Mixed Signals

It’s a Wednesday afternoon in Hollywood, and Victoria Looseleaf is taping another segment of what she calls one of television’s “best-kept secrets.”

The guest is local chef Mark Peel, who has published a cookbook and brought some samples to the studio at Continental Cablevision. Looseleaf conducts the interview between mouthfuls of grilled asparagus. “Do you really feed your kids these wonderful meals?” she asks. “How would you describe your culinary philosophy?”

Peel is, of course, plugging his book and restaurant. And the host, a Westside harp teacher, is plugging “The Looseleaf Report,” a half-hour interview show she hopes will someday find a more lucrative home away from cable’s public-access channels.

“There’s a stigma of being on public access, but I’ve risen above that,” Looseleaf says after the taping. “I’d like to get paid for my efforts. I have to get an agent and a producer. But (public access) is a great training ground.”

Twenty-five years after its debut, commercialism is creeping into public-access television. Many viewers have scorned the medium as an inert, amateurish forum for cranks and fringe groups that can’t get exposure anywhere else. Yet that hasn’t stopped Looseleaf and legions of other would-be David Lettermans from hoping for crossover success on mainstream television.

The irony is that public-access is supposed to be non-commercial, even though experts agree that such rules are made to be broken, or at least bent. Many series are intended as audition tapes for network or syndication deals. Some clever entrepreneurs have even used public access to run barely disguised infomercials for hairstyling, chiropractic and dentistry services.

For instance: The Los Angeles Chiropractic Society, a trade association, uses public-access facilities throughout the metropolitan area to produce a series--”Chiropractic Today and Beyond”--featuring member doctors and shows on such topics as “Whiplash” and “Manipulation Under Anesthesia.” At the end of each show, viewers are advised to call an 800 number to get more information. Callers are referred to a practitioner in their area.

The program has succeeded in building more awareness of chiropractors, says Tony Winders of Murphy O’Brien Communications, a Beverly Hills-based public-relations firm that developed the 13-part series. Winders acknowledges that public-access rules forbid marketing and advertising, but says “the studios all know” about the series’ goals and haven’t complained.

For such users, the chief advantage to public access is that it costs nothing. In most cases, even the training and materials are free. The tab is picked up by cable company operators, who collect their revenue from--you guessed it--their customers.

Public-access channels are governed by franchise agreements between the cable companies and each city or town. Most communities require users and producers to get training, but otherwise they take a hands-off approach to production and distribution of videotapes. The lack of oversight has made it easier for users to edge closer to commercialization.

In most communities, as long as a program is not explicitly obscene or commercial, public-access administrators must air it unedited. Censoring a program, administrators say, would violate cable franchise agreements and the First Amendment, though some programmers admit they practice a form of censorship by putting undesirable shows on very late at night.

In New York, public access has broadcast nude talk shows and sex videos. And in Southern California, users have stopped just short of violating bans on advertising and marketing.

“On all the access channels, people have found ways to use it for their own personal agendas,” says Paul Steinbaum, executive director of Beverly Hills Community Access TV. “That’s fine as long as they try to follow the guidelines of public access. They can’t be commercial and they can’t try to sell a product overtly.

“But there are always people pushing the envelope. It’s become a way of getting advertising without buying advertising . . . or a place for people to create audition tapes (for free). I don’t think it’s what public access is supposed to be.”

To be sure, public access is not the ideal get-famous-quick scheme. Looseleaf has interviewed hipsters such as alternative-music performer Henry Rollins, writer Kathy Acker and director Percy Adlon. Yet, after seven years on the air, her show has never been picked up for syndication or commercial broadcast.

Westside author Art Fein, who for 10 years has hosted a roots-music show at Continental’s Hollywood facility, also has been unable to make the leap to another broadcasting level. Fein has published a book about the Los Angeles rock music scene and interviewed scores of musicians, but so far he’s taken the show no further than public access. Its ideal home, he says, would be on PBS.

“Art Fein’s Poker Party” typically features Fein shooting the breeze with guests such as country singer Dwight Yoakam and ex-Stray Cat Brian Setzer. As on most public-access shows, lighting, direction and editing are done on the fly, with the final result coming closer to “America’s Funniest Home Videos” than “The Tonight Show.”

“All the shows you see (on public access) are auditions,” Fein says. “Not pilots, because pilots have a lot of money and time behind them. (Public access) is an outline, a kernel of an idea.”

Skip E. Lowe is a retired stand-up comic who spends 30 to 40 hours a week working on a Beverly Hills interview show with aging stars such as Stella Stevens, Virginia O’Brien and Milton Berle. He says he books guests by attending Hollywood parties and chatting up celebrities who happen to have seen his show.

“I’m a one-man operation,” Lowe says. “I’ve had many people try to syndicate the show, but they wanted me to sign everything over to them, and I could never do that.”

Lowe’s devotion to his current format may be a rarity among others who appear on public-access TV. Looseleaf, Fein and others hope their tapes will somehow be seen by a channel-surfing media executive on his way to work. Public-access users typically “bicycle,” or import, their tapes to a number of outlets for the largest possible audience.

Jeff Cole, director of the UCLA Center for Communication Policy, says that the proximity of major entertainment companies in Southern California has led many users to exploit public access as an audition tool.

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Yet most experts say the chances of a public-access show catching on are extraordinarily slim.

“It’s a pipe dream,” says Luis Remesar, access coordinator at Continental Cablevision, which produces about 31 new shows per week. Remesar estimates that 90% of the programs produced at his facility are meant to cross over to network or syndicated TV.

“The broadcast industry doesn’t look at public access as serious TV,” Remesar says. “Some people might look at it as the vanguard of TV, but I’ve never seen a show make it, other than ‘Mr. Pete.’ ”

“Mr. Pete,” hosted by Pete Chaconas, was a Letterman-style talk show on L.A. public access that was briefly picked up for syndication several years ago. The show did not do well and was soon dropped.

Public access was never conceived as a vehicle for would-be screen tests.

Back in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, nascent cable companies were eager to negotiate franchise agreements with sometimes reluctant cities and towns. To sweeten the pot, the companies agreed to devote one or more channels to public, educational or government (PEG) access, with no cost to the user.

“The idea was that cable companies would compensate the city for the use of the taxpayers’ (electronic) right of way,” says Susan Herman, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Telecommunications. “The companies would provide public-benefit services, like free drops (i.e., hookups) for schools, hospitals and so on. They would also provide access for governments and the public.”

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This access has made it possible for virtually anyone to get on the air--including “Wayne’s World” wanna-bes. Two recent UCLA graduates, Brian Ormsby and Brad Dodge, have spent the past year producing an hourly talk show called “Too Much Free Time.” They tape the program near their South Bay home and bicycle it to cable systems on the Westside--including Century Cable in Santa Monica--and to the San Fernando Valley. They estimate they have a potential audience of 670,000 households.

Ormsby says that “Too Much Free Time” taps into the trend toward “real-life TV” pioneered by such shows as MTV’s “Real World” and popularized by the movie “Wayne’s World.” Traditional taste is evidently shelved during taping. One show featured a chat with lesbian strippers. Another featured Ormsby saluting outgoing Torrance Mayor Katy Geissert by dropping his trousers and baring his backside for the camera.

“We’re hoping to make it big and make a lot of money,” says Ormsby, who is unemployed. Ormsby adds that he and Dodge, a waiter, are seeking sponsors for their program: “We’re trying to syndicate it ourselves.”

Though the odds don’t favor such a ploy, Herman, the city cable spokeswoman, notes that the 14 franchises overseen by her department cover most of Los Angeles County and reach 520,000 households. She says the public-access facilities involved churn out a systemwide average of 720 half-hour segments every month.

Programmers argue that public access will become even more important as cable companies offer hundreds of channels and desperately seek all kinds of programming, whether amateur or professional. If there really are 500 channels, the reasoning goes, quite a few of them might be devoted to Looseleaf, Fein, Lowe and others.

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Which is good for amateur talk-show hosts. But is it good for public-access TV?

“Public access was originally designed for smaller communities that didn’t have access to the major news media,” says Continental’s Remesar. “But now, in the smaller communities, no one is doing public access. And in the larger communities, everyone’s doing it. In my opinion, it’s backwards from what it’s supposed to be.”

UCLA’s Cole is even more blunt in his conclusion. “Public access is an extraordinary resource that hasn’t been used very effectively,” he says. “That doesn’t argue against it. It’s there to be used, stupidly or effectively.”