‘Life & Times’ Goes Dangerously Adrift

After everyone else in Los Angeles had him last week, Dennis Rodman, the newest and loopiest Los Angeles Laker, got seven minutes on the program anointed by its station as “an intelligent alternative source of news and information.”

There was 2-day-old videotape of Rodman’s press conference, followed by a live but stale analysis of that already widely covered farce, and of Rodman, his value to the Lakers and his famous exotic behavior that earns him automatic coverage from a media herd that at once derides and dines on him.

“My guess,” concluded host Jerry Nachman near the end of his pondering of Planet Rodman with Todd Boyd, a professor in the USC film school, “is that he and this town are perfect for each other.”

This boggling, copycat outbreak of Rodmania on public station KCET’s “Life & Times”--which reeked of knee-jerk local TV values--would not be worth mentioning were it not symbolic of this once vibrant news program’s disarray as it wanders toward the next century as aimlessly as doddering King Lear in a storm. And does so at a station whose commercial TV bonds were never stronger.

It starts with KCET President Al Jerome, whose long career in commercial TV includes nine years as head of an NBC stations division that includes KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. Until joining KCET last year, moreover, “Life & Times” executive producer Al Corral had spent virtually his entire news career at commercial stations, most recently as news director at CBS station KPIX-TV in San Francisco.

And Nachman, the former New York Post editor in chief and columnist who has become the “Life & Times” main man, even though KCET says “he’s not yet officially on board,” has also spent much of his career in TV news. That includes a stint as news vice president for the same NBC stations division that Jerome once headed.

Not that there’s anything implicitly evil, or even unprecedented, about commercial TV emigres assuming roles of prominence in public TV. It happens from time to time. Les Crystal, the executive producer who helped make what is now “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” America’s best newscast, for example, was previously president of NBC News. And there’s nothing wrong with new visions for new times.

Yet it’s hard viewing some of the weird things happening at KCET apart from its increasing commercial ties this week during its marathon pledge period begging Angelenos for money.

90 Minutes for Stand-Up Comic

They’d be giving to a cash-strapped station that recently lost its premier in-house documentarian, Blaine Baggett, and whose original production is just about nil beyond the gasping “Life & Times.”

Yet this same station, in less than two weeks, will air 90 minutes of stand-up comedy from KNBC weatherman Fritz Coleman.

Now, Coleman is an amiable guy. But his previous specials have aired on KNBC, where they belong, for it’s hard squaring his act, however, amusing, with the KCET mission statement that promises: “To educate and inspire by providing unique and valuable programs and services to diverse communities.”

Nowhere is the commercial link more striking, though, than on the series that KCET has for years touted as its centerpiece of original programming.

These days, however, it’s Rodman and “Life & Times” that are perfect for each other.

Both are bizarre and cross dress, with “Life & Times” increasingly assuming the tone of commercial TV in being more reactive toward news, stressing shorter segments and telecasting live in its studio when tape would be not only sufficient, but less costly.

The difference is that while Rodman can always draw a crowd, “Life & Times” couldn’t draw one if Nachman and every other male on the set were vamping in long lashes, six-inch heels and gold lame evening gowns.

“Life & Times” is a barren moonscape between oases, being situated between two of KCET’s more popular series, “NewsHour” and “California’s Gold” with Huell Howser.” The “Life & Times” audience has dwindled to a mere smattering of homes. And given higher ratings for the surrounding “NewsHour” and Howser program, that means, apparently, that viewers are making a determined effort to vacate KCET during the half hour “Life & Times” airs.

And no wonder, for it’s a mishmash in search of an identity, one night talking heads, the next something akin to a commercial broadcast. There are occasional highlights, but this lack of continuity is a stake in its heart.

It didn’t begin that way in 1992 when the hosts featured during twice-weekly studio sessions on tape--Hugh Hewitt, Patt Morrison and John Ochoa--delivered analysis that immediately distinguished “Life & Times” from the numbing local newscasts on commercial stations. And it got even better when Ochoa was supplanted by Ruben Martinez, creating an inspired hybrid of political and social views flowing from a trio of good talkers, thinkers and interviewers with deep insights into Los Angeles and California.

That unique-to-L.A. television ambience continued after Martinez was succeeded by Kerman Maddox, whose TV skills didn’t match Hewitt’s and Morrison’s, but who was just as opinionated and well informed.

Although not without flaws in trying to balance its documentary and in-studio segments, “Life & Times” was a distinctive show that KCET could be proud of.

Flash-forward.

Following Jerome’s arrival three years ago, “Life & Times” has undergone a metamorphosis that included a reinvention of itself from time to time. In the last year, it has appeared in various incarnations, including a more traditional anchor format, each getting the hook as the show and its ratings listed dramatically.

“Life & Times” is now live in the studio each night, because “live” is Jerome’s fixation, along with fulfilling his vow to expand “Life & Times” to an hour. Fat chance.

With people coming and going, the old line about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic applies.

The latest deck chair is Nachman.

Nachman Given Center Stage

Hewitt, Maddox and Los Angeles Times columnist Morrison--who were always the best reason to watch the show--have been largely marginalized, and Nachman brought center stage to host and interview three days a week.

The well-traveled Nachman is obviously smart and multifaceted, affirmed by a history of changing media jobs nearly as often as Morrison changes hats. In addition to being an NBC executive and working for the tabloid Post, he’s been a TV reporter, winning a prestigious Peabody Award, and station manager and a news director for both radio and TV. And talk about eclectic, immediately prior to joining KCET, he attempted to develop a crime series for TV, wrote the screenplay for a short film, “John,” and was a staff writer for ABC’s “Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher.” And how he’s at “Life & Times.”

Where he’s a disaster.

Despite a long association with TV, he seems uneasy on camera and has a presence that can be described charitably as irritating. He’s often rude to guests, and prone to cut them off in mid-sentence as if editing for sound bites.

Some of this is the fault of a format that on some nights operates on the theory that shorter and snappier are better, some of it the fault of Nachman. For example, state Sen. Tom Hayden appeared visibly upset after a recent bim-bam with Nachman, shaking his head as “Life & Times” faded into the next segment.

As someone who spent much of his life in New York, moreover, Nachman is the quintessential outsider on a series that has always been Californian through and through.

Is this the guy to build a show around and help reverse the atrophy?

KCET thinks so, apparently, given its reported desire to wrap him up permanently, operating on the theory that you can’t afford to let someone that bad get away.