My show got in through the back door,almost.”’ Reilly cites similar difficulties for other groups which have eventually gotten airtime—Downtown Community TV of New York is one. The group had made a color portable video production called ‘“Cuba—the People” and was slated to be hosted by WNET’s resident public affairs heavy, Bill Moyers. Though Moyers backed out, the show eventually went on and to generally good reviews. The point Reilly makes is the same as Howard Klein’s: public television simply has no policy towards independents. Reilly has a proposal for a “‘video op-ed page’’—a reference to the page appearing opposite editorial pages in many newspapers, including the NY Times, that carry opinions by people outside the paper’s organizational structure. Reilly is not asking for another open-access format, but rather a place where ‘“‘wellcrafted, developed arguments can be presented.” Another advantage he sees in the idea is that the “board of editors’’ that runs the “Op Ed” format could contract or commission videomakers and filmmakers in advance, so that support might exist for independent journalism. In many ways, Reilly’s proposal is similar to the ‘nightly public affairs presence’? which many PBS and CPB officials have been pushing this year among themselves and station personnel—the crucial difference being independent producers would have a specific role to play. Gateway Productions The final type of independent production on public television is the “acquisition.” Dick Hubert, a veteran TV producer who now heads a New York-based group called Gateway Productions, assembled the 90minute special ‘World Hunger—Who will Survive.” Calling his show the first documentary in the PBS season, even though it was aired in January, Hubert is heavily critical of public television. He was forced to find corporate funding from Roche Pharmaceuticals for his show because of the lack of public television commitment to public affairs. Hubert believes what public TV needs is a central news operation like the commercial networks. “‘NPACT would have been a national news service,” he says. ‘‘Why was it destroyed?” Public affairs, Hubert says, cannot be produced on a piecemeal basis, and can’t be an afterthought to be funded by corporations and foundations. If not, inordinate control will eventually accrue to groups which have no business controlling public television. The same can be said for most of the programming underwritten by private companies, foundations and the like. It tends to be bland, safe and unchallenging. Yet public broadcasting relies very heavily on underwritten programming, and, increasingly on using its own funds to purchase programs that have been produced with funds from other organizations. These vary widely from BBC-produced materials to syndicated independent programs which are being sold on a piecemeal basis to stations. PBS is now investigating some improvement in the acquisition procedures for stations, and will probably initiate a new national buying service called SAM—the Station Acquisition Market—with hopes of reducing costs by buying certain programs in volume. continued on next page