Neither of us is old enough to have been fooled by the Trojan Horse (see Wikipedia). But we each have been working in public television decades enough to remember the days when distribution was handled by physically transporting bulky 2-inch videotapes from station to station — “bicycled” was the word —and much of the broadcast day and night was devoted to blackboard lectures, string quartets and lessons in Japanese brush painting: The old educational television versions of reality TV.
Bill Moyers interviews David Beckmann, courtesy of Bread of the World
Yet it also was a time of innovation and creativity. As the system evolved we saw bold experiments like PBL – the Public Broadcasting Laboratory and Al Perlmutter’s The Great American Dream Machine, each a predecessor to the commercial TV magazine shows 60 Minutes and 20/20. The TV Lab, jointly run by David Loxton at WNET in New York and Fred Barzyk at WGBH in Boston, nurtured and encouraged the first generation of video artists — Nam June Paik, Bill Viola and William Wegman among others…
Most of both our careers have been in public television. Our affection and gratitude for it abideth, but we are not blind to the problems. Public broadcasting’s ever-tenuous funding places it in a perpetual dilemma and forces it into a delicate balancing act. PBS provides programming like Independent Lens and P.O.V.that may not garner the most viewers but helps fulfill its essential mission of public service —and, candidly, attracts grants from kindred spirits who believe in a robust mix of ideas and visions.
But to lure a wider audience, it also airs what our neighborhood diner calls “lighter fare” — whether entertaining, upscale imports like Downton Abbey, home-grown, how-to programs like This Old House or (during pledge drives) nostalgic reruns of folk musicians, pop crooners, and financial and spiritual gurus — aimed at older viewers with, presumably, more disposable income.
Add to this the constant political pressures, especially from conservative politicians ever eager to cut off its funding (Mitt Romney says he wants to see commercials on “Sesame Street”), plus the self-censorship that all too often results, and you get a tendency toward orthodoxy and an aversion to controversy.
Free streaming of recent Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, and Tanglewood concerts will be available on the BSO’s website beginning with Tuesday’s 2 p.m. stream of the BSO playing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 and Mendelssohn’s Overture and Incidental Music to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Bernard Haitink….
The streaming, which can be heard atwww.bso.org/mediacenter, is offered in partnership with Classical New England (99.5 FM), a service of WGBH. Streams will be online at the BSO site for up a year after the initial concert.
Public radio and television stations are weighing the opportunities and risks of accepting political advertising following a federal court ruling that found an existing ban on such ads violates the First Amendment, and that running them would not undermine public broadcasting’s mission.
The decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California comes as candidates and political action groups are stockpiling millions of dollars for an election year advertising blitz expected to break records. While the ruling applies only to California and eight other western states, it could set a precedent, forcing public broadcasters nationwide to grapple with whether political ads would alienate listeners and viewers they depend on for donations….
Jeanne Hopkins, spokeswoman for rival WGBH-FM, said that the station is still studying the ruling – which could conceivably end up before the US Supreme Court on appeal – but that it doesn’t anticipate accepting political ads.
“The trusted relationship we have with our audiences and the environment we create for our programs is vitally important,’’ Hopkins said.
Vernon E. “Vern” Coleman passed away peacefully at home on March 18, 2012, after a long period with leukemia.
Coleman, a radio and television engineer, was a lifelong resident of Cape Cod. Born in Hyannis, he was the son of noted Cape artist and educator Vernon H. Coleman and Ruby E. Coleman.
A 1944 graduate of Barnstable High School, Mr. Coleman began a career in broadcasting in 1943 while still in high school at Cape Cod’s only radio station at the time, WOCB in West Yarmouth.
During the early 1960s he was employed as a member of the Department of Geophysics at WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) as a research assistant in electronics experimenting in underwater sound.
Mr. Coleman subsequently became involved in television broadcasting in the Boston area with WGBH-TV, Channel 2, where he worked fourteen years on the production of PBS programs such as The Boston Pops, Evening at Symphony, The French Chef with Julia Child, and numerous remote and studio presentations as audio producer and recordist.
In 1976, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for PBS production New Years’s Eve at Pops for the best live sound. He attended these ceremonies in Hollywood.
Television work also included eight years as staff engineer at WCVB-TV, Channel 5. During this time in Boston, Mr. Coleman was also in charge of engineering at Northeast Broadcasting School. Upon retirement from Channel 5, he continued working locally as a contract engineer for several Cape radio stations including WQRC, WOCN-FM, WFCC, WKPE, WXTK, and Boston University’s WBUR-AM. As a ten year volunteer he provided audio services for the Cape Cod March of Dimes Teleramas. He was a graduate of the Barnstable Police Academy and until recently he was a civilian volunteer for the Barnstable Police Department.
Free streaming of recent Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, and Tanglewood concerts will be available on the BSO’s website beginning with Tuesday’s 2 p.m. stream of the BSO playing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 and Mendelssohn’s Overture and Incidental Music to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Bernard Haitink….
To PBS, With (Tough) Love
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship in Huffington Post — 3/23/2012