Exiting CEO Laments Politics, Cynicism at PBS

Ervin S. Duggan, who shocked most in the public television arena when he resigned as president and CEO of PBS last month, said politics, pressure and cynicism led to a reluctant conclusion that after 5 1/2 years it was time for him to go.

In his first public interview since his Sept. 9 announcement, Duggan singled out the pressures of “external politics” from Congress and “cynical” press critics, and the “internal politics” involving disputes between the public television network and various member stations as eventually forcing his decision.

Coming to that choice was “hard,” he said by phone from PBS headquarters in Arlington, Va. Then, his voice momentarily quavering, he added, “Still hard.”

The 60-year-old, who officially leaves office Oct. 31, spoke of the “wear and tear” that he was subjected to. “Living in this intensely political atmosphere, this high noise level is not natural for me, and I need to be in a place where objective results count.”

“The external politics are fierce,” Duggan continued, “and opponents of the system are constantly trying to create negative perceptions, to drag this national educational and cultural institution into the political arena and treat it as a political football. . . . If we haze and harass an institution from the outside, mercilessly and endlessly, we do it real harm.”

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In an obvious reference to the most traumatic year in PBS’ 30-year history, Duggan referred to the “attacks from Capitol Hill since 1995” when then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich sought to privatize PBS and end its federal funding.

“Even when the battle on Capitol Hill simmers down,” he said, “the interests of the press in the politics of the system [continues.]”

Asked about the furor that arose this summer after disclosures that several major public stations sold or swapped mailing lists with the Democratic National Committee and some Republican political groups, Duggan said that firestorm was “not a factor [in his decision].”

The PBS executive first began thinking about leaving at the five-year mark in February. “I see my life in five-year chapters,” said Duggan, who worked in Lyndon Johnson’s White House as a speech writer and helped craft the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act. Before moving to the Federal Communications Commission in 1990, as an appointee of then-President George Bush, he did stints, among other places, on Capitol Hill and the State Department and had a consulting firm.

Primarily he mulled over the decision with his wife, Julia, colleagues at PBS, and in May talked to longtime friend and PBS producer Bill Moyers, who had been Johnson’s press secretary. In August he discussed the resignation with PBS Board Chairman Colin G. Campbell, and gave the final word in September.

Duggan said he also talked this summer to longtime PBS producer David Grubin, whom he had commissioned to do a documentary on Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln. Grubin recalled that Duggan was “quite stunned that there were these rumors” about him resigning and “wanted to know how substantial they were. He hadn’t made a decision at that point.”

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Since his resignation, reports have surfaced about Duggan’s disputes with stations over sales by PBS Home Video, which undercuts their revenues. In February, he clashed with station executives, who wanted the ability to earn revenue from excess digital transmission channels. He considered it commercialism.

“There is a constant temptation in the system to imitate the commercial television industry, to run commercials, to do programming that is designed to attract big audiences rather than be true to our nonprofit public-service mission, to be an educational and cultural institution,” he said. “Some of the pledge programming that we do doesn’t live up to the high standard that we show the rest of the year.”

While he counts the near doubling of PBS’ revenues to a projected $315 million this fiscal year from $182 million in fiscal 1995 among his major accomplishments, his proudest moment came in January at the annual Television Critics Assn. meeting. “On Martin Luther King weekend,” he recalled, “and the bulk of what we showed the critics was devoted to the African American contribution to American life . . . at the very time that others were under attack for not heeding that quality of diversity.”

Left undone was Duggan’s longtime dream for PBS to commission performing-arts programming, much the way it commissions documentaries. Duggan has no immediate plans, he said, except to decompress--then ponder the future.