Sunday Focus
Hawai'i Public Television in a bold new start

By John Griffin
Former Advertiser editorial page editor

A year ago, amid some skepticism but financial necessity, Hawai'i Public Television broke from its state government roots and tried its wings as an independent nonprofit organization.

Late last year, Mike McCartney, at age 41 a little-tested administrator and former state senator with a flair for TV production, was named HPTV president and chief executive officer.

Some comments now from HPTV Foundation board members:

"It's been a fabulous year every way.".... "We've generated excitement. Mike's turned out great."... "Beyond our wildest dreams."

It sounds almost too good to be true in a Hawai'i still struggling economically and trying to break more of the shackles of entrenched government bureaucracy. This in a national picture where public television is seeking to refocus in a changing communications scene.

Maybe it is too good, suggest some longtime observers I talked with.

Still, there's no denying the bright spots. Or the spirit you hear in talking with people who have been through the traumatic state cutbacks of the 1990s and the transition of the last few years when among other things the staff dropped from 100 to about 30.

Some points:

• KHET — the name comes from public TV's 1960s educational roots — is in an expanding era of "partnering" with local business and foundations. McCartney ticks off a dozen or so local productions that are in the works or seeking financing. He suggests some might make it to national public television.

The local productions range from the arts to cooking to biographies to public affairs and business to a "primetime" program for the growing boomer-senior audience wags have labeled "This Old Fut." It's even possible KHET could produce the UH coaches' shows in a different format.

(KHET's most popular programs now include "Antiques Roadshow," "NOVA," "National Geographic," "The News Hour," "Frontline" and several children's programs.)

• Public enthusiasm has been shown in on-air pledge weekends and corporate funding. KHET's annual budget is now $5.2 million, including less than $1 million from the national Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $2 million in individual and corporate donations, and $1.8 million from KHET's 1 percent share of cable TV fees. KHET is early in its new five-year lease on its old building on the UH campus.

Not only that, it is doing fairly well in a crucial drive for some $6 million to meet the national mandate that all TV stations switch to digital broadcasting in the next two years. That's thanks to a $2 million appropriation by the past sesssion of the Legislature. The rest must come from federal grants and local fund-raising.

• Amid changes here, the national Public Broadcasting Service — which is not a network but an organization of stations — is recasting itself and its mission.

PBS' new president, Pat Mitchell, wants to make it more of an organized network with more of an American emphasis in quality programming. This is a situation where commercial cable has stolen some of public TV's thunder (in travel, history, cooking shows, etc.) and where many deplore creeping commercialization (those sponsor "underwriting" ads).

KHET has bought into the new PBS push for public television to be more involved with "creating social capital" or "community building," which means ties to the so-called "civic sector" of volunteer and other nonprofit organizations. The worthy goal is to use public television to get ordinary citizens more involved in their communities. (Doing that without being dull is one of the challenges.)

• Hawaii public television benefits from a number of well-placed supporters, including some on its board headed by Neil Hannahs, a Kamehameha Schools executive.

U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye, a longtime supporter, is now chairman of a vital congressional subcommittee on telecommunications. McCartney also feels KHET can get good advice from one of its former presidents, Mary Bitterman, who now heads the powerful KQED public TV and radio operation in San Francisco and is chairwoman of an important national group of such stations. Former Hawaii TV reporter Linda Taira is now vice president for station relations at PBS and former Gov. George Ariyoshi is on the CPB board.

McCartney notes with hope that new UH president Evan Dobelle was once chairman of CPB, the fiscal agent for PBS. Dobelle, it seems, has been everywhere.

While KHET would seem to be in good shape — and it is compared to a year ago — it is also only at the beginning of a tough transition that leaves some asking questions.

For example, partnering with talented local producers makes sense. But it could also mean too much of an establishment-oriented system driven by funds from corporations and foundations, as opposed to one where programming is determined by hard-edge community needs.

In a situation where Hawai'i's commercial stations are doing precious little serious local programming, what KHET does will be especially important.

Fund-raising, especially those necessary on-air pledge drives, is often annoying, as are some of those big-star "specials" often produced to go with the money pitches.

Yet KHET is going to need plenty of money for expanding operations, digitalization and beyond. For example, going digital raises exciting possibilities of actually having four channels on air, meaning possibilities for programs from Asia among other things. But that, too, will cost more money, as will getting a new KHET building if and when UH needs the space.

Important as more local programming can be, much also depends on what PBS produces nationally from its member stations. Some longtime public TV fans (but not me) are appalled at PBS president Mitchell's moves to de-Briticize the program schedule and bring forth a more Americanized product. "Masterpiece Theater," for example, must change.

Moreover, community building has almost become a cliche as a kind of slogan that can be adopted for almost any cause. In the buzzword city of empty meaning, "creating social capital" could be close behind unless stations here and nationally truly find ways to bring forth quality programming with meaning.

We'll see when the new fall schedule comes out, but clearly some changes are in order in a situation where the average viewer is now age 56 and everybody seems satisfied with public TV's steady 2 rating, which effectively means 2 percent of the country (or Hawai'i) is watching.

Yes, I know public TV can't and shouldn't just play the ratings game, but it can do more things better to lure more viewers.

So it seems that much in Hawaii public television depends on three related factors — changes in national PBS, what Mike McCartney can do locally, and the resulting level of public support.

Some I talked with picture McCartney as a backslapping politico with a talent for buzzwords and lacking the tough skills of his former mentors, Gov. Ben Cayetano and his former aide Charles Toguchi.

But I have seen him as a guy who can spark ideas, can get out of the box. He's moved up fast, sometimes too fast. Beyond charisma, he cares, and people sense that. So he may be the right guy in the right place — if he gets enough help in building more support for public television at a time when the whole world communication picture is blending.

"Everybody can have ideas," he says. "But transforming an organization is more challenging and exciting."

So the KHET picture is clearer but still coming into focus. That's more worth watching.