PBS Ponders Weekend ‘NewsHour’

The plan, for a half-hour program on Saturdays and Sundays, would give PBS a weekend news presence that it has lacked and has been criticized for not having.

The proposed expansion, which is not expected to be decided on before the end of March, is being considered at a crucial time for the show. Although costs could be cut or new money found, MacNeil-Lehrer Productions, the producer of the weekday show, is facing a shortfall of as much as $7 million this fiscal year from what had been a planned $28 million budget, said the employees, who are familiar with the plans but were not authorized to speak publicly.

The program has one corporate underwriter, BNSF Railway. It is unclear whether a weekend expansion would help the weekday program.

The $3 million from PBS to help produce the weekend programs would not go to MacNeil-Lehrer Productions — which receives a large production fee from PBS — but to WNET, the New York public television company.

A Friday night public affairs program produced by WNET, “Need to Know,” is facing cancellation in June when its current PBS contract expires. Production fees for that show, plus money WNET has raised from donors, would support the weekend “NewsHour,” under the proposal.

WNET declined to comment, as did “NewsHour” officials.

“PBS is constantly looking for new programming that would be beneficial to the American public and our member stations,” Michael D. Jones, chief operating officer of PBS, said in a statement. “We aren’t announcing any new programming at this time, but details will be provided if or when an announcement is made.”

He said the “NewsHour” “continues to fund-raise and reduce costs,” and noted that its broadcast and online audiences had grown in recent months.

Several executives at public television stations said they would welcome a weekend program as described to them.

“WTTW is very pleased with the prospect,” Daniel Schmidt, president and chief executive of the Chicago station WTTW, said by e-mail. “The ‘NewsHour’ is a strong brand and it can only be strengthened with a seven-day presence,” he said. He added that the station would particularly welcome the proposal to integrate local news into the program, something the weekday program does not accommodate.

A weekend “NewsHour” could also please some critics like the PBS ombudsman Michael Getler, who, in his Jan. 13, 2011, column, wrote that the lack of weekend news “has always seemed to me like an abdication of duty that also has the side effect of sending regular PBS viewers to other networks.”

Hari Sreenivasan, a correspondent for the program and its director of digital partnerships, has been proposed as the anchor of a weekend program, as has Jeff Greenfield, an occasional anchor of “Need to Know.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/business/media/pbs-ponders-weekend-newshour.html?partner=rss&emc=rss