The Hollywood Reporter sat down with PBS President Paula Kerger for a wide-ranging interview posted Feb. 17. Highlights:
On the potential for reality shows on PBS: “Colonial House and [2002’s] Frontier House are different types of reality. They’re experiential history programs. Moving forward, we’ll look at those types of things. To get younger people engaged in history, you have to really look closely at the formats. And since reality has taken over, I think there are some aspects of it that we can do.”
On GOP hopeful Mitt Romney’s remarks on commercializing PBS: “When Mitt Romney says, we’re not going to kill Big Bird, we’re just going to make him take commercials, it’s frustrating because it shows a lack of truly understanding the impact we have.”
On her management style: “It’s very different from running a network because I have 350 stations that all have different ideas of what public media should be, and I can’t do anything by fiat. That’s a huge piece of my job, making sure everyone stays on the same page and everyone is really committed.”