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Can PBS offset cutbacks with commercials?

It is not inconceivable. As the sun sets over the Great Barrier Reef and David Attenborough strolls into a fadeout contemplating some prehistoric epiphany, none other than Mr. Whipple may be nipping at his desert boots, fingers flexing around a roll of Charmin. Hard pressed on all sides--especially from Washington--PBS will try running commercials to keep solvent and keep the flag flying.

"At the time of our best season ever, the future looks just horrible," groans PBS President Larry Grossman. Samurai budgeteers have already cut the original 1983 federal appropriation from $172 million to $137 million, and by 1985 that figure is expected to dwindle to $85 million. Bruce Christensen, president of the National Association of Public Television Stations, is worried about the network's toughing out even the first cut. "No industry can lose 25% of its funds and continue to operate at the same level," he says. This means fewer funds to produce or import expensive programs like Brideshead Revisited, Life on Earth and the National Geographic special The Sharks--shows that have brought PBS fresh prestige, ec static reviews and record-breaking ratings. The pool of shows that will attract audiences (and potential subscribers) looks to be drying up just when PBS is be coming a habit for millions of new viewers. "Our audiences have never been greater, and our programs have never been better," claims Christensen. "It is not a coincidence that this year also represents the highest level of federal funding we've ever had. The two are closely tied."

Not for long. To take up the slack, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS's parent organization, last week announced the allocation of $5 million toward a challenge grant intended to attract a matching amount from new subscribers. This will ease the squeeze by a couple of notches while stations pursue traditional forms of PBS cup rattling like phone-in pledge periods, televised auctions and fund-raising galas, like upcoming previews of the film Annie, which will aid more than 125 PBS affiliates. Other stations are more adventurous: North Dakota Public TV is raising money through legalized gambling parlors. Most radical, though, is the thought of commercials on Public TV.

WSKG in Binghamton, N. Y., one of the ten stations selected to conduct a "demonstration project," came up with the notion of giving free commercial time to cultural and educational institutions, which in return would give station subscribers discounts on goods sold or services rendered. Larger stations, like WNET in New York City, are organizing along a more traditional line, although few dare speak the word "commercials." Says WNET President John Jay Iselin, whose current annual budget is around $65 million: "We prefer to call them 'enhanced corporate underwriting credits.'" Enhancement would mean letting the corporations that underwrite programming sound off about themselves in the genteelly effusive manner of a board chairman's foreword to an annual report. "In many respects, it's only a modest extension of what's already there," Iselin says, "but it would be substantial in terms of its visual appeal."

Guidelines set down for the test stations permit ads to be placed only at the beginning or end of programs. They can run no longer than a total of two minutes each half hour, and no commercials can promote opinions on public, political or religious issues. Within that open range, it is open season for advertisers at PBS. Some stations are standing on principle, however. Mr. Whipple will find no welcome in Muncie, Ind. WIPB'S Maryann Olinger says, "One can assume we will not accept advertisements for personal-care products." In television, though, one can imagine almost anything in the search for solvency. The Roto-Rooter man, for example, might enjoy a little corporate enhancement by hunkering down with David Attenborough and talking over life in a pipe.

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