‘THIS IS MY EVEREST’ : CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN OF WNET-TV

To say that William F. Baker sees his move from commercial to non-commercial television as a challenge is an extreme understatement.

“I’ve been to the (North and South) poles,” Baker said, “and now I want to climb a mountain. . . . This is my mountain, my Mt. Everest.”

Baker, a veteran broadcaster and avid explorer, was named last week to succeed John Jay Iselin as president of New York’s WNET-TV, the country’s largest public-television station and a major supplier of programming to the Public Broadcasting Service.

For the last eight years, Baker, 44, has been president of Group W Television, overseeing the company’s five TV stations. In moving to public television, he is taking a pay cut of approximately 50% (to about $150,000).

“You don’t take a job like this unless it’s something that’s in your heart and your system,” Baker said by telephone from Group W’s Manhattan headquarters. He said he plans to assume his new position at WNET, a few blocks away, May 15. Iselin, his predecessor, announced last fall his intention to resign the post he held for 13 years.

While he exuded enthusiasm and confidence, Baker sounded as though he was well aware of and braced for the uphill struggle that awaits him.

In selecting Baker after a five-month search, WNET’s board of trustees clearly sought to address the two major issues confronting the station as it turns 25 this year: economic stability and continued prominence as producer of approximately 40% of national prime-time programming for public television. Its series include “Great Performances,” “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” “Nature” and “Adam Smith’s Money World.”

“We were looking for someone who covered so many bases--a leader, a manager, a fund-raiser, a broadcaster, a producer and a politically savvy person--we weren’t sure we would find one,” WNET Chairman William M. Ellinghaus said. “When we found Bill Baker, we felt right away we had found the type of person we were looking for.”

During his 25-year broadcasting career, Baker has proven himself at both management and programming. As Group W president, he has overseen stations that reach 20 million viewers. Previously, as president of Los Angeles-based Group W Productions, Baker earned four Emmy awards for programming.

He began his broadcasting career in 1961 in his native Cleveland where he worked as a radio announcer, engineer, reporter and producer. He was also a program manager and producer at a Scripps-Howard television station in Cleveland. Baker holds a Ph.D. in communications and organizational behavior from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

“I’ve held every job in broadcasting, except salesman,” quipped Baker, a gregarious, good-humored, plain-spoken man. He said he finds the idea of asking for money “odious,” but he acknowledged that he would “have to start doing some begging” on behalf of WNET.

Baker expressed optimism that he would find the necessary funds from the public, the business sector and the federal government to continue WNET’s “commitment to national as well as local programming. . . . With this station’s heritage, and in a city like New York, I honestly can’t see why we can’t do both,” he said.

“I don’t expect it to be easy, but I intend to do it,” he said.

“I realize that nearly everyone predicts catastrophe for public television,” he continued, reflecting current concerns at WNET about whether the station can continue to produce local and national programming and remain solvent at a time when federal and corporate funding for public television is diminishing. “But I see the demand for public television growing, especially demand on the part of special segments of the audience.

Stressing his concern for “more social responsibility” on the part of broadcasters and the business sector, Baker said he planned to utilize his corporate knowledge and contacts to bring this point across to potential WNET funders.

“We’ve got to keep our mission and the importance of our mission--to provide public affairs, cultural, educational . . . alternative programming--out there in view of all our constituencies. We’ve got to make the point that America without public television would be tragic.”

Saying that he wanted to keep all fund-raising options open, Baker did not rule out advertising as a source of funding. But he said “it’s at the bottom of my list. After all, without advertising, we’re not under the same obligation as the commercial networks, which are overcommercialized to the point where there is now more concern for making money than for creating good and important programming.

“If public television started to be the same as commercial television, all television would reach the lowest common denominator, and I’m going to do my best to keep the system cooking the way it is.”