TV from the home front

While the war in Iraq plays out on television at home, what are U.S. servicemen abroad watching? Those with the time actually face their own choice between news and escapism, sifting through the gamut of television fare -- from “The Bernie Mac Show” to Jay Leno’s monologue to “The O’Reilly Factor” -- courtesy of Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.

Operated by the Department of Defense, the service makes television available to 800,000 servicemen and their families outside the U.S., providing troops what’s billed as “a touch of home” by broadcasting programs from domestic networks. The satellite feeds (staggered for time zones in Asia and Europe) are currently available to U.S. forces across the world, including Turkey and naval ships in the Persian Gulf, with closed-circuit service reaching areas such as Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates.

Programming decisions are orchestrated from March Air Reserve Base -- located near Riverside, about 75 miles east of Los Angeles -- by Lawrence Marotta, a civilian and former ABC executive who has served as chief of Armed Forces Network’s television division since 1987.

According to Marotta, it’s pretty much business as usual, with no concessions made to the fact the country is at war. The stated goal, in fact, is to approximate what servicemen and their families would be seeing at home, which explains why the lineup includes everything from news to children’s shows such as “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Sesame Street.”

Since the war began, AFN, much like the major networks, has weighed the appetite for additional news against providing an escape to those seeking one. On its Web site, the service notes that it is trying to “balance between providing critical news coverage to the deployed audience with the desire to be able to offer other alternatives.”

A sampling of e-mail coming to AFN underscores that how much news to provide is a challenge for the service -- “probably close to what broadcasters deal with here,” Marotta noted.

“I know that the war coverage is important, but at the same time I feel that children still need to be children and to go about with some of the same routine,” said one anonymous respondent. “Sometimes the war coverage can be too much and is too much to watch. Is there any way to keep the children’s shows on during this time?”

A military spouse, however, offered this: “I just wanted to let you know that my husband and I really appreciate that you are playing the news full-time right now on AFN Pacific. We live off-base and only have access to the one channel. It is so important that you show the news, as we have family and friends involved in this war. I’m sure you have gotten complaints, but people need to realize that this directly affects us military people and you must show the news at this juncture.”

In addition to AFN, which approximates a mainstream network, there is a news and sports channel, all of them mixing and matching programming from multiple networks because of the limited channel capacity.

Tonight’s entertainment lineup, for example, features CBS’ “Touched by an Angel,” NBC’s “The West Wing” and PBS’ “Masterpiece Theatre.” On other nights, Fox’s “American Idol” is followed by the WB’s “Gilmore Girls,” or Fox’s “Bernie Mac” leads into ABC’s “The George Lopez Show” and NBC’s “Fear Factor.” And only on Armed Forces Network does NBC’s “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” lead into CBS’ “Late Show With David Letterman.”

AFN News provides a similar cross-section, with rotating blocks of time allocated to CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC in addition to network newscasts. Military briefings are covered in their entirety.

Initiated during World War II to provide troops with popular music and radio shows, programs are made available to the service free or at a nominal cost, with Hollywood guilds waiving residual fees. Most prime-time programs lag several months behind their U.S. broadcast and run commercial-free, bridging breaks with military news and interstitial segments.

Armed Forces Network doesn’t edit news that might depict the military in an unfavorable light, nor does it shy from series that do the same. Much of the programming is geared toward family members, since military personnel often have less access to TV. “The troops on the ground are either busy moving, or if they stop, they sleep,” Marotta noted.

Given the breadth of programming at his disposal and absence of ratings pressure, Marotta has called AFN “the best job in television.” In fact, one serviceman wrote to say it’s too bad AFN isn’t available stateside to distill all of television down to a couple of channels.

The service is expected to add some capacity in December, introducing AFN Family and AFN Movies, which will allow alternative network AFN Spectrum to carry more programs from the likes of cable’s Discovery Channel, History Channel and TLC.

For the most part, AFN has managed to avoid controversy. Conservative legislators did publicly complain a decade ago that the service wasn’t offering Rush Limbaugh’s radio show and its daily broadsides against then-President Clinton. Limbaugh subsequently joined the lineup and can be heard along with a range of talk and music, including Charles Osgood, Dr. Laura and “Car Talk.”

Based on viewer response, the audience is hardly monolithic in its tastes. Although the Dixie Chicks were dropped by some radio stations for criticizing President Bush, for example, an e-mail to the radio arm urged programmers to “keep playing the Dixie Chicks! In America, you’re allowed to speak your views without being castigated.”

Similarly, despite what has frequently been a politically charged debate surrounding the media’s war coverage, Marotta said the service has registered few complaints.

“In normal times, most of our feedback is ‘Why did you pick that sports event over this sports event?’ ” Marotta said. “As we rotate among the cable news networks, of course each has its constituency. As long as people complain in equal increments, we feel we have a pretty good balance.”