Moving From Commercial TV to PBS Sobers WNET’s Baker

When William F. Baker left the world of commercial broadcasting last spring to become president of the country’s largest public television station, he promptly called upon his old friends at the commercial stations here and asked them to provide free, on-air promotion for WNET. His requests, he says, were flatly denied.

“I found out that the people who had been my friends were now seeing me as the enemy, out of fear of competition--and, frankly, I was surprised, because I’d always thought we were all in this business together,” Baker remarked.

Interdependence was a frequent Baker refrain during a recent interview in his mid-Manhattan, WNET office, filled with his collection of clocks and mementos from his trips to the North and South Poles.

Public broadcasters “make a special statement” by providing the TV viewing audience with educational and cultural programming, he said, and the government and the corporate sector have an obligation to support “this incredible mission.” And he suggested that commercial broadcasters “might benefit their image” by contributing too.

Slightly more than nine months after departing one of the country’s most prominent commercial broadcasting operations, Group W Television and Group W Satellite Communications, for WNET, the largest producer of prime-time programming for PBS, the feisty executive definitely has the public TV fervor.

“I saw this job as a chance-of-a-lifetime opportunity to do something very important,” said Baker, 45, who said he took a salary cut of about 80% in the move. “Public television is not an asset owned by somebody, but a public treasure. So the obligation is not to make money, but to do something that benefits the public, and therefore must be held to the highest standard, and this is a weighty obligation.

“I knew it would be difficult. I came into it with my eyes open, knowing that I would face all the problems of running a major TV station, which I’ve done, and also the problems of running a huge charity.”

As president of Group W Television, Baker was responsible for five network-affiliated stations around the country, serving approximately 20 million viewers. He also oversaw Group W’s L.A.-based program production company, a key supplier of syndicated TV programming such as “PM Magazine” and “Hour Magazine.” As chairman of Group W Satellite Communications, Baker led the development of the country’s largest satellite distributor of video programming.

Prior to that, Baker had worked in a variety of positions with Group W. He began working in radio at age 12.

At WNET he oversees a $90.6-million budget that consists of contributions from viewers, foundations, businesses and the government, and grants for specific productions. Maintaining support is a constant struggle. A winter mailing to drum up contributions is bringing in less than a similar solicitation a year ago, station officials report.

“I’m used to operating in a profit-oriented world, where there was always enough money to finance my great ideas. Here, having the ideas doesn’t mean we can go with them,” Baker said.

For example, he has persuaded former network correspondent Linda Ellerbee to develop a series at WNET along the lines of her “Our World” program that ran on ABC last season, but he estimated that it would take one to two years to line up all the funding for it.

“I had no idea how easy it all was until I came here,” Baker observed. “By far, there is more of this kind of (financial) struggle here than in commercial TV, and I think few commercial broadcasters appreciate this. But it also makes you a broader person, and pushes you harder.”

One of his major, immediate goals, he said, is to establish a $10-million to $20-million endowment at the station, “so that when a great idea comes along, we’ll be ready, or so that we’ll be ready if we run into trouble.”

Like his predecessor John Jay Iselin, who resigned last year, Baker is trying to walk WNET along a fine line between being a local television station and a major producer of programming for the national PBS schedule. On the one hand, he said, “We’re here to serve this community”--a mission that he believes the station has “failed” to fulfill in the past. Yet he was quick to add: “We do have an obligation to continue to support the core of PBS’ programming; New York has to be a leader.”