TPT at 50

Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) will be a half-century old next month. Don't expect it to be around another 50 years, perhaps not even another 10. At least not as public television. TV is so ... 20th century.

Instead, look for a "family of services" -- programming available anytime, anywhere, anyplace. Gone are TPT's two-channel days. Today, local public television broadcasts on 12 channels, 10 of them digital. Programming is available on YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo, podcasts and cable video-on-demand. "There's a huge transformation going on," said TPT president/CEO Jim Pagliarini.

"We're good at serving kids and older people, but we have nothing going on right now that's bringing 20- and 30-year-olds into public broadcasting," he said. He's not sure what public-service media for the next generation will be, although he has a strong hunch "it's going to be very different from 'Masterpiece Theatre.'"

One idea is to hire a team of young people and have them figure out what public-service media is for their generation, Pagliarini said. But while the goal of posting "Dragonfly TV" segments on YouTube or iTunes is to get TPT-produced content where web-savvy young people are more likely to see it, Pagliarini is also angling for support from companies that make or sell the hardware and software kids use: "We can go to, say, Best Buy and say, 'Television is the tip of the iceberg of how we're distributing this show.'"

Some things never change: Financing all the grand ideas will take as much creative thinking as the programs. And if the new approaches don't bear fruit, TPT and other public-service media organizations could have a serious problem.

From two channels to podcasting

There's a certain back-to-the-future element to the transformation at the broadcasting operation that went on the air Sept. 16, 1957, as KTCA, Channel 2.

In the beginning, under founding general manager John Schwarzwalder, KTCA was devoutly educational and fiercely local. In partnership with the St. Paul Public School System and local colleges and art institutions, it produced dozens of low-budget instructional series (Remember "Ya Hablamos Español" with "Don Miguel" Hathaway?). Hesitant to sully its mission with froth like "Masterpiece Theatre," KTCA resisted joining the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) until 1974, five years after the national programming service was formed.

With the arrival in 1977 of new station boss Bill Kobin, TPT embraced nationalism. "Those were glory years, a really creative period," said Catherine Allan, whose credits as an executive producer for TPT include such celebrated and nationally televised documentaries as "Hoop Dreams" and "Liberty! The American Revolution."There was lots of support from the big corporations and foundations, lots of money, lots of time to do projects, tremendous optimism. And there was little organization. You could kind of do whatever you wanted to do if it was reasonably good. And you didn't have to go out looking for money."

Creating entertaining, educational series such as "Newton's Apple" and offbeat specials such as "Swan Lake, Minnesota" (an outdoor ballet), TPT made itself a player in the public-TV system just a rung below producing powerhouses such as WNET/New York and WGBH/Boston.

Indeed, TPT is seen as "a system leader" to which other stations look for ideas and inspiration, according to PBS chief Wayne Godwin. "I think they're doing a tremendous job," he said. "It's what happens when you take a community that cares about itself and really has embraced its public television station and you put it together with excellent management."

But if the upside of now vs. then is that TPT "doesn't have to prove itself," as Allan said, the downside is that national corporate and foundation funding is much harder to come by. The days of the Exxons and Mobils tossing money around like drunken revelers on a Mardi Gras float are gone.

Which is why TPT is aggressively looking for new ways to pay for and promote a program schedule larger than ever. Partnerships with other nonprofits -- local nonprofits -- are becoming essential.

"In some ways, it's all coming around again," said Brendan Henehan, producer of the venerable Friday night public-affairs roundup "Almanac" and TPT's unofficial historian. "There's a lot more of that kind of partnering and getting out into the community than we have had in a long time. The whole premise of the Minnesota Channel [one of TPT's digital channels] is working with like-minded community institutions."

The partnership productions range from low-tech classroom series (Shades of Don Miguel!) to a documentary on the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra shot during a European tour. In the past year, the Minnesota Channel did projects with 50 groups, totaling more than 100 hours of programming, Henehan said.

An embarrassment of niches

Pagliarini also sees a future for TPT in a time-tested public television strategy: exploiting programming niches. One such niche is programming for baby boomers. "We're asking, 'What would it look like if public television made a commitment to serving that aging population much in the same way we've made a commitment to serve children?'" he said. "Is there a 'Sesame Street' for that generation? Is there a body of work that we could create that would really plug into the needs of that life stage?"

The first stab at this new mission is the TPT-produced "Life (Part 2)," a weekly series (9:30 p.m. Sundays, Channel 2) for and about budding seniors that's in the middle of a 13-week national tryout. With actor Alan Rosenberg ("L.A. Law,"The Guardian") as host, the show draws on the wit, wisdom and experience of everyday boomers and retirees as well as celebrities (i.e., Robert Klein, Marilyn French, Stanley Crouch). Executive producer Naomi Boak, whose credits include the Emmy-winning PBS documentary "The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer's," is aiming to debunk ageist stereotypes while trying to incite "smart and daring conversations about aging in America."

Pagliarini believes that contrary to what public television's detractors may say about cable rendering it redundant, many of its old niches -- history, nature, science -- are still valid.

"The History Channel will never do a biography of Alexander Hamilton with the depth and credibility and the richness that we do it," Pagliarini said. "The same thing with children's programming. There are some really good shows emerging on cable channels for children, but nowhere near the kind of commitment we have to providing noncommercial, solidly education series for children."

Paying the tab

Having programs spread over multiple channels and the Internet means it's harder to gather a significant number of viewers to make a pitch for support. Traditional pledge drives, much maligned but effective, may not work anymore. Corporate largesse isn't what it used to be either. And government funding is as iffy as ever.

One solution is partnerships with what Pagliarini calls "mission-similar" organizations that can provide expertise and share costs.

With the Second Harvest Heartland food bank, for example, TPT produced a documentary on hunger in the Twin Cities. With Ramsey County Health Center, it produced basic health-education shows in seven languages. A possible bonus is that supporters of these other groups might write checks to TPT as well, Pagliarini said.

The trick is to develop deeper relationships with viewers, Pagliarini said: "Take our children's channel. We're going to have children's programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We should be able to develop much deeper relationships with families for that service."

The official station motto adopted back in 1960 -- "Qualitas, Quantitas, Opportunitas" -- seems more apt than ever. As producer Allan said, "We haven't stopped dreaming big or trying to break through with the next unusual, big hit. No one wants to sit around and just do things as usual and just survive. I think there's a feeling that in order to survive, you have to be breaking new ground."

Noel Holston, a longtime television columnist for the Star Tribune, works with the Peabody Awards for electronic media at the University of Georgia.