Originally published in Current, Jan. 20, 1997
By Steve Behrens
PBS's partnership with the Reader's Digest Association, trumpeted in November 1995, comes to air next month with the first of 20 Living Edens nature documentaries.
That, and two other planned series announced back in '95, are all that has surfaced so far from the five-year deal, which is expected to infuse some $75 million from RDA into the PBS program budget, in exchange for direct-mail videocassette rights and other back-end revenues.
Other proposed projects are making their way through RDA's market research process, however. PBS has considered about 150 projects for RDA funding and submitted about 20 for testing by RDA, according to Byron Knight, a Wisconsin PTV executive on loan to PBS, who is serving as liaison to RDA. "It's trite to say it takes time," said Knight, "but we're not going to announce anything until we have reached formal agreements."
In the meantime, RDA is testing ideas to see if they hit the spot with consumers.
"It's the eye of a needle," says a prominent public TV executive. "You have to have a project that meets PBS's needs and also meets the Reader's Digest Association's marketing interest."
The Living Edens comes under the new superseries Reader's Digest World, a logo that will go on nature, travel and history specials, said Tom Simon, RDA director of global video and television. Another Digest-related name will be attached to any children's programming produced through the venture.
The first two PBS-RDA projects were announced soon after the alliance was made public in November 1995:
Like the Lincoln and 1940s series, The Living Edens was already under consideration before RDA joined forces with PBS. RDA was already testing Edens for consumer interest, according to Simon, and ABC/Kane Productions was shooting film.
"Both the Digest and PBS wanted to see some relatively quick on-the-air representation of their collaboration," commented a prominent station producer. "They had to pick a project in the pipeline."
RDA is putting more than $4 million into the series, allowing it to be extended from 12 to 20 episodes, said Simon. Four times a year for five years, an Edens episode will ogle the wildlife and scenery of one of the most beautiful natural places on Earth.
Though the series doesn't debut on-air until Feb. 5, it's already "probably the biggest international success PBS has had," says Ron Devillier, president of Devillier Donegan Enterprises, the distributor that sold the series to the BBC and other major overseas broadcasters as well as to PBS. (Devillier Donegan and the Living Edens producer, ABC/Kane, are both subsidiaries of Disney/ABC.)
"We've always believed Living Edens would be a strong series," said Knight. "This allowed us to extend the series from 12 to 20, in effect creating new product."
Each episode costs $700,000 to $800,000 to make, PBS Executive Vice President Kathy Quattrone estimated for reporters during last week's winter press tour.
The Edens are not hard to visualize if you've seen the handsome wildlife productions of the National Geographic Specials. Both RDA's Simon and Dennis Kane, co-executive producer of the series with Alex Gregory, came out of top positions at National Geographic Television.
"Denali," the premiere episode on Feb. 5, offers intimate views of a cast of fuzzy mammals (mostly), captured during a year-and-a-half of shooting in Alaska's Denali National Park around Mt. McKinley. Producer Bruce Reitherman follows the wildlife through the hard Alaskan winter and the much preferable spring and summer, accompanied by lush/jazzy orchestrations and fully wrought (if not overwrought) narration. He provides entrancing footage of shimmering northern lights, the birth and death of a moose calf, and the time-lapse thawing-out of a wood frog frozen solid all winter.
The viewer also may also learn for the first time what noise a moose makes: "gnong, gnong, gnong."
Reader's Digest Association, like its arch-competitor, Time-Life Books, tests product ideas carefully before investing the full cost of production. RDA uses both mail surveys and focus groups in the United States and overseas.
Sometimes the survey sample receives a questionnaire with 300-word descriptions of videocassettes that RDA might produce, and sometimes a slick sales brochure, according to Simon. "We say, 'We are considering or are in the planning stages. If we produce, would you be interested in buying?' "
Consumers in RDA's U.S. testing sample may review as many as 60 to 100 ideas a year, he said.
Testing "can also be really diagnostic in terms of understanding what it is in the idea that people are interested in," Simon said. For a program like America in the Forties, for example, the questionnaire could ask, "Are you more interested in the personal reminiscences of people about the '40s, or in clips from Hollywood movies of the '40s?"
Later in the process, RDA sometimes organizes focus groups to view storyboards or program excerpts. For The Living Edens, RDA will show two episodes to a focus group and quiz the viewers to learn how to promote the programs and whether viewers like the mixture of content.
The audience sometimes favors program ideas that producers wouldn't necessarily propose. For example, RDA found consumer interest in a highly condensed three-hour video history of the United States, according to Simon. The project will go ahead without PBS involvement.
RDA, like other media companies are looking to the "back end" of programs for their payoff.
"The way this deal will work for us is if we sell a lot of videos," said Simon. RDA aims to acquire worldwide direct-mail video rights for the programs that it assists.
For the company, overseas is a strong market. Reader's Digest magazine claims a monthly audience of 100 million, half outside of the United States.
The division of rights for each PBS-RDA program may be different. In the case of The Living Edens, RDA is picking up PBS's share of the costs; foreign broadcasters are also putting in coproduction money, according to Simon. PBS kept U.S. rights for retail sales of home videos, according to Knight, while RDA has worldwide direct-mail video rights, Knight said. RDA also has an option to develop Living Edens book and music properties, according to Simon.
"It's not clear if that is the pattern for the future," explained Knight, but PBS and RDA have agreed how they'll decide on dividing rights.
PBS and RDA generally will share in sales of overseas broadcast rights, Simon said.
The back end may look too crowded to some producers who might offer ideas for PBS-RDA funding.
"A lot of stations are reticient to do it because they're dependent on back end to sustain themselves," reported a producer at a major producing station. As a result, PBS-RDA program buyers don't have a full choice of program ideas. "Ultimately," he said, "many of these questions become business questions: 'What do I get, and what does it cost me?' "
Earlier news: Reader's Digest Association commits up to $75 million to PBS programming.
Later news: Reader's Digest appears to back away from PBS deal.
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