PBS President Seeks Input on Future of Network

New Public Broadcasting Service President Pat Mitchell wants to engage some of the country’s top creative minds in a brainstorming session about public television.

A host of Hollywood heavyweights from a variety of disciplines, from film’s Steven Spielberg and Spike Lee to television’s Gary David Goldberg, will get letters next week inviting them to participate in what’s being called the PBS Summit on Creativity and Community. There, if they attend, they’ll engage in a dialogue with PBS producers and programming executives about their ideas of what the noncommercial broadcaster ought to be doing.

“We’re looking at a media landscape that’s going to change dramatically in the next five years, and public television and its member stations really need to look at some new ideas,” Mitchell said. “We need an infusion of outside thinking.”

Mitchell is the former president of CNN Productions and a longtime news and documentary producer with deep ties to Hollywood, at one point working with Goldberg. The summit, whose invitation list is still being put together, is one of her first initiatives since taking over PBS on March 6, at a time when the broadcaster is trying to find its way in a rapidly changing competitive environment, with burgeoning numbers of cable networks nibbling away at its documentary, science, arts and children’s programming franchises. She replaced Ervin Duggan, who resigned Oct. 31, after 5 1/2 years in the post.

Although she declined to talk in detail about it, Mitchell is also evaluating a plan, already in the works before she arrived, to test a new prime-time schedule for PBS that could rearrange the broadcast schedule of some of PBS’ signature programs, many of which have been in the time slot for more than a decade.

Those being invited to the programming summit range from theater’s David Mamet and actress Glenn Close to news anchors Katie Couric of NBC’s “Today” and Ted Koppel of ABC’s “Nightline” to Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab and a number of new media executives.

Mitchell has no guarantees that those invited will attend. But she’s trying to make it attractive--it’s being held at Utah’s Sundance Institute on July 23 and 24--and, more importantly, she hopes participants will be motivated to help make sure that the country’s “only noncommercial, not-for-profit [TV] outlet . . . stays viable.”

While Mitchell hopes that some of the participants might consider working for public television as a result of the exchange, “mostly, we’re looking for some really out-of-the-box creative thinking.” Even though some of those invited do work that competes with PBS for viewer attention, she wants to get participants thinking “along the line of public service media, because a big part of our mandate is education and citizenship.”

“It’s a dream list . . . and I’m trying to be realistic, but my experience on the Sundance board has proven to me that if people feel they are contributing to the common good and cause, they will be motivated to take time to do it,” she says.

Mitchell said the PBS producers and programmers she had discussed the concept with were “very excited. Generally, creative people are the first to sign up for a creative discussion. We spend so much time in our business talking about distribution issues and convergence, of defining the means of getting content there, that sometimes it’s good to step back and say, what exactly are we sending down those distribution channels, that’s distinct and unique and about public service?”

Meanwhile, the test in shifting the prime-time schedule around was originally to have involved nine stations around the country, and would have started in the fall, with changes throughout the system not being made for a full year after that. But, Mitchell questions, “can we afford to take a year on anything, particularly something as critical as the schedule?”

The schedule change could upset some viewers used to seeing their shows on specific nights--such as “Mystery!” on Thursdays, or “Masterpiece Theatre” on Sundays. Additionally, it would have to be agreed to by fiercely autonomous local station managers. But PBS executives think some series could benefit from a change. Also, the new schedule would be designed to allow for shows to repeat at the same time across the country, which would allow PBS to make a greater impact by promoting and marketing the shows more effectively.