Gay World Is TV’s New Frontier : Television: Marvin Schwam promotes his ideas for a national, 24-hour gay network: ‘I want to stop making <i> gay </i> a sensational term.’

“What I’m looking to do,” says Marvin Schwam, a 51-year-old New York businessman, “is introduce an awareness of gay television.”

Schwam is the founder and executive producer of the Manhattan-based Gay Entertainment Television network, whose three weekly shows--”Party Talk,” “Inside/Out” and “Makostyle”--now appear on cable outlets in five major cities: Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami.

In Los Angeles, the three shows form a 2 1/2-hour programming block that airs Saturday nights at 9:30 on Century Cable (Channels 55 or 10, depending on the area served by the system). Century Cable also airs a gay program block Sunday nights from another fledgling, Manhattan-based organization called Total Entertainment Television.

With predictions of 500 channels or more in TV’s expanding universe, Schwam sees room for new ventures such as his GET network. He already has landed several major sponsors, including Miller Lite Beer, as well as guests ranging from the Rev. Jesse Jackson to Cybill Shepherd.

With “five more programs right now on the drawing board,” Schwam envisions a national, 24-hour gay entertainment TV network and hopes to land some of his programs in syndication this year. Just last week, in fact, he attended the annual deal-making convention of the National Assn. of Television Program Executives in Miami.

“The amazing thing was how well we were received,” says Schwam, who came out of the closet at age 33. “For the most part, many people who see your name, Gay Entertainment, don’t want to talk to you. But we expected that. We’re not going to convince everyone overnight that this is a subject for them.

“But we’re getting very little resistance from cable companies we’ve approached. Gay TV is a new frontier in this country, considering the size of the gay population and its spending power. I think it’s as interesting for straight society to get a look at a world they haven’t been exposed to. I want to stop making gay a sensational term.

“I have 25 follow-ups from the convention. Japanese and Dutch TV and a Swiss-German company are interested.”

Openly gay and lesbian themes and characters are hardly new items on TV. Network series such as “Roseanne,” “Sisters,” “Melrose Place,” “Seinfeld” and “Law & Order” have been prominent in this area, despite the continuing nervousness of many advertisers about the subject--as highlighted by a controversial “thirtysomething” episode several years ago.

Public television has an occasional half-hour, gay-themed magazine series, “In the Life,” which next shows up on KCET-TV Channel 28 at midnight Feb. 20. The freak-out national afternoon talk shows parade gay and lesbian matters periodically, invariably in a sensational manner. And several gay cable networks have bid for recognition.

But if the subject isn’t new for TV, Schwam is convinced his approach is:

“Each week, we show faces who are proud to be out (of the closet) and sophisticated gay people, not the way it’s been until now--all politics and activism. We give cabaret acts and artists a venue. If you watch Geraldo or Oprah, it’s sensationalistic. But we’re talking about subjects that are part of our life.

“I hope to encourage other producers to put gay programming on TV. There’s lots of gay trash on the air, absolutely. In a way it hurts us but in a way it helps us because gay people are able to tell the difference. What I’m trying to do is elevate the quality. The gay audience is interested in every aspect of our culture.”

In fact, two of GET’s series--”Makostyle,” a fashion, style and celebrity show, and “Inside/Out,” a talk program addressing gay and lesbian issues--need plenty of work and smoothing out. “They are definitely going to improve,” Schwam says, without denying the criticism.

“Party Talk,” an hour variety-talk series “with reports on trends, personalities and places,” is GET’s prime showcase--a cut above the others and hosted by Brad Lamm, a 26-year-old former UCLA student who dropped out, and drag queen Linda Simpson. A New York newspaper calls them “the Regis and Kathie Lee of the cable-access world.”

Nobody’s getting rich from GET, so Lamm says that in addition to promoting dance parties and writing a gossip column for a gay and lesbian magazine, “I still bar tend one night a week to pay my bills.” His show, he says, “at first was clunky, but now it’s less clunky and funnier.

“We’re showing some people what they don’t want to know and others what they already know. But we’re not sensational or outrageous. My own personal ambition is that I’ll be viewed as someone who hosts a darn good show and is a good representative of the gay community.”

For Schwam, it’s a sad matter that shows like “In the Life” and Gay Entertainment Television have to be presented as “something unique in our society and advertised as gay programs. I want someday for my programming not to be identified as gay programming but just be part of the available information the public has access to.”

He accepts the gay program label now because “it’s our only way in, since everyone’s avoiding it, thinking it’s a pariah. We’re showing it’s interesting. There are many black shows on TV, but they’re not advertised as black sitcoms. That used to be a sensation, but no more. That’s the way our programming should be--just stand by itself.

“Homophobia exists out of ignorance. That’s why networks separate gay subjects from the rest of programming. Why does it have to be singled out? Why is it startling that there’s a lesbian character on ‘Roseanne’?”

Schwam, who lives and works in a converted factory loft in Lower Manhattan, is proud of the support from his two sons, 25 and 26 years old--products of his former marriage--”who are both straight but are rah-rah because their father has the guts to do this.” His older son, Frederic, runs the Christmas decoration business that Schwam started.

The NATPE convention experience was also special, says Schwam: “Not that I’ve ever hidden it for the last 20 years, but this is the first time I was identifying myself as a gay businessman because it has a significance, a sense of dignity and self-worth.”

GET debuted on Century Cable in early December.