They'll Look at Anything

The network TV shows that originate in Chicago and New York (or on film in Hollywood) are usually star-studded and popular. But there are 90-odd stations in big & little U.S. cities which must fill up the rest of their TV time with local shows, locally produced.

How good are they? Are local stations developing performers, writers and production men who will set the future course of television? Last week TIME correspondents across the nation reported on what is happening in grass-roots television. With few exceptions, they found dullness, feebleness, failure.

Seamy Side. The prevalent attitude is summed up by a Rochester critic who says that people will watch anything good, bad or indifferent." The result is a flood of amateur hours, quizzes, shopping talks, gabby interviews, ear-numbing commercials. Local shows tend to be pale reflections of network programs. In Bob Dale, Cleveland has a "skinny Arthur Godfrey." Washington features puppets, girls pretending to be elves, a disc jockey who silently mouths the words his records play. Memphis boasts an unhandy Handy Man named Peter Thomas who convulses viewers by spilling paste on his sponsor and gravy on his guests. Louisville applauds the low-comedy antics of Jim Walton (a blindfolded woman from the studio audience sews a red heart on the seat of a man's pants).

Southern Californians complacently call Los Angeles TV "probably the nation's worst." Houston stars "Texas Ruby" whose hymn-singing draws top program mail. TV screens in the South and West resound with hillbilly music; in the Midwest, with quizzes; in the East, with teenage showoffs--sometimes talented, but more often not.

Bright Side. Surprisingly few stations try for regional color. San Antonio's KEYL, spurred by a large Latin American audience, puts on a flavorful south-of-the-border show in Spanish Varieties.

Milwaukee's station WTMJ-TV and New Orleans' station WDSU-TV are outstanding examples of what can be done with some imagination and a lot of hard work. Milwaukee's Polish and German residents tap their feet to lively schottisches and polkas played by the Grenadiers, a 19-year-old band that has become a Wisconsin institution. For youngsters, there is "hot" Pianist Tommy Sheridan; for oldsters, a schmalzy program of old songs called Let's Remember. Every Sunday, WTMJ-TV sends a mobile crew and two cameras to telecast services from a different Milwaukee church.

New Orleans celebrates its Vieux Carre with Dixieland bands ("old-style" like that of Papa Celestin, and such jazzed-up "new-style" as Sharkey Bonano's), and with a cooking program featuring chefs from Antoine's, Arnaud's, Galatoire's.

Looking Around. TVmen in other cities attribute the poor quality of their local shows to lack of money and talent. But a few enterprising stations have found unexpected riches in their own backyards by inviting the cooperation of home-town civic groups, museums, universities. Baltimore's WAAM-TV got together with Johns Hopkins University to put on Science Review, a network show. Boston's WBZ-TV and the Museum of Science produce Living Wonders, the best of the local crop. Western Reserve, the California Academy of Sciences and the Universities of Buffalo and Louisville are working with other local stations. Cleveland's WEWS drew one of its biggest audiences with an hour-long telecast of Menotti's opera, The Medium, staged by the famed Karamu Players. When a strike closed city schools, Minneapolis put classes on the air, was staggered by their instant popularity (TIME, Feb. 5).

It may be that U.S. TV stations don't need more money or experience as much as they just need to look around.

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