'Calling' all views

A new show seeks to fill the cultural gap in public affairs TV shows.

By ERIC DEGGANS

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 13, 2000

CLEARWATER -- As Tom Jacobs reached for a sheet of paper, he felt a tiny pain in his arm.

His producing partner, Nancy Curtis, had just pinched him.

"I did that just so you know it's real," she said, smiling.

It wasn't immediately apparent from Jacobs' cool-school demeanor, but he was about to make a 10-year dream come true.

His vision was both simple and complex: to create a news and public affairs TV show from a multicultural perspective, dubbed The Calling. Focused on a wide variety of issues facing people of color, it would provide a voice distinctly different from white-dominated shows now cluttering broadcast and cable TV.

To that end, Jacobs had assembled a multi-hued crew of workers and on-screen talent at the Christian Network Inc.'s cavernous TV studio in Clearwater last week -- pushing aside sets normally used to tape the religious-oriented Praise TV and Worship Network shows.

The mood on set was loose and friendly -- everyone knew what Jacobs and his partners were trying to achieve and wanted to help make it happen.

The goal was to tape anchor segments and two panel discussions for a pilot episode of The Calling -- new territory for Jacobs and SideStep Productions, the Tampa company helping him create the show.

PBS Plus, an arm of the public broadcasting company that delivers shows such as This Old House and The Victory Garden to member stations, had already agreed to provide 42 episodes of The Calling to 346 stations nationwide. Now, all Jacobs and Curtis had to do was make the pilot.

Seated before a leopard-skin backdrop, a diverse panel of experts faced Jacobs' cameras -- convened to discuss the media's portrayal of racial minorities.

Moderated by WFLA-Ch. 8 anchor Byron Brown and Cindy Hsu, morning anchor at WCBS in New York City, the group included Cherylyn Harley, deputy press secretary for the Republican National Committee; Lino Garcia, a vice president at USA Networks; Jodi Rave, native beat regional reporter for the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper, and Sunita Desai, a producer at NBC.

But something was missing. Like, excitement.

"I know it's Sunday morning, y'all, but we ain't doing public affairs . . . you look like you're on Valium," chided Jacobs, stopping the first stab at taping a 20-minute discussion. "Be like (bratty PBS political talk show) The McLaughlin Group . . . jump in and say something."

After some nervous laughter, the discussion started again. This time, Harley jumped in to make a point about personal responsibility, noting that "within our own communities, we need to do more than showcase athletes."

Jacobs, who was watching the scene unfold in the control room, broke into a slight smile, watching the discussion heat up. This is what he'd always hoped for.

"I've never seen a group like we put together on other TV shows," he said, noting the interplay among Garcia, who is Puerto Rican, Harley, who is black, and Desai, who is eastern Indian. "You look at the lack of color on the (Sunday) morning political shows . . . we can do better than that."

He dreamed up the project after years spent working at TV news operations in Cincinnati, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, noting that issues of concern to non-white viewers were regularly marginalized.

Jacobs and Curtis, SideStep's president, had been friends for years, and discussed ways of developing it further.

The show nearly became a reality last year, after Jacobs joined the fledgling New Urban Entertainment Television (NUE-TV), an upstart cable and satellite TV channel focused on "urban lifestyle" news and entertainment programming.

When he left the company earlier this year, he and SideStep -- a Tampa-based company that once produced the independent local TV show Ybor and More -- decided to do it on their own.

They pitched The Calling -- named for a Carlos Santana song -- to PBS Plus, thinking that the buttoned-down, corporate types there would show little interest.

They were in for a surprise.

"It's a perspective on what's happening in the world that you don't get to hear," said Dick Hanratty, director of PBS Plus, who committed to airing The Calling after a single pitch meeting with Jacobs.

"One of the criticisms we've gotten at PBS is that it tends to be filled with middle-aged white guys," he adds. "What this show hopefully will do is expose perspectives apart from middle-aged white guys."

Because PBS doesn't dictate programing to its affiliates, Hanratty can't guarantee that any member stations will air The Calling once it becomes available in February 2001 (an official at WEDU-Ch. 3 noted the station's management hadn't heard of the show, but might be interested in airing it).

"If you ask in advance, maybe 20 percent of stations will respond to you," Hanratty said. "And we already know we need to get younger and more diverse. It would be nice to get someone under 50 to watch public TV."

WFLA anchor Brown, who is in the pilot episode but couldn't get approval from his station to do the series, says a show like The Calling offers time to explore issues rarely found in commercial television.

"(Commercial) TV news is about headlines. . . . you just don't have the time to do more," he said. "This is a show you can sit back and watch with your family and really absorb it."

The Calling's pilot reveals a show that touches many bases, featuring stories on the cultural friction as the United States' minority population becomes the majority, and on a Japanese-American who spent time in a World War II-era internment camp, yet remains a voice for cultural inclusion in Seattle.

There's also a discussion on a news issue of the week, called "Now," a music-backed review of the week's news dubbed "The Global Village" and a panel discussion on issues affecting people of color named "The Gathering."

Though the pilot was taped in Clearwater, Jacobs expects to produce The Calling in Washington, D.C., partly for greater access to newsmakers and pundits.

It seems there couldn't be a better time for such a project, as the TV industry takes a fresh look at programming for and about people of color.

NUE-TV, which is expected to begin broadcasting in January, has backers that include music producer Quincy Jones and industry heavyweight Leo Hindery. MBC, a black-centered family values cable channel network, is also under development.

And with Viacom's near-$3 billion bid to acquire the Black Entertainment Television cable channel, observers say the TV industry may come to view black-centered and multicultural programming as more than just a niche genre.

"Here is a minority-owned concern that is taken seriously enough for people to say it's really worth something," says Doug Alligood of BBDO Advertising in New York City. "That's a whole new perspective on minority media and minority efforts that's bound to encourage other efforts."

The Calling is in a slightly different arena, airing in the non-profit world of PBS (where PBS Plus' longtime black-oriented political show Tony Brown's Journal may serve as potent competition). For Jacobs and SideStep Productions, the challenge is to find $6-million in underwriting to fund 42 shows over the next year.

Jacobs is betting they can pull it off -- so much so that he and SideStep sank about $40,000 of the company's money into the pilot in hopes it will attract underwriters and member stations.

"I just think we're at a point where more people will understand this," he said. "Five or ten years ago, we weren't ready to talk about these issues. In the year 2000, it's an economically sound decision for companies to embrace diversity."

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