Word: pbs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...event, sponsored by Eliot House, and held at the Bright Athletic Center, faced significant setbacks last year when Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) decided not to televise the show...
Although the event had netted around $100,000 in past years, the withdrawal of PBS as a sponsor last year forced Evening with Champions to shoulder expensive production costs, Laumann said...
...when PBS aired the Forsyte Saga--a 26-part Victorian-Edwardian mini-series based on John Galsworthy's novels--it was revolutionary. Years before The Sopranos, it showed Americans that TV could tell stories as novels do. Its success led PBS to create Masterpiece Theatre--it was the soap that launched a thousand bustles. To say that remaking the show now is not quite so daring is kind. To be unkind--and honest--it only bolsters the criticism that PBS these days is redundant and irrelevant...
...PBS argues that its documentary and public-service work is very relevant. And it argues that its tame entertainment programming is valuable because it's free and uncommercial. But tax money aside, nothing is free here--just look at the pledge drives, the corporate crypto ads, and the costume dramas aimed at aging, risk-averse members' fat wallets. PBS has taken a few chances, like the fine edu-reality series Frontier House and the well-meaning if melodramatic Hispanic drama American Family. But you can't remake Forsyte without inviting the question: Thirty-three years later, is PBS still worth...
Forsyte should delight the Masterpiece faithful, but that shouldn't be PBS's only ambition. Ironically, PBS is hailing this as the production that brings it into the 21st century. More like the early 20th. As the Victorians taught us, daring is relative, and Forsyte is PBS's attempt to show a little ankle. But the network can only blame itself if it is not around to remake Forsyte again in 2035. --By James Poniewozik