Factors once a danger to PBS now gives system a chance to shine

NEW YORK — Honey Boo Boo, the management at PBS wants to thank you.

You, too, real housewives. And naked castaways, Long Island princesses, breakaway Amish, storage warriors, pawn stars and pickers. People at public television may not want to watch you, but they are happy to see you.

When Discovery, The Learning Channel, History, Bravo, A&E and similar networks emerged, there was a real fear it could lead to the death of PBS. Each specialized network would pick off a portion of PBS' audience for programs on science, nature, history and the arts. Founded as an alternative to commercial TV, PBS was losing what made it unique.

Yet in the past few years, these cable networks discovered that it was much more profitable to create reality TV stars. PBS' path was cleared, and it is making the most of its new chance.

"It is now once again something that the viewer can't get anywhere else," said Beth Hoppe, PBS' programming chief.

PBS' viewership slipped steadily starting in 1993, which hardly made it unusual in a world with an ever-increasing number of choices. Since 2009, that trend has reversed. PBS' average prime-time audience has ticked back up from 1.9 million four years ago to 2.1 million now, with the growth faster among young people. Certainly the sensation of "Downton Abbey" is a key factor, but the growth isn't just on Sunday.

Hoppe is trying to infuse PBS with new energy, make its projects more timely and get her colleagues to treat it as a television network instead of just a public service.

"We were concerned that people would consider us irrelevant because we were no longer providing a service, or that we would no longer be perceived as providing a service that people couldn't get anywhere else," she said. Maybe PBS' programs were better, but that might not matter, she said.

She left PBS to join the new wave, taking a job at Discovery to produce science programming for its networks. She knew it was time for something else when an executive asked her to go to Los Angeles to "add sex and celebrities" to the "Curiosity" series she was working on. Hoppe talked to old friend Paula Kerger, the president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service, to see if there was room for her if she returned.

There was, and by last December, she was made responsible for PBS' programming department.

Hoppe cites Animal Planet's mermaids shows as examples of something PBS would never do. "Mermaids: The Body Found" played like a documentary but was an admitted fake and was a huge success, spawning a sequel.

PBS, meanwhile, is a Snookie-free zone.

Hoppe has tried to make PBS more topical, ordering a lengthy examination of guns in America that ran a month after the Newtown, Conn., school shooting. She pushed PBS producers for programs looking at the Boston Marathon bombing, the meteorite that exploded over Russia in February and Superstorm Sandy.

"She comes to her job with a filmmaker's sensibility," said John Bredar, vice president of national programming at Boston's WGBH, the largest supplier of PBS programming. "She understands things from the ground up as a producer, as opposed to someone who just commissions work. She's someone who has a visceral understanding of what the market is like."

In October, PBS' "Frontline" is collaborating with ESPN for "Concussion Watch," an investigation into health issues caused by violent collisions in the National Football League.

PBS will aggressively mine anniversaries as programming hooks. This fall brings an "American Masters" special on Billie Jean King 40 years after her "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match with Bobby Riggs and a show on "War of the Worlds" 75 years after the radio program incited panic.

As with other networks, the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination will be given attention. PBS' programming will include a four-hour portrait of Kennedy, a "cold case" look at evidence in the shooting and a minute-by-minute recap of the killing from the firing of shots to when CBS' Walter Cronkite reported Kennedy's death.

PBS is also trying to bring more consistency to a schedule that encompasses several genres. Programmers call it "flow," and in this case it means concentrating science programming on Wednesday, arts on Friday, with more history and news-oriented shows on Monday and Tuesday.

"I'm so delighted that she's in this job and really trying to help us become more timely, to bring more context in and really look to refresh what new genres we could bring to public television," Kerger said.

While there's much on cable TV that PBS doesn't want to emulate, Hoppe said the competition has pushed public broadcasting to be more innovative. She considers "Antiques Roadshow" an example. The success of miniseries like History's "Hatfields & McCoys" and "The Bible" is pushing PBS to get into that genre, with the first project under development involving the Civil War.

The system's crown jewel, "Downton Abbey," returns for its fourth season on Jan. 5. You'd have to look back two decades to Ken Burns' "The Civil War" to find a series as important to PBS.

The hope is that it doesn't exist in a vacuum, that some of the interest created by the series can be transferred to other things on the schedule. Programs on Henry VIII's palace and "Secrets of Chatsworth" were clearly aired to appeal to Anglophile "Downton" fans, and this fall will see documentaries on the Tower of London and Scotland Yard. Same thing with some British dramas, like "Call the Midwife" and "The Bletchley Circle."

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Online:

http://www.pbs.org

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