KCET Unveils Sharper Format for a Revamped ‘Life & Times’

Lighter, brighter, glossier, glassier. And more important . . . newsier.

These were the watchwords being bandied about at KCET-TV Channel 28 as Southern California’s flagship public television station prepared for tonight’s launch of “Life & Times Tonight,” a reincarnation of “Life & Times”--its Emmy-winning, 6-year-old local public-affairs series--as a weeknight news and feature program. Live.

For KCET, this is a milestone--the first time that it will have a live nightly presence since the demise in 1981 of “28 Tonight” after five seasons. And for station President and General Manager Al Jerome, “Life & Times Tonight” is the fulfillment of a key goal--or, at least, half a goal he came to KCET with two years ago.

To mark the switch to live broadcasts--instead of airing live only on Friday nights, after taping four episodes that day for the following week--KCET is unveiling a new set. Gone will be the familiar backdrop of faux red brick, plants, prints, books and a staircase--to be replaced by a glassier, high-tech look with several new TV monitors.

As for content, “Life & Times Tonight” will be “snappier--without losing substance,” says Val Zavala, KCET’s vice president of news and public affairs. “Sharper, tighter, with more information. A little more polished and a lot more current. Basically we want to get away from the public-affairs look and toward a newsier look, without going to commercial [television] news.”

Which means no car chases, family suicide-murders or tabloid trivia.

Yolanda Nava, a veteran Los Angeles TV journalist and educator, who coincidentally worked at “28 Tonight” as a producer and reporter 21 years ago, will anchor. The regular “Life & Times” triumvirate--Los Angeles Times staff writer and columnist Patt Morrison, author and Chapman University law professor Hugh Hewitt, and Kerman Maddox, community activist, businessman and chairman of the political science department at Los Angeles Southwest College--will alternate appearances for interviews and round-table discussions.

The half-hour newscast--which Jerome hopes to take to an hour in 1999, fulfilling the second half of his goal for the program--is divided into four flexible segments: the opening local and state headlines, done by Nava; the top story of the day, combining a field and studio report; a second story or feature, interview or mini-documentary about someone accomplishing something, and some sort of discussion wrap-up.

“Frankly, when I came here, I knew this had to be done,” says Jerome, who from 1982 to 1991 was president of NBC’s owned-and-operated television stations, including KNBC-TV Channel 4. “Local news had been going in a certain direction for some time . . . violence, more sensational stories, a preponderance of trivia dealing with celebrities . . . and I felt there was an opportunity for a newscast that really dealt primarily with issues, with substance, that created debate and discussion about the important topics that are being faced by the community.

“Look, we live in the community,” he continues. “It is terribly important for KCET to be providing information that will allow people to understand what is going on here. Not just what it is but why it is--and is there anything we can do as citizens to improve our lives?”

It is also crucial for KCET’s own well-being, Jerome believes. “Public television today has a very difficult challenge to provide reasons to [exist] for the community it serves,” he says. “In an era when cable channels are providing similar program niches, it is necessary for public television to rediscover the value of localism.”

But not by doing what other local stations do. Simply put, it can’t--and doesn’t want to. The “Life & Times Tonight” budget is $3.6 million a year and it has a full-time staff of about 15--compared to local commercial TV outlets, with budgets ranging upward of $25 million and staffs numbering at least five times that.

“If we attempted to do it their way,” Jerome says, “it would not only be more of the same but we would be hopelessly outgunned in terms of the dollars, the precious dollars that we have . . . and squander our opportunity.

“This show in my opinion will succeed or fail on the basis of the decisions we make on what not to cover,” he says. “I see our service as a contrarian service.”

Also participating on “Life & Times Tonight” will be economist Peter Navarro, health specialist Dr. Judith Reichman, and business professor and author Judy Rosener. Saul Gonzalez is the lead reporter; writer Sandra Tsing Loh and consultant Sydney Weissman will do occasional features. Edward Goldman, host of “Art Talk” on KCRW-FM (89.9), is arts and culture editor.

Nava--whose credits include being a host and a producer for a syndicated TV newsmagazine, “Latin Tempo,” co-host of KNBC’s “Sunday,” anchor/reporter in Sacramento and an Emmy-winning reporter for KCBS-TV Channel 2--says she’s “really excited about going back and doing news the way it can and should be done. Slash-and-trash nightly news is not appealing. To deal with news in depth, educate people so they can make better choices and perpetuate the idea that good can be done--providing an alternative--connects very well with my own belief system.”

Zavala, a 1978 Yale graduate with a master’s degree in journalism from American University, refers to a certain “civic journalism” in the mind-set behind “Life & Times Tonight.”

“Generally newscasts have a frenetic view of what happens, and they don’t really consider the psychosocial ramifications of what they put out, what they tell the community it is. Because people [also] get their identity from what they watch on television. We are very aware that what goes out is telling something to Southern California about what it is. And our responsibility is to put out something that is accurate, that is hopefully enlightening, that is perhaps disturbing but still true--and is very different from, ‘It’s a horrible thing [but] we’re just covering it.’ ”

* “Life & Times Tonight” airs weeknights at 7:30 on KCET-TV Channel 28.