‘Voting’ Is Special, but Time Slot Isn’t : Television: PBS show aimed at young voters will be competing against MTV Awards and ‘Beverly Hills, 90210.’

It seemed like an admirable idea: using television to lure a generation of cynical, sometimes apathetic young citizens into the voting booth.

With that as the goal, public-television station WETA in Washington produced “Why Bother Voting?,” described as an MTV-style program featuring a cast of celebrities, comedians and rap artists, including actress Lisa Bonet, model Paulina Porizkova and comedians Robert Klein and Leah Krinsky.

But now, a scheduling snafu may cost the program its audience.

The time slot for “Why Bother Voting?”--next Wednesday at 8 p.m.--was chosen last spring, according to PBS. Since then, the same night has been selected by MTV for its “MTV Video Music Awards”--with performances by Guns N’ Roses, the Black Crowes, Pearl Jam, the Cure, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and others--and by Fox Broadcasting for the launch of its “back to school” episodes of “Beverly Hills, 90210.”

Depending on the time zone, “Why Bother Voting?” will be up against one or both of the most popular programs on the two youth-oriented networks.

*

“It’s the pits,” said Ann Pincus, vice president of communications at WETA. “When I found out, I went into an immediate funk.”

PBS has no plans to reschedule the program.

“The scheduling was done at a time when there was no awareness of what the competition would be,” said Steven Ashley, director of scheduling and planning for PBS, who jokingly referred to the situation as “Why Bother Watching?”

Based on previous ratings for the two programs, Giles Lundberg, vice president of research and marketing at Fox, expects “Beverly Hills, 90210” and the MTV awards to attract three-fourths of the available teen viewers.

“It’s tougher for them in the first place to attract younger viewers,” Lundberg said of PBS. “And they are programming on a night where there will be even more competition than usual.”

Ashley said that the night and time were chosen as part of PBS’ promotional “Back to School Week,” and most of the network’s 300-plus stations had agreed to preempt other programming for the package that includes “Why Bother Voting?”

In addition, he said, the publicity materials announcing the time for the program had been made up well in advance, and could not be changed. And teachers, on whom PBS is counting to use the program in class, had already been notified that the show would air next Wednesday, he said.

“You wince, but you don’t undo the tons of work that has gone into creating something larger than just a single broadcast,” Ashley said.

PBS spokeswoman Karen Doyne said that the network believes that its program is strong enough to compete against MTV and Fox, and predicted that those teens and young adults who “want something with substance” will switch to PBS.

But WETA’s Pincus said that the situation “makes me sick,” because it could mean that the very young people at whom “Why Bother Voting?” is aimed won’t see it.

She said that the station has been attempting to counteract the effects of the competition by encouraging other stations to schedule repeats on other days, as it plans to do.

In Los Angeles, KCET Channel 28 does not plan to repeat “Why Bother Voting?,” said Barbara Goen, vice president for public information. But Huntington Beach-based KOCE-TV Channel 50, which generally avoids competing head-to-head with KCET, has scheduled “Why Bother Voting?” for Sept. 14 at 8 p.m.

Similarly, KLCS-TV Channel 58, which is run by the Los Angeles Unified School District, is showing it Sept. 20 at 7 p.m.

“I wish we were that smart” to have purposely scheduled the show to avoid the competition from MTV and Fox, said Roberta Smith, programming director at KOCE. “But it’s mainly counterprogramming, because we need to be different (from KCET) down here in Orange County.”

Patricia Aufderheide, a communications professor at the American University in Washington who has studied both public television and MTV, called the decision to keep the program in its current time slot “disastrous.”

“I don’t find it to be an intelligent move,” said Aufderheide, who disputed Doyne’s suggestion that young people would prefer “Why Bother Voting?” over the MTV awards and “Beverly Hills, 90210” or “Melrose Place.”

Some young viewers might happen upon “Why Bother Voting?” while grazing through the channels during commercials, Aufderheide said, but otherwise they are not likely to look for it.