‘3rd Thursday’ Thrives Without Any Safety Net : Television: Channel 39’s public forum risked going live, putting people of opposing views together in an unpredictable, volatile brew. The payoff was the spontaneity that has helped to make the show unusually popular for its genre.

As the stunned “Third Thursday” crew looked on, host Marty Levin suddenly veered for the phone by the side of the stage. A commercial break during a live television show is no time for spontaneity.

“Fifteen seconds,” warned a nervous-looking floor director.

This particular edition of KNSD-TV’s (Channel 39) monthly, live, 90-minute public forum show, was focusing on growth. And it was starting to heat up. The six politicians and community activists on stage were clearly growing irritated with each other’s comments, while members of the audience were eagerly raising their hands to make comments and ask questions.

“These people are really ready to go,” Levin said into the phone, talking to show producer Steve Corman, who was in the production truck outside an auditorium.

Levin did not want to use the taped segment scheduled for that part of the show. Corman agreed.

“Five seconds,” the floor director said.

Levin put the phone down, whirled, hopped over a camera leg and rushed to the set. He made it to his position--barely. Disaster averted.

“Third Thursday,” which resumes its once-a-month schedule Thursday at 6:30 p.m. with a show on health-care costs, is special. Not only is the 90-minute, public-affairs show a rare format in the country, there is an energy created by putting people with vastly different perspectives in a room together, and then televising the event live.

The emotions stirred up by the issues invariably make for an unpredictable brew.

For the show’s crew, “Third Thursday” is television on the edge, working without a net.

“This,” Levin said after the growth program, “is as close as we come to danger.”

The October edition was a milestone of sorts for “Third Thursday.” Almost exactly a year earlier, the show went on the air with its first program.

The subject of that first show also was growth, and, everyone seems to agree, it was the worst edition of “Third Thursday.” It was staged at the North County Fair shopping center, and the sound was atrocious, the milling crowd unruly.

A year later, the show has come a long way. It has built up a surprisingly large audience, in addition to respect in the community, for its open, frank discussions of current issues.

In the 6:30-8 p.m. time slot, it has attracted a Nielsen rating as high as a 8 points--not spectacular, but solid for a public-affairs show. The audience for Channel 39’s 5 p.m. news show, in contrast, earned a 4 rating last quarter.

The small crew assigned to “Third Thursday” has become a traveling troupe, taking the show around the county to different auditoriums each month. It is almost routine for them, overcoming regular obstacles with relative ease.

This month’s edition will air from Wangenheim Junior High School in Mira Mesa. The subject, health-care costs, may not be as volatile as past topics, such as abortion or animal rights, but

it is impossible to predict the reaction. It is, after all, live television.

“ ‘Third Thursday’ parallels our mission better than any other single element” of the station, general manager Neil Derrough said.

Channel 39’s promotional slogan is, “We bring it straight to you.” With no frills and few concessions to traditional television glitz, “Third Thursday” couldn’t be any straighter.

It brings people together with vastly different points of view to talk about issues. People watching at home can call in questions. In addition to five or six panelists for each show, the audience is usually laced with a variety of other people involved with the issue.

“I wanted to be here to at least express my support for the concept,” said Escondido City Councilman Jerry Harmon, who sat in the audience during the growth show. “They’re making a concerted efforted to do something, to give the community a

forum on key issues.”

Harmon wasn’t called on during the show, but at one point a panel member started discussing growth restrictions in Poway. While he talked, Levin hustled up the aisle, and called on a member of the audience.

“I’m Linda Brannon, deputy mayor of Poway,” the audience member said, launching into a more accurate explanation of the situation.

It is up to Levin to orchestrate events, to ensure that each side has a fair chance to speak. Before the growth show, he told the audience not to focus on the hot controversy over development along the shores of Miramar Lake, warning them that it was not going to be a 90-minute show on the one topic.

“Please, we ask you to minimize the rhetoric and maximize questions,” he told the crowd before the program began.

At this year’s San Diego Press Club Awards, when “Third Thursday” won the award for best discussion/interview program, the judges wrote, “The interaction between the host and the audience keeps it interesting--he’s good!”

Levin is the ringmaster, keeping things lively and reasonably non-confrontational. He chides the audience about not asking enough questions, making them feel at ease when they rise to speak.

“Marty does a good job of ensuring there are balanced perspectives,” said Herb Cawthorne, a leader in the black community and a member of the growth panel. “It is as fair as a show can be and still have some teeth to it.”

“Third Thursday” producer Steve Corman realizes that the show will never rival the ratings of “The Cosby Show”--or, for that matter, “A Current Affair,” its competition on KGTV (Channel 10). A veteran of TV productions, with 20 years of producing programs in Chicago to his credit, Corman nevertheless has found the first year of “Third Thursday” to be a particularly rewarding experience.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to be involved in something like this,” he said.

Associate producer Kurt Snider, after five years earning awards working on the light and airy “P.M. Magazine” show, left Channel 8 last year to work on “Third Thursday.”

“I was tired of never-a-cloudy-day television,” he said. “ ‘P.M. Magazine’ is a co-host driven show; content takes a back seat to presentation. The best part about this show is that it’s nothing but content.”

Besides Snider and Corman, the regular “Third Thursday” crew is composed of associate producer Jan Hudson, who spends about 20 hours a week working on the show, and Amy Michael, who also produces the weekly half-hour show “San Diego Headliners.” Dr. Nee Howard, a semi-retired child-development specialist, supplies research.

Additional crew members are brought in the night of the show, but it’s the core group that has to bring the show together month after month.

Hudson spends most of her time on perhaps the biggest problem the show faces each month--finding a location. The site has to be big enough for a studio audience and the show’s heavy lighting equipment. It also has to be situated in such a way to allow the crew to clearly relay signals back to Channel 39.

A different site is used each month.

“One of the purposes of the show is to go to the communities, to make it available and accessible,” said Hudson.

Much of Michael’s time is spent dealing with the problem of getting an audience to the site. People love to get tickets, but they don’t always show up. For last month’s growth show, more than 500 tickets were given out, but only about 225 people actually appeared the night of the show--which turned out to be just right for the Mira Mesa High School auditorium.

The three to four taped segments used during the show--”fire starters” is the way Corman described them--are produced by Corman and Snider throughout the month. They often work at night, since the editing suites at Channel 39 are usually used by the advertising department during the day.

The composition of the panel is another challenge. The goal is to achieve balance without blandness, fairness without mediocrity.

A bad panel can ruin a good topic. The program on gangs bombed, Corman said, because there was no interaction among the panelists.

“We had people more into speechifying than making valid points,” said Corman.

It is a common problem. Put people with causes on live television, in particular politicians, and they usually will try to take advantage of the opportunity to make a few points.

“Nobody’s mind is going to be changed (by the show),” Levin said. “All you can hope for is that at least (the audience) will understand where everybody is coming from, and you hope it’s enlightening.”

The night of the show, uncertainty is more of a problem than the actual mechanical setup of the light and sound systems.

In an unusual arrangement, director Randy Mickler, watching monitors at Channel 39’s main studio, calls the shots--switch to camera one, or fade to camera two--and relays the instructions to the technical director in the production truck at the site via phone. Usually the director is at the site for remote broadcasts, but Channel 39 opted for this novel method to help coordinate the technical details already being handled at the Channel 39 studio.

“I was real skeptical at first, but it works very well,” Corman said.

Beyond the introduction and the insertion of the commercials, few of the events are mapped out, beyond a general guideline as to how things might best occur. There is no script for any of the evening’s events.

“The show itself is sort of free-flowing,” Snider said.

The show’s crew has become adept at spotting trouble before it happens. During the first show on growth, they spotted representatives of one group with a banner they clearly meant to unfurl during the show. The crew talked them out of it.

There have been little problems, though. One show was done at a Loma Portal elementary school directly in the Lindbergh Field flight path. The crew tried to get into the rhythm of the planes, inserting tapes when a jet flew overhead, but it was an example of the type of awkward situations that can develop on live television.

During the program on the proposed SDG&E; merger with Southern California Edison, there was a brief but potentially disastrous power outage. Before the show on animal rights, the guests representing the different perspectives practically refused to talk to each other, leading the crew to fear a show featuring nothing more than glowering, silent combatants.

However, considering the potential for disaster, “Third Thursday” has lived a charmed life, even without the protection of the short time delay used by most so-called “live” phone-in shows. The callers are truly live.

“We haven’t even had any last-minute cancellations,” Corman said. “I live in fear of a terrible rainstorm.”

Every show has come together with few dramatic problems. And everyone involved agrees the shows, if nothing else, are getting better.

Last month’s growth show was truly a measure of how far the show has come in the last year. The crew only ran two of the planned tape segments because the interaction between the panelists and the audience was so good.