Show’s Founder Steps Out of the ‘P.O.V.’ Hot Seat : Television: As the controversial series enters its fifth season on PBS, Marc Weiss is taking a year’s leave of absence.

When PBS’ conservative critics want to blast the public network for showing too many controversial programs--on gay themes or with a supposed liberal bias--the program mentioned with the greatest frequency is “P.O.V.,” whose name stands for “Point of View.”

It was “P.O.V.,” for example, that last year broadcast Marlon Riggs’ controversial program about black gay experiences, “Tongues Untied,” and this year showed Riggs’ film on images of African Americans in media, “Color Adjustment.” “P.O.V.” is also the program that last summer had scheduled the short film “Stop the Church,” about a protest by the AIDS activist group ACT-UP at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. That program was later pulled, amid much public discussion, by PBS two weeks before it was to air.

Now, as “P.O.V.” enters its fifth season as a summer series on PBS, Marc Weiss, its founder and executive producer, is going to step out of the hot seat for a year’s leave of absence.

Weiss will be replaced for the year by Ellen Schneider, the former publicist for the program who left to work at public TV’s Independent Television Service. Weiss said he intends to relax and possibly travel during his year off.

“I don’t really have any plans, which is the whole point--not to have any deadlines, plans or lists,” Weiss said. “I used to know how to do that.”

The last year, with its controversies and the attendant calls, letters, publicity and meetings, has been particularly grueling, Weiss said.

“I’m sure that’s an element in my needing to take a break,” said Weiss, a former filmmaker. “But keep in mind that I have been doing this for seven years.”

Weiss leaves the program amid continuing furor about “Tongues Untied” among executives at public stations, many of whom refused to air the program last year and who blame him for negative publicity they received as a result.

But he also is stepping down at a time when the series, although battle-worn, is coming out of the last year’s conflicts with new projects and some unusual new techniques for attracting viewers and films to show.

For example, the program is experimenting on radio stations in several cities with call-in talk shows, designed to provide a forum for discussion after particularly provocative episodes.

So far, public-radio stations in Salt Lake City; Ashland, Ore.; Boulder, Colo., and Erie, Pa., have aired discussions after this summer’s “P.O.V.” shows. In addition, the syndicated black-themed radio show, “Night Talk,” has carried discussions of “P.O.V.” episodes, including “Color Adjustment.”

Weiss has also set up a Minority Investment Fund, which will provide funding to help independent minority filmmakers finish works-in-progress that the program’s producers are interested in airing. Also being considered, although not likely to materialize for a while, is a plan to solicit on-camera reviews of “P.O.V.” programs from audience members.

Tonight the series, which normally airs for an hour on Monday nights at 10 on KCET Channel 28, will air as a two-hour double feature. “Last Images of War,” about photojournalists covering the war in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion of that country, will air at 10, along with “The Longest Shadow,” about a filmmaker’s search for the truth about her grandfather, who disappeared in Bulgaria under communist rule.

Later this summer, “P.O.V.” will show “Promise Not to Tell,” about accusations of child sexual abuse in a Salt Lake City suburb.

On Aug. 24, “P.O.V.” risks angering the Catholic Church again--last year, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles urged a boycott of KCET for showing “Stop the Church”--with “Faith Even to the Fire,” described as “a crisis of conscience among three American nuns who condemn the Catholic Church’s lingering racism and sexism.” The series will also air a 20-minute update to the 1989 film, “Roger & Me,” Michael Moore’s irreverent look at the impact of General Motors’ closure of an auto plant in Flint, Mich.

Depending on the city, a number of these programs will be followed by radio talk shows--particularly, “Promise Not to Tell.”

But Weiss balked at the suggestion that the call-ins were designed to deflect some of the heat that “P.O.V.” might take for airing provocative shows.

Instead, he said, getting feedback on controversial topics was the intent of “P.O.V.”--which grew out of Weiss’ participation in the grass-roots video and film movement in New York--from the beginning.

“These films were made to begin discussion, not end discussion,” he said.

William Swinton, the program’s public relations officer, said “P.O.V.” staff members help local stations find experts in their area to interview about the programs and help coordinate relations between the radio station and the television station that airs “P.O.V.” in each local area.

From the start, it was apparent that “P.O.V.” was going to be provocative. It was conceived as a forum for independent filmmakers to express opinion rather than show documentary-style journalism.

But PBS’ critics have charged that it is provocative with a liberal tilt.

Weiss said that the show’s programming committee includes conservatives and pointed to programs like those being aired tonight as examples of critiques of communist regimes.

“P.O.V.,” he said, should indeed be questioned if its programs aren’t appropriate. But, he said, “P.O.V.” is just one series.

“I don’t think ‘P.O.V.’ is above accountability,” Weiss said. “But I don’t think that ‘P.O.V.’ should be held accountable for all the problems the system has.”