The Boston Globe June 23, 1997, Monday, City Edition (METRO/REGION; Pg. A1, 3045 words)

LOCAL PROGRAMMING DOESN'T RATE; Gets only thin slice of budget as station's emphasis goes national; CHANNEL 2's CHALLENGE; Second of four parts.

By Daniel Golden, Globe Staff. Jack Thomas of the Globe staff contributed to this story.

After two years on WGBH-TV's toothless community advisory board, businessman Blair Brown got tired of just talking while the Boston schools faltered.

Taking over as chairman in 1995, Brown devoted every board meeting to the schools. He brought in Mayor Thomas M. Menino and schools Superintendent Thomas W. Payzant, among others, as guest speakers. And his final report to trustees last October pressed WGBH to "devote significant resources" to covering the issue.

"The station produces the prize-winning 'Nova,' 'Frontline,' and other titles with great luster," wrote Brown. "However, nothing matching this commitment and resources is applied to pointing out the festering problems of the local Eastern Massachusetts area."

Thirty years ago, the Carnegie Commission called for establishing the Public Broadcasting Service on a "bedrock of localism." Today, at WGBH and most public television stations, that bedrock has crumbled to sand. Local programming, says former PBS president Lawrence Grossman, is "one of the gigantic failures of public television."

Despite persistent pleas for money from its local viewers, WGBH pays far more attention to world and national affairs than it does to its own community. Identified in its early years with local news coverage and live broadcasts from Boston neighborhoods and universities, the station has increasingly distanced itself from its roots.

Overshadowed by the station's extensive national productions, its local programs draw minuscule ratings and suffer from a paucity of money and vision. This past season, local productions constituted about 4 percent of WGBH's total schedule and $ 145 million annual budget. Only 40 of the station's 1,186 employees work in local operations.

And despite the sensationalizing of local news on Boston commercial stations, WGBH has no intention of filling the vacuum by reviving its tradition of quality news, which ended when the "Ten O'Clock News" was dropped in 1991. WGBH makes sets for the newscasts of other stations in the Midwest as a side business, but doesn't need one itself.

"They just forgot where they were and who they were," says Christopher Lydon, former anchor of "The Ten O'Clock News," who now hosts "The Connection" on WBUR-FM. "They took a distinctly New England, beloved, quirky institution - as big as Ted Williams' Red Sox or Bill Russell's Celtics when I was a kid - and they sterilized it. It's as if they paved over the Public Garden."

Since "The Ten O'Clock News" was canceled, WGBH president Henry P. Becton Jr. notes, stations such as New England Cable News have increased local coverage. "In an ideal world, we would do more local programming," he says. "We don't have a totally elastic station budget. We can only afford to do so much."

WGBH executives say it's unfair to compare its national and local budgets, because most national funds are earmarked for specific programs and can't be applied to the local side. By contrast, local programs depend mainly on viewer contributions and other discretionary funds.

However, when it comes down to hard financial choices, the station does favor national programs over local ones. For example, national programs receive most of a growing pool of discretionary revenues from video sales and other royalties. Last year, these spinoffs funneled $ 3 million into the national side to develop programs, pay for budget overruns, and fill funding gaps. Only $ 1 million went into local programs.

"As a matter of policy, the first priority is keeping national programs going," concedes Andy Griffiths, vice president for finance and administration. "Otherwise, we're dead in the water."

Local coverage is drowning throughout PBS, even though cable networks increasingly duplicate its national programs. As public television has struggled with growing competition and uncertain funding, it has largely discarded local programming as uneconomic and poorly watched.

"Today, local programming is more an ideal than a reality," says Grossman. "It's expensive and it's hard to get an audience or satisfy a wide range of the community. Over the years, Boston made a valiant effort, but as money got tighter, Boston has just not renewed that effort."

Systemwide, the percentage of broadcast hours devoted to local programs has dropped from 12 percent in 1974 to 4 percent today. In 1992, PBS discontinued an initiative to encourage local productions.

"It's really unfortunate," adds Vassar College sociologist William Hoynes, author of a book about public elevision with a chapter on WGBH. "Local PBS stations are not really players in news or public affairs debates in their communities."

Questionable efforts to connect locally

To be sure, WGBH still spends more on local programs than virtually any other public television station. A 1996 study ranked Boston third, behind Chicago and Washington, among 12 major markets in the percentage of local evening programming. WGBH was at 9.3 percent; the average 7.3 percent.

Recently, the station has begun trying to mend its community ties. It reshuffled its board of trustees this year, adding a diverse group of community representatives and reducing the role of ex officio members representing local universities and cultural institutions who rarely attended meetings anyway.

This past season WGBH started two local programs: "Greater Boston," a nightly public affairs show (replacing "The Group") and "Greater Boston Arts," a monthly magazine. A third program, "The Long and Short of It," a talk show co-hosted by former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson and former labor secretary Robert Reich, is funded by the local budget but primarily deals with national issues.

"Local programming was pretty moribund off and on in WGBH's history," says Judith Stoia, executive producer for local programming. "In the last year, there has been renewed commitment and energy. 'Greater Boston' and 'Greater Boston Arts' are the proof."

Yet even with its new programs, WGBH's local programming has a smaller budget - $ 5.8 million - than it did during the heyday of "The Ten O'Clock News." And that budget includes the station's 21 percent overhead, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars for nostalgic specials, such as last year's "Jews of Boston," which were conceived more as fund-raising vehicles than public affairs programs.

Staffers at "Say Brother" and "La Plaza," WGBH's long-running programs geared to the black and Hispanic communities, respectively, say "Greater Boston" gets favored treatment at their expense. According to Calvin Lindsay Jr., who recently left as producer of "Say Brother," "Greater Boston" uses a state-of-the-art computerized editing system, while "Say Brother" makes do with an outdated one.

And rather than adding staff to shoot video and record sound for "Greater Boston," WGBH subdivided the two-person field crew used by "Say Brother" and "La Plaza" into two one-person crews shared by all the programs. Stoia says WGBH is just being more efficient, but Lindsay says it's sacrificing quality.

"It's clear that the station's commitment is to 'Greater Boston,' " Lindsay says. "After 28 years on the air, 'Say Brother' deserves a little better."'

Last December, Lindsay announced he was leaving "Say Brother" to work on a forthcoming national series for WGBH. Though WGBH still has not hired a successor, Steve Bass, vice president and manager for television stations, says he is looking for a new producer and the program will continue.

WGBH also has not yet replaced two staffers who left "La Plaza," reducing its production staff from four to two. The program is using temporary help.

 According to Lindsay, some WGBH executives have said at station meetings that "Say Brother" and "La Plaza" are obsolete and that WGBH should replace them with one multicultural program. "They say, 'Can't we do one show that serves everybody?' " Lindsay says. "My feeling is, 'No.' The work we do makes some people uncomfortable because it's about race."

Local programming is also about money. WGBH has cultivated a large base of 210,000 members who give at least $ 40 apiece annually. But it has failed to elicit the same generosity from Boston corporations, particularly for local programs.

While "The Ten O'Clock News" had three corporate sponsors, "Say Brother," "Greater Boston," "Greater Boston Arts," and "La Plaza" have none. The Boston Phoenix underwrites "The Long and Short of It," which may not return next season because co-host Simpson is moving back to Wyoming.

Last year, the station raised $ 90 million earmarked for national programs overall, including $ 40 million from corporations and foundations. By contrast, corporations gave only $ 250,000 earmarked for local programs. Boston companies do contribute $ 500,000 more in unrestricted gifts and $ 2 million to be local sponsors of national programs. (The Boston Globe Foundation gave WGBH $ 30,000 the past two years.)

Undoubtedly, many large Boston corporations with customers outside the area would rather sponsor programs for a national audience. But Victoria Devlin, WGBH vice president for development and external affairs, says Boston businesses are simply tight-fisted.

"This is not Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Minneapolis," Devlin says. "This is Boston. There's a sense of Yankee thrift. . . . It's a different civic mentality."

But you have to give to get. KTCA, the PBS affiliate in Minneapolis, raised more than $ 2 million from regional foundations and businesses to produce a nightly local news program that covers the community, avoids sensationalism, and draws higher ratings than any WGBH local series or the national "News Hour with Jim Lehrer."

Although it provides teacher training and other services, Channel 2 also has passed up non-broadcast opportunities to connect to the community. For instance, stations in other states broadcast courses via satellite to schools. WGBH considered seeking federal funds for distance learning, but left that service to the Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunications, a state agency established in 1982 to provide telecommunications services to schools.

WGBH officials said they felt it was more appropriate for a government agency, rather than a community-licensed station, to operate the statewide network. They added that the station has provided programming for MCET's broadcasts. Like West Berlin and East Berlin before the fall of communism, the national and local sides of WGBH are two societies, one rich and one poor, coexisting uneasily.

National producers enjoy bigger budgets and longer lead times. Local shows often are produced for no more than national producers spend on writing grant proposals. An entire season of "Say Brother" - 26 half-hour episodes - costs about the same as two hours of "Nova" or one hour of WGBH's forthcoming national series, "Africans in America."

 "There's an invisible wall between national and local programming, as if two different people signed the paycheck," says Raquel Ortiz, who headed local programming at WGBH from 1980 to 1990 and now is an independent producer.

 "The main indignity is that local is constantly being compared to national, but it doesn't have the same resources. If they have $ 500,000 to make a documentary and I have $ 60,000, how can you make the comparison?"

 Stoia acknowledges that "a small number" of critics believe local pr[..?missing text?...] two later.

 "WGBH was doing national programming back in 1955," recalls longtime producer Michael Ambrosino. "The force is always to do national programming. The money is for national programming."

 PBS was established in 1967 to coordinate national distribution of programs, and by 1970 Ambrosino was so worried local programming was getting short shrift at WGBH that he asked to manage it. His offer was rejected, and he went on to start the national program, "Nova."

 Through the 1970s and early 1980s, local programming fed the national side's growing appetite. "The Victory Garden," "The French Chef," and other programs began as local, low-budget experiments.

 But local programs without national potential - "Say Brother," "La Plaza," and others - were starved for money and attention. And, more and more, the national side began incubating its own programs.

 "Over time, when WGBH saw that a lot it had done locally would work nationally, its priorities shifted," Ortiz says. "National gave them more exposure and more funding."

 In 1991, a study for PBS by the Boston Consulting Group reinforced the tilt toward national production. It argued that national programs needed more money to ward off the cable threat, and that the funds should come "at the expense of" low-rated local programs that "consume resources out of proportion to the revenues that they generate or their value to viewers or to society."

 Shortly after the study was released, WGBH officials canceled the "Ten O'Clock News," saying it was too expensive. The decision outraged Lydon and other staffers, some members of the community advisory board, and the show's small but devoted viewership.

 From 1993-1996 local programs were cut another $ 700,000, about 15 percent of their budget. Bob Glover, one of two executive producers for local programming from 1992 to 1995, says he proposed a "ton" of ideas that never made it on the air. He also tried, and failed, to move "La Plaza" from Saturday at 6 p.m. to a more prominent time slot.

 Gradually, Glover recognized he was wasting his time. "After a while, you slow down," he says. "After a while, you stop."

 WGBH's community advisory board has lacked the clout and independence to recharge local programming. A 1978 law mandates such boards for all public television stations that receive federal funds.

 However, WGBH's board rarely challenges the station over policy, and neither evaluates programs nor seeks input from viewers and local residents on programming or funding issues. It does not coordinate with viewers' groups associated with local programs, such as the Friends of "La Plaza" and Friends of "Say Brother." Nor does it consider itself an outlet for viewers' complaints. Once, when a group of viewers came to protest the station's Israel coverage, they were told to direct their complaints elsewhere.

 Members of the community advisory board meet monthly, dining eclectically on a variety of ethnic cuisines. Although the meetings are open to the public, non-members rarely show up. Senior WGBH executives do attend the meetings and help guide discussions, which tend to focus on non-broadcast issues. Brown's passionate lobbying for schools coverage was a marked exception to the usual non-confrontational tone.

 The board "does a lot of WGBH's bidding," Ortiz says. "WGBH asks them a question. If it gets 10 answers, it takes the one that's most convenient."

 Board members quickly make the transition from outsiders to insiders. After their three-year terms, five members - including Brown - have joined the station's board of overseers, a fund-raising body. From then on, WGBH taps them for money as well as advice.

A marriage between money and programming

 Fundraising concerns, rather than community needs, also dictate WGBH's topics for local specials.

PBS stations across the country have found that nostalgic documentaries, particularly pegged to the World War II era, make aging viewers wipe their eyes and reach for their credit cards. As an added attraction, they sell well as home videos. But these programs also consume staff and resources that could otherwise be directed toward covering local concerns.

 Three of WGBH's recent specials - the two-part "Boston: The Way It Was" and "Jews of Boston" - were initiated primarily to elicit contributions during WGBH's tri-annual pledge drives.

 In its zeal to profit from nostalgia, WGBH breached the firewall that is supposed to divide its fund-raising and editorial sides. "Jews of Boston" was supported by a $ 50,000 gift from Steven Grossman, a Massachusetts businessman and chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Grossman and his wife, Barbara, also are featured on the program, recounting their family's century-long journey from Eastern European shtetls, or villages, to President Clinton's inner circle. "It is in their political activism and community leadership that they find the meaning of Judaism," the narrator says.

 Station officials and producer Lorie Conway say the Grossmans agreed to fund the program months after the interview and did not influence its content or tone. However, according to Conway, WGBH development staff asked her for a list of everyone interviewed in the program so they could pitch them for money. She refused.

 There's no pot of gold to be made from examining the Boston schools. Since Brown's challenge to trustees, the station has aired occasional segments about the schools on "Say Brother" and "La Plaza," as well as a one-hour forum on the merits of changing the Boston School Committee from an appointed to an elected body.

 But these initiatives pale compared to those undertaken by some other public television stations, such as a five-hour forum by Chicago's WTTW in 1993 on the schools there. More than half a million viewers tuned in to a discussion that included the mayor of Chicago, the governor of Illinois, school board members, principals, and teachers.

 "Now it's true," says WTTW president William McCarter, "that WGBH has been very successful, and it's hard to argue with their formula. But I bet they wish they had more local programming."

Some critics, such as Ortiz, contend WGBH neglects the issues of concern to minorities and urban residents because its contributors and its executives are overwhelgly white and suburban. Stoia labels this charge "outrageous."

Stoia and Becton say that "Greater Boston," which originated as a talk show, is filming more segments in the community. While fewer than 1 percent of local households watch the show, she and Becton say it is developing a following.

As for Brown, he's still waiting for evidence of WGBH's commitment to local affairs, especially the Boston schools. "I see it as a shame," he says, "that this glittering, able institution can't apply its prowess to this enormous social problem."