PRODUCERS CRITIQUE OPB

What OPB calls "local programing" is usually their own, in-house productions dealing with safe topics of broad appeal, such as school funding, youth crime or Oreogn history. They have a somewhat protective and proprietary attitude about what's on "their" air and rarely show work by outside producers. While broadcaster liabilities are not to be ignored, the diversity of viewpoint, authenticity and creativity, as well as the public's access to its own medium, are seriously compromised by these tendencies.

Local producers who have tried to work with OPB have a lot to say about their lack of receptivity, even when the work is offered for broadcast free of charge. Some will comment only in private because, until things change, they must go on working with the present system and personnel.

A frequent complaint is the lack of adequate publicity and poor showing times when some local programs finally do get broadcast. Case in point: One recent family oriented show on Portland parks was shown at 10:30PM on a Monday evening, mid-summer, without any promotion and only a brief paragraph in the FOCUS program guide. Since such programs are usually not repeated, they pass with few people even knowing they're on.

Another locally produced documentary with international import was shown on 46 other public television stations in the year before OPB finally consented to show it here.

Take a look at the OPB summer program schedule: trains, travel, British drama, antiques are all repeated time and again. Not our own locals. The bias extends to other, unique programming, as well. The creative, summer series, Independent Lens, is screened at 11:00PM, without repeat during the week, and no publicity even in their own FOCUS magazine. This important and innovative venture in TV production was totally panned by OPB. True, also, of the remarkable, independent, summer series POV.

Most program decisions are made by Tom Doggett, Vice President, Programming, who has been refered to as OPB's Czar of Programming. Whatever his reasons for these procedures, he has not demonstrated much interest in bringing innovative or relevant local productions to OPB.

(THIS JUST IN: For October 1999, OPB's Focus magazine lists a new series called Oregon Lens which, alternating with the aforementioned Independent Lens , will be shown only at 12 Midnight, Sunday evenings. Apparently yielding to pressure for some kind of independent venue they could not have picked a worse time for anyone to see - an act that's cynical beyond belief.)

>> Producer Tom Taylor, a founder of The Northwest Film Studies Center and The Senior Video Project, has been in Portland since 1965. Read Tom's letter to the Oregon Legislature, asking them to earmark state funds for local production.

>> Film and video producer, Jim Blashfield, has earned national recognition for several of his projects. He is one of our local talents that OPB overlooks. Here is Jim's letter to the State Legislature.

>> George Hood notes a number of outstanding local producers and productions OPB as shown little interest in, also.