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Yet another local station sucks up to "Survivor"

What price are CBS affiliates willing to pay for 13 weeks of boffo Nielsens? That's the question that readers like David J. Loehr are asking themselves. He writes:

"I'm sitting here, watching 'Survivor' on WLKY-TV in Louisville. The first segment comes and goes, and the commercials begin. I hear the 'Survivor' theme start up again, I look up, and there's the familiar montage of various people voting and holding up their ballots, except instead of other castaways' names, the ballots now say 'Ch. 11,' 'Ch. 3,' 'Ch. 41' and so forth. Finally, we hear the familiar line, 'The tribe has spoken,' and the 'Survivor' logo pops up — with WLKY's 'NewsChannel 32' logo laid over it.

"This is the same affiliate that got one of only four 'A' grades from the Project For Excellence In Journalism a couple of years ago — which of course they've trumpeted continuously with annoying, pompous, even bombastic ads.

"I suppose this new ad is better than those 'serious' ads. Then again, it's one thing to use the news to hype 'Survivor' in the midst of a broadcast. It's quite another to use 'Survivor' to hype the newscast in the middle of 'Survivor.'

"Hey, I've got an idea: Why doesn't WLKY go all the way with the 'Survivor' theme and let the viewers vote some of their more useless anchors and reporters off the air? That might get me to watch their newscasts."

Public TV needs help, says author

Jerold M. Starr is an outspoken critic of public broadcasting. But he's also one of its most ardent supporters. Unlike many conservatives, Starr doesn't want to put PBS out of business. He does, however, think public media need to be reminded why they exist. This is the thrust of his new book, Air Wars: The Fight to Reclaim Public Broadcasting.

"Our democracy requires some space in our vast system of communications that is not controlled by the imperatives of power or profit," Starr writes. "This was the mission envisioned for public broadcasting."

The problem, he argues, is that the federal government never provided much more than subsistence income to the noncommercial stations it helped launch.

Pick to click

If you're tired of "reality" shows that all look like cookie-cutter versions of MTV's "The Real World," wait till you see "American High" (two episodes, 9 and 9:30 p.m., on Fox). It's a beautifully crafted montage of the lives of a dozen high school students in Highland Park, Ill.

It's the creation of documentary filmmaker R.J. Cutler, whose film "The War Room" made Clinton campaign strategist James Carville a Hollywood-sized character in his own right. "American High" may well do the same for some of its teen-aged subjects. Within minutes I found myself immersed in their lives and wanting to know more about them. There's Kiwi, the athlete who confesses that the only thing he doesn't have trouble with in life is sports; Morgan, the obnoxious goof-off who is untroubled by his poor grades ("F is for fun"); and Sarah, a striking redhead hopelessly devoted to her quarterback boyfriend, who is leaving soon for college.

"American High" may well be the first great documentary of the new millennium. Which leads one to ask: Why didn't PBS think of this first? Oh, that's right — because all the subjects are under the age of 50.

Also tonight, Assistant to the President and White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart tries to steal some of the Republicans' conventional thunder when he appears on "Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS.

On this date...

in 1983, ABC imports the British sitcom "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin," chopping the title down to "Reggie." The tale of an ice cream factory executive dealing with a mid-life crisis by working his Walter Mittyesque imagination fails to catch on, despite a stellar cast that includes Richard Mulligan, Timothy Busfield, Jean Smart, Barbara Barrie, Chip Zien, and Timothy Stack. -- Tom Heald

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