TELEVISION : Revealing Gayness on TV Terms

When is it appropriate for a gay man to announce his sexual orientation in front of a television camera?

Is November better than December? January is out because of the Super Bowl. But is February better better than March? Naturally April wouldn’t do. Already too crowded. You know, Easter, National Secretaries Day, the start of Daylight Savings. But is May better than June? Forget summertime, which is vacation time. Fall brings school. October? What, and be eclipsed by the buildup for Halloween? Man, oh man. Is nothing ever simple for our friends in television news?

All right, let’s see if we have this right.

Garrett Glaser, who reports on entertainment for KNBC-TV Channel 4, wants to acknowledge on the air that he’s gay. According to a Times article last week, he had hoped to do so in a story especially relevant to the gay community, one that was to have run last month. But the story was canceled when other stations acquired the ever-coveted list of mini-documentaries Channel 4 planned to run during the November ratings sweeps.

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Why would this cause Channel 4 to abort or alter its initial sweeps agenda? Don’t ask.

Anyway, Channel 4’s acting news director, Kenny Boles, says there now are no “specific plans” for Glaser to use a Channel 4 newscast to announce his gayness--something Glaser has previously acknowledged in print, by the way. But Boles says that if Glaser were allowed to declare his sexual orientation in a Channel 4 newscast--which Boles regards as “an important thing to do”--it would be something the station would consider for the February or May sweeps.

It’s nice to see a gay person who’s open about his sexual orientation. Even in relatively sophisticated Los Angeles, such declarations can harm careers. Yet the more who do “come out,” the easier it is for other gays to follow suit and rip the closet door from its hinges.

But oh, brother! What Boles appears to be saying is that Channel 4 will allow Glaser to affirm his homosexuality in a Channel 4 newscast only during a ratings sweeps, one of those monthlong periods of intense audience measurement that are crucial to setting local advertising rates.

In other words, the Glaser story, touted as relevant to gays, apparently is relevant to gays only during a ratings period. Otherwise, forget it.

Glaser told The Times he was unconcerned about the change of plans. Boles did give Glaser “permission” to acknowledge his homosexuality during an October stint on Marilu Henner’s syndicated talk show that airs on Channel 4. Permission? As if the station owned the airwaves or had the right to veto or even regulate Glaser’s non-workplace comments about his sexual orientation.

You’d think by now, given the publicity his homosexuality has received outside Channel 4, that anything Glaser said about his sexual orientation on the air would be redundant. In case some haven’t gotten the skinny, however, this column is ready to assist Glaser in spreading the word.

If you are a Channel 4 news viewer, read this now: GARRETT GLASER IS GAY!

By the way, I had planned to disclose my heterosexuality today, but my editors at The Times ordered me to delay my announcement until after Christmas.

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REAL BULL. That characterizes KCOP-TV Channel 13’s advertising campaign for its again-slender “Real News” at 10 p.m.

After bombing with a costly, over-produced, heavily promoted 10 p.m. hour--in which walk-around anchors and other choreography often overshadowed the news--Channel 13 returned to its former half-hour size last May.

Old dimensions, new promotional twist.

It appears the station was only joshing when it touted its previous fatter product. After telling viewers for months that its news hour was indispensable, Channel 13 now boasts that its latest effort--a variation of its pre-”Real News” half-hour that always badly trailed other 10 p.m. newscasts in the ratings--is even more indispensable.

Why? Because, say the revisionist ads, it provides the same news as the 10 p.m. competition in half the time. Saving precious minutes for “Last Call,” the grating syndicated series that follows.

You applaud the ingenuity. Now, if only KCOP could think of a way to provide the same news in just 15 minutes. Or no minutes.

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MR. TUBERHEAD. It turns out that Dan Quayle is not the only one with a Potatogate problem.

John D. Ibson of Claremont writes about my review of the recent “Scarlett” miniseries on CBS: “I was astonished and disappointed to see you casually refer to Irish country folk as the local potatoheads, a term no less offensive than ‘fag,’ ‘dago’ or similar epithets. . . . As an historian of the Irish American experience, I’m especially interested in how persons who aspire to tolerance nonetheless feel free to stereotype the Irish quite unbecomingly, in ways they would never dream of dealing with blacks, gays or Jews, for example.”

And talk about my double standard, Doris Kelly Cantore of Calabasas noted how outraged I’d be if someone on TV “flippantly used insulting and demeaning words like ‘bagelhead’ or ‘tacohead’ to characterize other groups.”

These are a sampling of the angry responses to my “potatohead” reference; all of the callers and letter writers concluding that this Rosenberg guy is either prejudiced or flat-out ignorant.

Not much of a choice. Nonetheless, opting for No. 2, I plead ignorance. Hard as it may be to believe, I had no idea that “potatohead” was derogatory. I was reaching for a colorful word, and came up with this one, the wrong one. Obviously. I shouldn’t have used it. Like that spelling monster, Quayle, though, I’m educable.

How do you spell nudnik? H-O-W-A-R-D.