13 PBS Stations Look West in Forging New Programming Ties

Without a lot of fanfare, 13 major public television stations in the United States have banded together into a Pacific Rim Co-Production Assn., with non-commercial TV networks in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The venture is designed to stimulate cooperative programming among the four nations and already has two series in production.

The U.S. stations are neither exclusively nor primarily on the West Coast, but rather represent a cross section of key public-TV outlets across the nation--including KCET Channel 28 in Los Angeles, KCTS in Seattle, WGBH in Boston, WNET in New York and WETA in Washington.

The same stations also belong to the U.S. Public Television International Consortium, which pools resources to develop and produce PBS programs through international collaborations. The international consortium was formed about two years ago; six months later it established the Pacific Rim association.

“We felt there was an opportunity for co-production that had not been realized in the Pacific Rim,” said chairman Burnill F. Clark, president and chief executive officer of the Seattle’s KCTS, “and that Australian Broadcasting Corp., Television New Zealand and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. were our natural partners. People tend to think East and this is the European Century, but we are now entering the Pacific Century and we wanted to be on the cutting edge with this consortium.”

Asked why Japan had not been included in the association, Clark said that the Pacific Rim stations wanted to “simplify the process, and didn’t want language to be a barrier. We want to make the consortium work in terms of communication, and our intent is to (eventually) expand it.”

David Stewart, director of international activities for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps support public radio and television with federal funds, said the member stations originally formed the international consortium “so that the stations could begin to speak with one voice” rather than operate independently as they often do with such co-producers as the British Broadcasting Corp.

Stewart said the Pacific Rim alliance was formed as a separate entity “to aggregate funds” among the four English-speaking nations. “The four countries can get involved in productions that no one of them could have done separately,” Stewart said.

The two Pacific Rim projects now in production:

--”Power in the Pacific.” Australian Broadcasting is the senior partner, with KCET as the U.S. co-producer, in a $1.5 million, four-part documentary about the shifting balance of military and economic power among Pacific Rim nations. “Power” will air on PBS in the fall of 1990.

--”Fire on the Rim.” KCTS in Seattle is the senior partner, working with Television New Zealand, in a four-part series exploring how the common threat of seismic and volcanic disasters, from earthquakes to tsunamis, affect the people and cultures of the Pacific. The $1.3-million series is planned for national airing in the fall of 1991.

In the development stage are:

--”Islands,” a natural-history series from Television New Zealand that would explore life on the Pacific islands.

--”Pacific Rim in Performance,” in which KCTA in St. Paul, Minn., would include in its “Alive From Off Center” series a one-hour program featuring performers from Pacific Rim nations.

Phylis Geller, KCET’s vice president for national productions and the U.S. programming representative for Pacific Rim, said that the member nations decide on projects by majority vote. A KCET-proposed project on 20th-Century efforts toward world peace, including the League of Nations, the United Nations and country-to-country diplomacy, had been turned down, Geller disclosed.

Asked what the subject had to do with the Pacific Rim, she said with a laugh: “That was the problem. In the process we’re learning that projects have to be more focused on the Pacific Rim.”

The co-productions themselves also necessitate negotiation. Originally “Power in the Pacific” had been conceived by the Australians as a look at the post-World War II relations between the two Pacific Rim superpowers--Japan and the United States. But Blaine Baggett, KCET’s director of national public affairs and the U.S. executive producer on the project, said he successfully argued that the concept should go beyond the two nations and focus on all the Pacific powers, including the Soviet Union, China and ANZUS--the alliance between Australia, New Zealand and the United States

Meanwhile, Pacific Rim issues are generating a lot of interest within public TV.

Many of the consortium stations already belong to a U.S.-Japan Public Television Program Council, whose goal, according to KCET President William H. Kobin, is to “obtain program underwriting from Japanese corporations” on programs about Japan and Japan-U.S. relations.

KCET, for example, will produce “Quest for Education,” a one-hour special comparing Japanese and U.S. educational systems that Kobin expects will air later this year or early next year. It is being underwritten by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Assn., Hitachi and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd.

In the labyrinth of public TV, not all programs about the Pacific Rim belong to the Pacific Rim consortium. KCET’s recent three-part series “The U.S. and the Philippines: In Our Image,” for example, was “totally separate,” said Kobin.

Maryland Public Television has signed an agreement with Central China TV to co-produce “The Voyage of the Dragon” for its “Timeline” series about key moments in world history. In “Voyage,” the producers will highlight issues surrounding the Ming Dynasty’s decision in the 15th Century to pull back its fleets and China’s diplomatic influence through the known world, and retreat into a closed-door policy. Production is scheduled to begin in 1990.

Maryland Public Television is also talking with Channel 4 in London and Australian Broadcasting Corp. about producing a documentary series called “The Mini Dragons,” dealing with Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. “They are the newly industrialized countries,” said Raymond Ho, president of the Maryland station group, “who are essentially becoming economic giants, who are rising like dragons.”

Ho signed an agreement with Central China TV on behalf of the 13 U.S. Pacific Rim consortium member stations late last year to co-produce “A Night of China Television.” The program will show in an hour or two what it’s like watching TV in China, he said.