silverfox0786
19-10-11, 20:29
11941
Paula Kerger, chief executive of PBS, has revealed some of the schedule for the UK version of the American channel. Photograph: Frederick M. Brown/Getty
Paula Kerger wants to correct a misconception about American television. The president and chief executive officer of PBS – the US Public Broadcasting Service – wants "as an American citizen" to share "another perspective on the United States separate from Hollywood". Which is why, 42 years after PBS was founded, the broadcaster is finally coming to the UK, with a new channel that she hopes will "give people here in the UK a sense of how news is reported in the United States" and "through the investigative journalism, a real sense of some of the issues in the States".
PBS, a non-profit, in the US jargon, is barely known to the British viewer, although those who follow debates about media policy will have heard it compared negatively to the BBC. Unlike in Britain, public broadcasting was an afterthought in the US, with the three commercial networks leading the way, broadcasting coast-to-coast from the 1950s. PBS began in 1969, and 85% of its funding comes from philanthropic foundations and donations (recurring demands are a feature of the ad breaks), with the balance from the US Congress. Programming, which is Kerger's part of the organisation, has $350m a year to play with, which hardly compares with the BBC's licence fee income of £3.5bn. But somehow the organisation keeps the wheels turning.
"From time to time we have threats to our federal funding but each time we have worked through it because we have such a broad base of support," she says, helped by its popular children's programming which is watched, PBS claims, by 77% of all US children.
Otherwise, PBS barely exists in the consciousness of Britons. Unless you have lived in the US (where it claims audiences larger than CNN and HBO) and watched its output, nobody would be able to name any of its programmes, with just one possible exception, Sesame Street. Not many of us would have caught PBS documentary Roads to Memphis, the story of Martin Luther King's assassin James Earl Ray, which aired eight days ago on the obscure Yesterday channel. Which is why a whole channel, the first PBS has launched outside the US, is necessary. Kerger, who has been in charge since March 2006 following 13 years at the public broadcaster in New York, says she wanted to do something like this from the moment she stepped up to the job.
However, in true cash-constrained fashion, it only became possible because "we have an investor step forward to help us put the resources to help us do it". He is David Lyons, a Canadian oil and gas man, who runs the exploration company Orca (where Michael Howard, the former Conservative leader, also sits on the board). Lyons has been badgering PBS to launch overseas for some time, after missing it during a spell living here. Kerger describes Lyons as "a venture philanthropist" and notes that "he grew up in Canada, grew up watching PBS there, and he has felt there is a range of material that would be of interest to this community", which is how she describes the UK.
The scale of Lyons's investment is not revealed, but this is intended to be a commercial venture. PBS has gone down the road of signing up a pay deal with Sky, and would like another with Virgin Media, which means there will be no prospect of the channel appearing on Freeview. "We hopefully will make some money because it is a commercial venture, but our primary interest in doing this is to exhibit our content to an international audience," Kerger says, because the previous strategy of trying to sell PBS shows to UK channels has clearly failed. That's ironic, too, given that PBS local schedules are chock-full of often dated BBC and other British TV repeats, from New Tricks to Doc Martin.
Viewers can tune in to PBS UK from 1 November (Sky channel 166), and the schedule will focus on "non-fiction programming". A science show, Nova, will air on weeknights at 7.50pm; current affairs will be served with Frontline on weeknights at 9pm, followed by history programming – a series called American Experience comes just after 10pm. Kerger also repeatedly speaks up for the documentary maker Ken Burns. His five-part series, Prohibition, which, she says, has "just premiered in the US to very significant audience because of all the interest in Boardwalk Empire", documents the rise and fall of the US ban on alcohol between 1920 and 1933. In total, she promises viewers "500 unique hours of content this year" and "1000 hours next year", which sounds like a lot, until you spread that out over 365 days.
Kerger describes PBS as having to position itself carefully against other offerings both in the US and the UK, arguing that there is hope for a serious alternative because on US cable schedules are now dominated by this "explosion of reality of shows". Many of which – from The Secret Millionaire to Supernanny – come from the UK, of course, although, with characteristic tact, Kerger says: "I wasn't going to make that point". She notes there are other US broadcasters "that started out doing work similar to public television, but, because the marketplace is a critical factor for them, have been unable to sustain programming that was their original mission". Like who? "Arts and Entertainment started out as a channel that was focused on that exactly, and now in the States it is a lot of CSI reruns."
Or there is the History Channel which, she says, "has developed out a whole genre of programmes that are reality-based, like Ice Road Truckers, and Pawn Stars", and to a lesser extent Discovery, which she gently accuses of populism by describing its science programming as "broader based". Later, though, she adds she is not trying to be holier than thou: "These are not value statements, these are different types of work," which is one way of putting it.
Not for nothing, though, is PBS based across the Potomac river from the US capital. The need to keep federal funders happy seems to make Kerger very diplomatic. Is Newshour, which rather unhelpfully is going to be aired the next day in the UK after it has been "complied" with Ofcom rules, designed as an antidote to Fox News? Or even, if we are going to be balanced about this, is it an antidote to the Democrat-oriented MSNBC? "No, we consider ourselves to be a broadcaster that serves both points of view," she replies. Press harder, and she says "I'm not working for Fox or MSNBC, so I don't want to comment on their way of handling the news", before adding that impartiality (not a requirement in the US) is "profoundly important; there has to be a space where you can get the facts". Except the next day timing may mean that Newshour will struggle to catch on.
At first there will be no budget to commission British filmakers, but Kerger adds that "there certainly could be an opportunity in the future". Nevertheless, she insists it will be a UK channel with "a British voice" despite the lack of local input, a mandate fulfilled by having British continuity announcers. Nor, surprisingly, will there be much of the children's programming, which Kerger first justifies by saying that in "our survey of the kids' market you seem to be well served for kids' content". So there won't be any episodes of worthy, hour-long Sesame Street, which has not been on air in the UK since 2001, after spells on ITV and Channel 4.
Except that is hardly an important deficit: Kerger's PBS UK promises to be one of the most interesting channel launches for some time, as long as the programming can deliver on the public service promise.
CV
Age 53
Education University of Maryland
Career 1979 Program development officer, US committee for Unicef 1984 director of development, International House 1989 director of principal gifts, Metropolitan Opera Association 1993 vice president/director of development WNET-TV 2000 vice president/station manager 2004 executive vice president and chief operating officer 2006 president and chief executive officer, Public Broadcasting Service
Paula Kerger, chief executive of PBS, has revealed some of the schedule for the UK version of the American channel. Photograph: Frederick M. Brown/Getty
Paula Kerger wants to correct a misconception about American television. The president and chief executive officer of PBS – the US Public Broadcasting Service – wants "as an American citizen" to share "another perspective on the United States separate from Hollywood". Which is why, 42 years after PBS was founded, the broadcaster is finally coming to the UK, with a new channel that she hopes will "give people here in the UK a sense of how news is reported in the United States" and "through the investigative journalism, a real sense of some of the issues in the States".
PBS, a non-profit, in the US jargon, is barely known to the British viewer, although those who follow debates about media policy will have heard it compared negatively to the BBC. Unlike in Britain, public broadcasting was an afterthought in the US, with the three commercial networks leading the way, broadcasting coast-to-coast from the 1950s. PBS began in 1969, and 85% of its funding comes from philanthropic foundations and donations (recurring demands are a feature of the ad breaks), with the balance from the US Congress. Programming, which is Kerger's part of the organisation, has $350m a year to play with, which hardly compares with the BBC's licence fee income of £3.5bn. But somehow the organisation keeps the wheels turning.
"From time to time we have threats to our federal funding but each time we have worked through it because we have such a broad base of support," she says, helped by its popular children's programming which is watched, PBS claims, by 77% of all US children.
Otherwise, PBS barely exists in the consciousness of Britons. Unless you have lived in the US (where it claims audiences larger than CNN and HBO) and watched its output, nobody would be able to name any of its programmes, with just one possible exception, Sesame Street. Not many of us would have caught PBS documentary Roads to Memphis, the story of Martin Luther King's assassin James Earl Ray, which aired eight days ago on the obscure Yesterday channel. Which is why a whole channel, the first PBS has launched outside the US, is necessary. Kerger, who has been in charge since March 2006 following 13 years at the public broadcaster in New York, says she wanted to do something like this from the moment she stepped up to the job.
However, in true cash-constrained fashion, it only became possible because "we have an investor step forward to help us put the resources to help us do it". He is David Lyons, a Canadian oil and gas man, who runs the exploration company Orca (where Michael Howard, the former Conservative leader, also sits on the board). Lyons has been badgering PBS to launch overseas for some time, after missing it during a spell living here. Kerger describes Lyons as "a venture philanthropist" and notes that "he grew up in Canada, grew up watching PBS there, and he has felt there is a range of material that would be of interest to this community", which is how she describes the UK.
The scale of Lyons's investment is not revealed, but this is intended to be a commercial venture. PBS has gone down the road of signing up a pay deal with Sky, and would like another with Virgin Media, which means there will be no prospect of the channel appearing on Freeview. "We hopefully will make some money because it is a commercial venture, but our primary interest in doing this is to exhibit our content to an international audience," Kerger says, because the previous strategy of trying to sell PBS shows to UK channels has clearly failed. That's ironic, too, given that PBS local schedules are chock-full of often dated BBC and other British TV repeats, from New Tricks to Doc Martin.
Viewers can tune in to PBS UK from 1 November (Sky channel 166), and the schedule will focus on "non-fiction programming". A science show, Nova, will air on weeknights at 7.50pm; current affairs will be served with Frontline on weeknights at 9pm, followed by history programming – a series called American Experience comes just after 10pm. Kerger also repeatedly speaks up for the documentary maker Ken Burns. His five-part series, Prohibition, which, she says, has "just premiered in the US to very significant audience because of all the interest in Boardwalk Empire", documents the rise and fall of the US ban on alcohol between 1920 and 1933. In total, she promises viewers "500 unique hours of content this year" and "1000 hours next year", which sounds like a lot, until you spread that out over 365 days.
Kerger describes PBS as having to position itself carefully against other offerings both in the US and the UK, arguing that there is hope for a serious alternative because on US cable schedules are now dominated by this "explosion of reality of shows". Many of which – from The Secret Millionaire to Supernanny – come from the UK, of course, although, with characteristic tact, Kerger says: "I wasn't going to make that point". She notes there are other US broadcasters "that started out doing work similar to public television, but, because the marketplace is a critical factor for them, have been unable to sustain programming that was their original mission". Like who? "Arts and Entertainment started out as a channel that was focused on that exactly, and now in the States it is a lot of CSI reruns."
Or there is the History Channel which, she says, "has developed out a whole genre of programmes that are reality-based, like Ice Road Truckers, and Pawn Stars", and to a lesser extent Discovery, which she gently accuses of populism by describing its science programming as "broader based". Later, though, she adds she is not trying to be holier than thou: "These are not value statements, these are different types of work," which is one way of putting it.
Not for nothing, though, is PBS based across the Potomac river from the US capital. The need to keep federal funders happy seems to make Kerger very diplomatic. Is Newshour, which rather unhelpfully is going to be aired the next day in the UK after it has been "complied" with Ofcom rules, designed as an antidote to Fox News? Or even, if we are going to be balanced about this, is it an antidote to the Democrat-oriented MSNBC? "No, we consider ourselves to be a broadcaster that serves both points of view," she replies. Press harder, and she says "I'm not working for Fox or MSNBC, so I don't want to comment on their way of handling the news", before adding that impartiality (not a requirement in the US) is "profoundly important; there has to be a space where you can get the facts". Except the next day timing may mean that Newshour will struggle to catch on.
At first there will be no budget to commission British filmakers, but Kerger adds that "there certainly could be an opportunity in the future". Nevertheless, she insists it will be a UK channel with "a British voice" despite the lack of local input, a mandate fulfilled by having British continuity announcers. Nor, surprisingly, will there be much of the children's programming, which Kerger first justifies by saying that in "our survey of the kids' market you seem to be well served for kids' content". So there won't be any episodes of worthy, hour-long Sesame Street, which has not been on air in the UK since 2001, after spells on ITV and Channel 4.
Except that is hardly an important deficit: Kerger's PBS UK promises to be one of the most interesting channel launches for some time, as long as the programming can deliver on the public service promise.
CV
Age 53
Education University of Maryland
Career 1979 Program development officer, US committee for Unicef 1984 director of development, International House 1989 director of principal gifts, Metropolitan Opera Association 1993 vice president/director of development WNET-TV 2000 vice president/station manager 2004 executive vice president and chief operating officer 2006 president and chief executive officer, Public Broadcasting Service