PBS Shuffles the Deck, Moving Key Series to New Time Slots

By ELIZABETH JENSEN

June 8, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NEW YORK —

PBS viewers should brace themselves: Change is coming in the fall.

After an eight-month, seven-city test, the Public Broadcasting Service is overhauling its schedule, moving some signature series out of long-held time slots in the process. It is an effort to create what PBS executives call a more “viewer-friendly” environment with better flow between shows and more counterprogramming against other networks.

The biggest move is “Masterpiece Theatre.” Alistair Cooke and more recently Russell Baker have introduced such British productions as “I, Claudius” and “Upstairs, Downstairs” on Sunday nights for three decades, competing against the commercial networks’ big-budget miniseries and movies. Under a fall schedule sent to PBS’ nearly 350 stations earlier this week, “Masterpiece Theatre,” which has expanded in recent years to include more American drama, will move to Mondays at 9 p.m. Its competition will be series such as CBS’ “Everybody Loves Raymond,” Fox’s “Ally McBeal” and ABC’s “Monday Night Football.”

Indeed, the increasing frequency with which the commercial broadcasters move shows around these days may have primed the PBS audience for the shifts. “Everyone else evaluates lineups and programming and makes changes,” said John Wilson, PBS’ co-chief programming executive. “When it happens to your favorite show, it’s a bother, but generally speaking it’s not so out of the ordinary to find a change that it becomes the end of the world.”

Monday nights will offer “Masterpiece Theatre” the advantage of having the hugely popular “Antiques Roadshow” as an 8 p.m. lead-in. (The show is so popular, in fact, that PBS is adding reruns of the original British Broadcasting Corp. version of the show on Thursday nights.)

In fact, in the test markets, including San Diego, where PBS tried “Masterpiece Theatre” on Mondays this past year, the program actually gained a few viewers, PBS said. Still, the change has the show’s producing station, Boston’s WGBH, nervous.

“We will hope that our audience will come along and find us,” said Jeanne Hopkins, WGBH vice president of communications. Asked whether WGBH would have preferred that the show stay on Sundays, Hopkins said, “We understand that PBS wants to look at the schedule and do best by all their programs. We’re part of the family and as changes are made, we’ll continue on and hope that it will all work out.”

History program “American Experience” will now air Sundays at 9 p.m., along with the arts series “American Masters,” which has never had a weekly time slot of its own.

Other changes include moving the popular “Mystery!,” home of such past productions as “Prime Suspect” and “Touching Evil,” to 10 p.m. on Thursdays, where it will face off against NBC’s “ER” and “The Agency,” a new CBS drama about the CIA. (Later in the season, “Mystery!” will be folded into “Masterpiece Theatre,” from which it was originally spun off.) “Mystery!’s” former 9 p.m. spot will now be occupied by documentary series “Frontline,” which had aired on Tuesdays. Tuesday nights will now be devoted to science programs including “Nova” and “Scientific American.”

Overall, the changes in the test markets didn’t have a negative effect on viewer donations, Wilson said, and the moves allowed PBS to draw some younger viewers. Only the viewership among women 18 to 49 years old stayed flat.

As the programming test got underway, viewers at first complained about the switches but then got used to them, Wilson added. “There’s no doubt that any time you change a lineup, particularly a lineup that has been in place for as many years as this one has, you’re going to hear from the core audience for that show,” he said. “But what we found was that after

PBS’ Fall Schedule

Sunday

8 p.m. “Nature”

9 p.m. “American Masters” or “American Experience”

Monday

8 p.m. “Antiques Roadshow”

9 p.m. “Masterpiece Theatre”

Tuesday

8 p.m. “Nova”

9 p.m. Science: “Scientific American Frontiers” and “National

Geographic Specials”

10 p.m. “Local News”*