A Tough Sell for the Arts

By RICHARD ZOGLIN.

It was possibly the shortest Golden Age on record. Between late 1980 and mid- 1982, four cable networks offering cultural and other highbrow programming sprang into existence. A fifth was being contemplated by the Public Broadcasting Service. For opera fans, ballet lovers and others bored with traditional network fare, the future seemed dazzling.

Then the walls came tumbling down. Two of the culture networks, CBS Cable and The Entertainment Channel, called it quits within a year of start-up. PBS's venture never got off the ground. Bravo, a pay service offering cultural programs and art movies, is still in operation but has only 109,000 subscribers. For most of the nation's TV audience, just one channel remains to carry the frayed banner of culture on cable: the Arts & Entertainment Network.

Created in February 1984, when the three-year-old ARTS network (a co-venture of ABC and the Hearst Corp.) acquired the programming of the defunct Entertainment Channel, A&E is in the midst of a major push for viewers and visibility. During the first three months of this year, the network is introducing 45 new programs or series and has launched a multimillion-dollar national advertising campaign to promote them. More than 12 million cable homes now receive some or all of A&E's 20-hour-a-day schedule, usually as part of their basic cable service. Though viewership is still a tiny blip on A.C. Nielsen's meters, A&E is hanging in.

If A&E succeeds, it will be a tribute to its tortoise-like determination. From its start, the network has avoided the lavish spending that sank other members of TV's culture club, like CBS Cable. A&E produces only a few of its own shows, acquiring most of them at low cost from various suppliers. The largest chunk of its schedule consists of entertainment shows purchased through a special arrangement with the British Broadcasting Corp. These BBC programs run the gamut from classy mini-series (Jane Eyre) to music specials (An Evening with Andrew Lloyd Webber) and sitcoms (The Fainthearted Feminist with Lynn Redgrave). The schedule is also filled with concerts, operas, ballets and other fine-arts fare. But the network's executives admit that they are trying to attract new viewers with shows of broader appeal. "We have a very straightforward mission," says A&E President Nickolas Davatzes, "to provide what we think is quality and thought-provoking entertainment."

Though purists may sigh at this bow to the mass audience, A&E is starting to make its mark with some notable program events. Last fall it offered the U.S. premiere of John Schlesinger's An Englishman Abroad, an affectionately wrought drama based on Actress Coral Browne's chance encounter with Soviet Spy Guy Burgess (played with world-weary charm by Alan Bates). In January A&E telecast the first modern public performance of Mozart's "lost" Symphony in A Minor, with Tom Hulce (an Oscar nominee for Amadeus) serving as an agreeable host.

Not all of the channel's BBC shows were worth importing. A&E's most highly touted mini-series of the winter is Freud, a six-part bio-drama about the father of modern psychoanalysis (played by David Suchet). But the promising subject has been turned into plodding and uninspired drama, all furrowed brows and discordant cellos. Another British multiparter, The Old Men at the Zoo, adapted from Angus Wilson's satirical novel about an impending nuclear disaster, is a musty spoof of British politics and manners whose wit has not survived the transatlantic crossing.

Yet there have also been gems. One is Icebound in the Antarctic: Shackleton, a magnificent four-hour drama about the British polar explorer, starring David Schofield. Henry Shackleton was one of history's most intriguing also-rans: his first expedition to Antarctica missed being the first to reach the South Pole by just 97 miles; a later one had to be aborted when his ship became trapped in the Antarctic ice. But few dramas have told a more inspiring tale of man against nature or better conveyed the excitement of a great period of exploration. Another winning import is Solo, a wry sitcom starring the delightful Felicity Kendal as a single woman who dumps her boyfriend, quits her job and tries to start a new life.

A&E's heavy reliance on British programs is something that A&E executives hope to alleviate gradually. Says Vice President of Programming Curtis Davis: "It's vital that a network like ours has programming that speaks to an American audience in an American voice." A&E is looking to local communities and arts institutions for some of that programming. One current example is The Baltimore Funny Pages, a comedy series originally produced for a Baltimore cable channel.

All of which, of course, will be for naught if A&E cannot prove that arts on cable is a viable business. The channel charges a small fee to cable systems that carry it but hopes to earn most of its revenue from advertising. Though progress has been slow, 24 national advertisers have signed up thus far, and network executives predict that the channel will be in the black by 1986. "We have minded our knitting," says Davatzes. "We finished our first year ahead of our business plan." For the last best hope of culture on cable, that is no mean feat.

With reporting by Peter Ainslie/New York