Clinton to Reenter ‘Town Hall’ TV to Build Support : Presidency: Audience will pose questions. He may prepare voters for bitter economic medicine.

President Clinton, heading again to the TV studio to build public support, will appear next Wednesday from a Detroit station in an hourlong “town hall” meeting that is expected to focus on his economic program.

In his first public trip out of Washington since he took office, Clinton will field questions from a studio audience at WXYZ-TV Channel 7 in suburban Southfield, Mich., from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. The studio will be linked by satellite to stations in Miami, Atlanta and Seattle, where studio audiences will also pose questions. The show will be carried nationally on cable networks C-SPAN and Cable News Network.

Clinton “felt it’s time to go out and talk to people,” said Dee Dee Myers, his press secretary. “He wants to remake his points.”

The broadcast is expected to serve several purposes for the President, who became an acknowledged master of the talk-show format in more than a dozen such appearances during his 1992 campaign. It could help him prepare voters for the expected bitter medicine of his economic program just one week before he outlines it to a joint session of Congress.

And it may help him turn the national spotlight away from divisive and secondary issues--such as the ban on gays in the military, and the failed attorney general nomination of Zoe Baird--that dominated the news for the first two weeks of his term.

This week, Clinton has demonstrated his determination to reassert his own agenda by publicizing four consecutive days of meetings with congressional leaders, as well as speeches on the economy, campaign finance, and welfare reform, and upcoming meetings with foreign dignitaries.

The choice of a station in the heartland of the struggling auto industry suggests that Clinton will try to make favorite points about the need for a long-term national economic program to replace yesterday’s high-paying manufacturing jobs.

Myers said Clinton is likely to stress that despite the signs of an economic recovery there has been so far “no recovery in jobs and income” and that he would point to a sharp worsening of the budget deficit.

Station executives will choose about 60 members of the WXYZ audience from some 100 community groups in the Detroit area, to provide a diverse and politically balanced audience, said Marla Drutz, a station executive. The groups will include such organizations as PTAs, church groups, labor and business groups.

Clinton Administration officials will have “virtually no input” on who is in the audience or what they ask, she said.

Clinton appeared in an hourlong “town hall” show at the station last Sept. 22, at the height of the presidential campaign. As on that program, he will sit atop a stool on stage with a hand-held microphone, as the moderator, anchorman Bill Bonds, roams the aisles for questions.

“It’ll be a lot like ‘The Phil Donahue Show,’ ” said Drutz.

She said Clinton will probably be able to answer about 20 questions in the allotted hour. She said there would be no limits on topics, so that if questioners are interested in asking about the ban on gays in the military, “they can go ahead and ask.”

But she observed that in distressed Detroit, the economy was foremost in the audience’s mind last September. She speculated that the same will hold true on this show.

Michael P. Shea, a political media consultant in Boston, said it was important for Clinton to convey his message to Americans before he has revealed the contents of his plan. When the plan is public and it becomes clear who will be required to make sacrifices, it will be more difficult to rationally reach average Americans with his arguments about the need for sacrifice.

“You’ve got to get to them before things start exploding,” said Shea, who advised former U.S. Sen. Paul E. Tsongas in last year’s Democratic primary campaign.

The televised session is another signal that Clinton intends to conduct a sort of permanent political campaign while he is in office, with special emphasis on the electronic media. He is expected to travel widely to stump for his legislative package as the program is fleshed out.

Separately, Clinton said Wednesday that he will soon announce plans for cost cuts at the White House. In a speech to the staff of the Office of Management and Budget, Clinton said the plans “will demonstrate a substantial reduction in spending at the White House.”

Times staff writer David Lauter contributed to this story.