KPBS Makes Deep Cuts in Production Staff

The financially troubled KPBS announced Thursday that it is cutting two local programs and eliminating seven positions, including that of award-winning arts executive producer Paul Marshall, who has been with the station since its birth, in an attempt to help reduce a $568,000 deficit.

The cuts represent about half the production staff and a $137,000 savings this fiscal year for the station, home to KPBS-TV (Channel 15) and KPBS-FM (89.5).

Of the station’s four top producers, two were laid off and one kept on to finish work in progress. The fourth, 23-year veteran Gloria Penner, will stay on even though her show “San Diego Week” is being eliminated. She will, however, host another series of public affairs programs set to begin next year.

Among those laid off, effective immediately, were Marshall, winner of nine Emmy awards and a pioneer in public broadcasting shows about jazz; Wayne Smith, producer of the nationally distributed “Seniors Speak Out”; and associate producers Leslie Peters, Inez Odom, Mario Barnabe and Doug Waldo.

Additionally, an assistant studio supervisor position was eliminated, and that employee switched into a master control slot that had been filled by a temporary employee, said KPBS spokeswoman Pat Finn. A business office position was also reduced to half time.

Besides Penner, Marshall and Smith, the station’s other senior producer, Paul Espinosa, will temporarily continue on the payroll as a project director to finish two national projects, one a feature film for “American Playhouse” and the other a documentary for “The American Experience.” Espinosa’s executive producer position was eliminated, but was not counted among the seven layoffs announced Thursday. One of Espinosa’s projects is expected to take at least another year to complete, added Doug Myrland, the station’s acting general manager.

Besides Penner, three other producers and two assistants remain on staff.

“I’d say it’s pretty much bare bones,” said Finn of the production staff size.

Marshall, whose last production was a documentary on Roger Revelle, said the cuts represented some of the most experienced members of the station’s staff.

“I’ve been here 25 years and established the station’s capability of producing programs, set it all up from scratch,” he said. “At that time the mandate was produce programs, get them on the air and get them on the national system. It’s a little devastating for me at this point to see this kind of shift from this priority.”

But Myrland said there will continue to be a commitment to locally produced shows, pointing to three new series expected to begin next year. And despite Marshall’s departure, there will still be cultural shows produced in San Diego, he said.

“We’re going to continue to pursue arts programming,” Myrland said. “The idea that Paul might continue to serve as a producer on some projects is certainly alive. We’re interested in pursuing free-lance projects with all the people who were employees.”

Marshall said he’d be interested in free-lance work for the station, and added that the production staff was aware that cuts were likely.

“I was one of the people who put the television station on the air and would have liked to walk away from it on my own terms,” Marshall said. “We’ve all been under a cloud for six months. . . . I really want the best for the station.” But he added that the loss of experienced producers means the station is “basically going to kind of start all over again.”

Myrland called the cuts “the last in a long line of deficit reduction measures” for the rest of the fiscal year. “The long range plan is to completely eliminate the deficit by June 30, 1995. We have two and a half fiscal years to totally get into the black.”

KPBS has long experienced financial troubles. In June, 1990, the entire staff of producers was laid off as part of a staff “restructuring.” Most were rehired.

In August, the San Diego State Foundation, the nonprofit group that oversees the station and is financially responsible for any debt incurred by the station, reportedly told then-general manager Paul Steen to submit a business plan to handle the deficit and any future problems. Two plans he submitted were rejected, and a few days after the second, the 60-year-old Steen announced his retirement from the $97,000-a-year post he had held for 18 years. He has denied he was forced out, and has remained involved in fund-raising for the station.

Myrland then stepped in as interim head and has continued his other previous tasks as marketing manager as well.

Another savings in management salary was realized in October, when one management job and seven other support staff positions were eliminated, paring the deficit by $160,000.

Last month, all departments were required to cut their expenses by 8%, to save another $136,000, and expenses were again cut by another $91,000, Finn said.

“We are well on the way to wiping out the deficit,” she said.

No additional staff cuts are expected within the current fiscal year that will end June 30, 1993, Finn and Myrland said.

The 25-year-old KPBS had overestimated the revenues it would take in this year, projecting income growth of 11%. Revenue actually went up 7%.

Over the last decade, budgeting pressures have through attrition and layoffs gradually trimmed the support personnel used for local, station-produced programs. The local programming produced at the station, near the San Diego State University campus, consisted mainly of some arts programs and forums and the two weekly in-studio talk shows.

The Phil Donahue-style “Seniors Speak Out” was carried nationally on 170 PBS stations. But its grant funding ran out and the last show was taped last month. It will continue in the broadcast schedule until September, 1993, using repeats and some segments that have been taped but not yet aired.

“San Diego Week”, the weekly round-table talk show of local journalists, will tape its last show on Dec. 18, to be aired Dec. 26.

Myrland and Finn said the cuts and the elimination of the two local series do not signal a move away from local programming. In past discussions with reporters over the station’s financial problems and its future, some employees have expressed fears that the station was fast becoming merely a relay for national public broadcast programs.

After the announcement, Marshall said: “If you call yourself a television station you’ve got to make programs. There might be a few programs that come out of here, but unless you maintain and support a staff and mandate them to do that, I don’t know if you can call yourself a television station. We’ll have to wait and see.”

But Myrland pointed to three new ventures as signs of a continued dedication to locally produced shows.

In one, Penner, host of “San Diego Week” and election specials, will develop a pilot for a new magazine-style public affairs series, to be tested in February, 1993.

The station is also beginning two co-production arrangements. In one, it will co-produce public affairs documentaries with filmmaker Jack Ofield and the SDSU Production Center. The first in that series is set to air in March.

The station will also co-produce with Karnik Productions a series of nature documentaries on local habitats. The first, on coastal wetlands, will be broadcast in March.

“We are not eliminating local programming. We are doing it much more cost-effectively,” Finn said.