Change in store for WNYC, againOriginally published in Current, Sept. 3, 1990
By Richard Barbieri
Ideas are important to Thomas B. Morgan, president of WNYC-TV/FM/AM in New York and a public broadcaster since March. In fact, a simple idea helped him get his job as head of the city-owned outlets with an annual budget of $13 million.
Morgan set his sights on WNYC last fall when New York Mayor David Dinkins, who had just defeated Edward I. Koch, started looking for candidates to replace Mary Perot Nichols, the Koch appointee who in 10 years pulled WNYC away from near financial collapse.
Morgan, 63, a Dinkins friend for about 20 years, applied for the job.
"I had this dream. I don't know why," said Morgan, a lifelong journalist and writer. "When I heard they were looking for somebody, I thought, 'God what I would do if I could make this TV station a community television station.' What a great social challenge." Morgan went before a Dinkins screening panel and outlined his idea, which he terms "City TV in the '90s."
Since then, Morgan--who met Dinkins in the early 1970s when he was press secretary for Mayor John Lindsay and Dinkins was president of the city board of elections--has discussed his plans with the mayor a few times. They spoke most recently at Morgan's wedding Aug. 19 [1990].
Morgan likes to joke that he is just another municipal bureaucrat. When asked his title, he slipped his I.D. card from his wallet. "Director of communications services for the City of New York Department of General Services," he said.
But despite Morgan's civil service status, WNYC is mostly free of city constraints. City taxpayers funded 22 percent of the station's fiscal year 1989 operating budget. A private board, the WNYC Foundation, raises the remaining funds.
In the shadow of WNET
"Thank God there's a WNET in our market that focuses" on traditional PBS programming, Morgan said. Operating in the shadow of WNET, the largest public broadcasting station in the country and a major national producer, forces WNYC-TV to stretch to be unconventional, Morgan believes.
It forces the station to take measures such as leasing time to foreign-language broadcasters, which it started in 1985. Today WNYC, which actually broadcasts on a commercial frequency, earns $4.5 million a year from companies that program 37 hours of programming in 13 languages, including Japanese, Israeli, Pakastani and Polish.
The arrangement disqualifies WNYC from receiving a community service grant from CPB, but the leased-time revenue helps support the television operation at a time when increased federal funding of public broadcasting is uncertain.
Morgan isn't the first to want to make-over WNYC-TV, which went on the air in 1962 as an experiment in ultra-high frequency broadcasting. The New York Times reported on Dec. 20, 1979: "New Era at WNYC..." On Oct. 8, 1981, the newspaper headlined: "WNYC-TV to Alter Format." On Nov. 11, 1985: "Channel 31 Trying to Change Image." The Times added Morgan in its gallery of expectations on July 3: "WNYC Chief Moves to Reshape TV Station."
Setting up primetime blocks
Morgan's idea is to turn WNYC into a vital community news and information service, which in itself isn't particularly newsworthy in public broadcasting. "If successful, we will help improve the quality of life for everyone in our city and region," he wrote in a memorandum to the WNYC board of directors July 30.
What is new, if successful, is how he wants to do it. Beginning in October, WNYC-TV will schedule themes of programming in prime time. Programming on Monday will explore "culture and ideas"; Tuesday, "environment and nature"; Wednesday, "public affairs"; Thursday, "history"; Friday, "infotainment"; Saturday, "Britcom"; and Sunday, "Drama."
From 9 a.m. to noon, WNYC-TV will air programs for senior citizens. Instructional programming for older teenagers and college students will be the focus from noon until 3 p.m., and fare for teenagers aged 13-17 will run from 3 to 6 p.m.
"This schedule framework will be the basis of WNYC-TV's evolution as a 24-hour community service broadcaster," Morgan wrote. "As we develop more and more local programs, we will complement rather than compete with the other public broadcasting services in our area."
Morgan tapped David C. Sit, the producer and engineer whom Morgan promoted in July to managing director for WNYC-TV, to carry out the plan. Morgan plans to continue a course for the two radio stations laid out by the previous regime. A beefed-up news staff will start producing local features in broadcasts of NPR's Morning Edition. Producers also are developing a three-hour block of Sunday night children's programming. In addition, the AM station will begin 24-hour broadcasts early next year, Morgan said, ending a decades-long attempt that included a court battle before the U.S. Supreme Court to broadcast at night (Current, March 12, 1990).
Now Morgan needs money. Welcome to public broadcasting.
WNYC produces four local productions: New York Hotline, a weekly prime time public affairs call-in show hosted by public radio journalist and former CBS television producer Maria Hinojosa; Video Music Box, a daily program for teenagers that tries to promote "positive reinforcement" through a music video-heavy format; News City, a daily 30-minute news show that includes City Hall press conferences and politicians' speeches; and Eye on Dance, a weekly dance journalism program.
WNYC-TV will produce a 10-part local call-in program about environmental issues in October following broadcasts of the PBS-distributed Race to Save the Planet.
Morgan is trying to interest foundations in coverage of city elections in November. He wants to offer "free and unfiltered" air time to candidates and hopes to act as a proving ground for producers planning a similar national effort in 1992. He also wants to develop a weekly one-hour public affairs series called Metro Home News that "will be the first weekly news program in primetime that tells stories of how neighborhoods are striving to meet problems and crises in their own backyards," Morgan wrote.
Later news: The WNYC Foundation buys the radio stations from the city and begins a new future, 1996.
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