Mixing Tube and Ink : Publishing: Television’s role as a teacher has broadened in recent years with the help of an old and surprising partner-- companion books.

Al and Yetta watched an oper e tta, Leonard Bernstein told them what they saw .

--Alan Sherman, to the tune of “Alouette” *

Ever since Maestro Lenny picked up a baton in the early 1950s and showed viewers the link between Beethoven and be-bop, television has played a curious role in the growth and evolution of American mass culture.

Dismissed by many critics as a creative wasteland, the tube has nonetheless educated millions with public TV programming and increasingly diverse cable TV offerings. Nowadays, consumers can watch 10 straight hours of prehistoric sitcoms--or lose themselves utterly in a 10-part series on dinosaurs.

As choices grow, so do the broadcast technologies that once carried Bernstein’s “Omnibus” shows in black and white. But amid all the current talk about television and interactive media, the industry’s role as a teacher has broadened in recent years with the help of an old and surprising partner.

Indeed, if Sherman wrote today, his couplet might read: “Jill and Boris watched a brontosaurus. A TV companion book told them what they learned.”

Consider the 10-part PBS series on the history of rock ‘n’ roll, which begins airing Sunday. Powered by rare documentary footage and provocative interviews, this marathon look at a uniquely American art form begins with musical roots in West Africa and rolls through the Mississippi Delta, hitting Beatlemania, psychedelia, heavy metal and rap along the way.

In case you miss an episode or two, or feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information, not to worry. “Rock and Roll, an Unruly History” (Harmony), by music expert Robert Palmer, is there to fill the void.

Beautifully written and illustrated, it serves as a companion to the TV series, and also gives the reader an in-depth look at the importance of rhythm, rebellion and the six-string guitar in rock ‘n’ roll culture--something the show is unable to do.

“That’s the key function of a TV companion book, to stand on its own and provide something different for the reader,” says Elizabeth Dean, producer of the rock series. “In this way, you extend the life of a television show in a book and the two mediums flow together, to educate people in separate ways.”

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During the last two decades, there has been a steady growth in the number of original books linked to or based on multi-part television specials. Some of these titles have become huge bestsellers, such as “The Civil War” by Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns, “Alistair Cooke’s America,” “Civilization” by Kenneth Clark, “The Ascent of Man” by Jacob Bronowski and “The Vietnam War” by Stanley Karnow.

Many companion books are simple repetitions of a broadcast script, while others follow the structure of a show only loosely and offer new information to readers. They run the gamut of pop culture and history, from cookbooks to conquistadors, and reflect a new savvy in publishing about TV exposure.

“That box in your living room has sold everything from $40,000 cars to $8 earrings,” says Peter Kauffman, president of TV Books, the first U.S. firm devoted exclusively to television tie-in books.

“So there’s no reason it can’t sell for us well. You just need the right formula.”

The key reason Americans see so few books advertised on television, Kauffman notes, is the cost. Since the book biz operates on a smaller profit scale than TV or movies, publishers typically scramble for free publicity through author appearances on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “60 Minutes” and other shows.

Television tie-ins, however, are a dramatic exception: If a publisher produces a quality book in tandem with a weeklong special, the payoff can be enormous. At the very least, the book will be advertised five straight nights to millions of prime-time viewers, vastly boosting its chances for success.

“If your book is solidly written, it can do quite well with a push from television,” says Doug Dutton, owner of Duttons Books in Brentwood. “Yet it has to be a good product. People know the difference between a substantial book and one that just has pictures and language lifted from a TV special.”

Putting it more bluntly, Pamela Byers, publisher of KQED Books in San Francisco, notes: “The remainder tables of bookstores are littered with TV companion books that fizzled out. You have to challenge your readers.”

It also helps to move fast. Byers, who runs the only publishing division at a PBS station that produces its books in-house, says the gestation period for a companion book is relatively short. Once a decision is made to air a series, she explains, the companion volume must often be produced in a hurry. Her shop, which has generated tie-ins to series on poverty and “The American Promise,” can generate high-quality coffee-table books in several months, fast by industry standards.

“You can’t cut corners on quality, though,” she cautions. “People know if a book is the real thing. That’s the only way it can generate revenue.”

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Producers of the rock ‘n’ roll series at WGBH in Boston kept that lesson in mind. They knew Palmer could write a good book, but he wasn’t interested in doing a simple rehash of the series. He wanted creative input into the series itself and complete freedom as a writer for the book, and they readily agreed.

“I wanted to communicate ideas that could never have fit into the linear structure of the show,” says Palmer, who has documented various forms of pop music through journalism, documentaries and several highly regarded books. “So when they gave me freedom to take that creative leap, I agreed to do it.”

Enlightened self-interest? Perhaps. But also good business.

With Palmer on board, the PBS station had no trouble finding a top-flight publisher to manufacture and distribute the book. Harmony, a division of Random House, fit the bill perfectly. Should “Rock and Roll” do well, after a joint marketing campaign by the TV station and the publishing giant, WGBH stands to collect a healthy chunk of the literary profits, according to Karen Johnson, who directs the station’s in-house publishing activities.

“We think it’s a win-win situation for everybody,” Johnson says. “But the key thing we have going for us is Palmer’s book, which is terrific.”

Most important, says series producer Dean, Palmer’s book will be a future resource, long after the series has aired. Even in the age of video, she notes, “There’s an ephemeral quality to television, and that’s why we wanted a quality book, so you could hold onto something solid and put something on the shelf.”

It’s a lesson that Europeans have known for years. Television companion books are popular on the continent, and BBC (British Broadcasting Corp.) Books in England is the foremost such publisher in the world, Kauffman says.

“I’ve always wondered why Americans haven’t figured out that logical link between books and television, and that’s why I started my own company,” he adds. “This is an attractive market, because the people who watch these kinds of shows on PBS, Discovery and the History Channel are natural book buyers.”

Unveiled three months ago, TV Books is off to a running start. On Monday the Discovery Channel will begin a 10-part series, “Divine Magic,” about the supernatural, and Kauffman’s company produced the companion book.

Written by Andre Singer, an adjunct professor of cultural anthropology at USC, and Lynette Singer, an anthropologist who taught at San Jose State, the volume follows the TV show, but also makes its own intellectual contribution.

“None of these books succeed unless they have something new to say,” says Geoffrey Ward, a historian who co-wrote companion books on the Civil War and baseball with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, and is currently finishing a companion book to “The American West,” which will air on PBS next year.

The length of a proposed series is also a factor, Ward adds. If a broadcast reaches viewers for five consecutive nights, the series--and ads for the companion book--can have a big impact. But a two-night series might be risky.

It’s show biz, like anything else with television. But as long as TV holds out the hope of solid profits for a companion book, publishers who may have once looked down their noses at the boob tube are no longer so quick to judge.

Times have changed, and a mass medium that once seemed the enemy of literacy and reflection might turn out to be an ally after all.

As Kauffman’s catalogue puts it: “Read any good TV lately?”